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Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission

February 26, 2026 / 01:15:04

This episode of Wharton Moneyball features a discussion with Josh Raich, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Key topics include the evolution of baseball analytics, the Hall of Fame's initiatives for the America 250 celebration, and the challenges of preserving baseball history while innovating for future generations.

Raich shares his background in baseball, detailing his experiences with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers. He discusses how he transitioned to his role at the Hall of Fame and the responsibilities that come with it, including fundraising and preserving baseball's history.

The conversation also touches on the importance of connecting with younger fans and adapting exhibits to keep the Hall relevant. Raich emphasizes the need for innovation while maintaining the integrity of baseball's past.

Additionally, the episode highlights the Hall of Fame's plans for the America 250 initiatives, including special exhibits and events that celebrate America's history and baseball's role in it.

Listeners gain insights into the Hall of Fame's operations and the ongoing dialogue about the future of baseball analytics and the recognition of contributors beyond traditional players.

TLDR

Josh Raich discusses the Hall of Fame's role in preserving baseball history and adapting to modern analytics and fan engagement.

Episode

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Welcome, welcome everyone to this week's episode of Wharton Moneyball, the place
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where sports statistics and sometimes even a little bit of business collide. This is Eric Bradler, professor of
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marketing, statistics, and data science at the Wharton School. I'm here joined
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by my colleague, my longtime friend and collaborator Shane Jensen, professor of statistics and data science here at the
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Wharton School. Some combination of us, Cade Massie and Audi Winer are here every week on Wharton Moneyball. Well,
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Shane, this is one of those great moments. I'll say for myself and my life, but I know it's also true for our
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Wharton Moneyball listeners. If we think about where really the term even Wharton
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Moneyball started or Moneyball started, it was through the analytics of baseball
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and it really was. I mean, it was the work with Billy Bean, the Oakland A's.
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Obviously, it got popularized with a large movie that was done. It kind of brought it to the forefront. And you and
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I have talked about this many times. One of the greatest moments of the fact that
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we get to host this show is we get to talk to people that are living this living the world of sports. And I think
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every one of our listeners on Wart Moneyball knows how much the Baseball Hall of Fame has meant and does continue
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to mean to my family and myself. I always say it was the if anybody wants to give their loved one a birthday
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present that ends in a five or a zero, 25, 30, 35, 40. In my case, my family waited till I was 50 uh to have a
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membership to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But Shane, I I can't tell you how thrilled and honored I am to have to
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introduce Josh Raich. Uh as everyone knows that's listened to our show, Josh
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is the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I didn't actually know before seeing a little bit of the
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rundown. Maybe we can even ask Josh to start there. He's a former senior executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks
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and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Um, so Josh, first on behalf of myself, my colleague Shane Jensen, welcome to
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Wharton Moneyball. >> Thank you. I appreciate you guys having me on here and and certainly appreciate
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your passion for the game. I I can tell this is going to be a fun uh a fun podcast.
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>> Well, it will be. And uh for those people Well, people will be watching the
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video. I'm actually wearing part by By the way, I think I have 10 pieces now of
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swag from the professional the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Um as I I took a picture to Josh the other day. I teach
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my NBA students in this gear and actually one of my students Josh you'll find this funny said I thought you were
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a I thought when you wrote member I thought you were in the baseball hall of fame like uh no I can only dream I said
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but why why don't we start with the following could you tell people a little
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bit about your background in baseball like the work that you did with the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers and how all
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of that started >> yeah well I I was very fortunate I went to Indiana University um so fortunate
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enough in that the football school that everybody knows and loves. But I I my freshman year a professor just said,
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"Hey, send your resume to your hometown team. You never know what would happen."
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And the reality is I didn't even have a resume at that point. The world was different in 1995. And you couldn't just
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send off a resume to the Dodgers and land an internship. But I did that um with a little bit of just
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resourcefulness calling around and trying to trying to land an interview. And I was able to get that. And um it
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really took about 10 days of working, if even that long, before I went, "Oh man,
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this is what I want to do with the rest of my life." Like I had no I thought I
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wanted to be a broadcaster. And I wound up realizing, "Wow, there's a whole
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front office of things to do, whether it's on the baseball side, the business
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side." And so I was fortunate to basically be at the Dodgers from um as an intern for three consecutive summers,
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and then uh started full-time with them back in 1998, more in the marketing and advertising area. Um, I I moved over to
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public relations uh in 2000 and then actually left for a couple of years when MLB Advanced Media was being built out.
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I got a chance to help build the MLB.com sites as you now know them and then came
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back to the communications world where I stayed all the way through some chaotic
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times of the Dodgers. Um, and I was very fortunate. I learned a ton in those early years as things were a little
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crazy during um, the Dodgers non-winning years. But right around 2011, the Diamondbacks um Derek Hall, who was a
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very significant baseball executive and um president of the Diamondbacks convinced me to move to Arizona where he
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kind of taught me how to run an organization over a decade from 2011 to 21. And that's when uh the Hall of Fame
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came calling. So I'm guessing some of the other Dodger and Dimeback stuff may
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come up as we're talking, but that's the quick version of uh how I ended up here
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in Coopertown. >> So just tell me, how does that conversation go? How do you go from a
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senior executive in baseball to the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame? Did you know Jane Forbes Clark,
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who you know, uh, for those people that don't know, people know the Forbes family in baseball? I believe Jane
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Forbes Clark is the granddaughter, if I've got this right, of the like one of
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the original pioneers of baseball. And I see her, of course, just like I see you
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every year in Coopertown. Did you had you met her? Is that was she chairperson of the board back then? And did she
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contact you? >> Yeah, it's pretty interesting. So her grandfather, Jane Forbes Clark, it's
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actually um Forbes, I think her mother's maiden name, and Clark is actually her
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grandfather's name. He was the one who created the Baseball Hall of Fame along
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with Ford Frick. So she has been chairman for over a quarter century. She's been involved in the Hall of Fame
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since the day she was born. It's been in her family since it it started. Um and
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when the previous president, a gentleman by the name of Jeff Idolen, was leaving,
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I guess he he was he was retiring and he gave them a list of people that he thought might be good at doing this job.
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And um for the students maybe in the Wharton school who are watching this, I mean I could tell you like I I often
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think about a random golf tournament I played in the Dominican Republic where I wound up in a forome with Jeff. And I
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don't think without that he ever thinks, "Hey, this guy could have my job
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someday." But you know, you spend 18 hours talking to somebody and getting to
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know them. And over time I got to know Jeff. Um and so I remember he called me one day. I was pulling into the parking
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lot in spring training probably probably February 24th. I don't know what date it
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was, but um and uh he said, "Hey, would you ever think about my job? There's a
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few of you guys we've identified who we want to interview for this." And I was
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very close to saying, "Thank you, but I am not moving to Coopertown, New York.
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I'm I'm good." And something told me, "Hey, let's let's let's wait and talk to
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my wife about it." And when I did, she said, "How would you ever turn down that
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opportunity if you got that?" And so, we went through the process and here we are
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5 years later living with our family in this amazing baseball mecca. Let me just
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say one more thing before I ask Yeah, I'll turn things back over to Kade to kind of lead us in these conversation
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topics. There's a lot of interesting things going on at the Hall of Fame. Um,
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what do you see your role as like what do you do as the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame and let me just
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say again to our listeners out there, if you and I grew up, as all of our listeners, I grew up in Manhattan in New
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York City. I didn't grow up in a small town, but if you've never been to
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Coopertown, New York, you must go. Like the thing that surprised my mother cuz again I took my mother there when she
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was 91 years old. You literally just walk up to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Like you're walking down Main Street at
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Coopertown and you hit the end of the street and there it is on the right hand side. Like you know it's just you you
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you expect it to be like oh there's like a I don't know a 20,000 seat parking lot
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right there and everything. No, you just walk right up and you walk right in. So
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can you tell us what do you do in your job? But what do you see as the main responsibilities of it?
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>> Well, first and foremost, we're a nonprofit. So, we are an independent. A
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lot of people think we're owned and operated by MLB, but we're not. We So,
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of course, fundraising and a missiondriven approach to things is part of my job. Um, and so it's we're we're
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all about preserving history. That's the 40,000 artifacts and three million documents. All these incredible things
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in our collection. We honor excellence and that's kind of the administration of
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the Hall of Fame. So that's the thing most people are probably familiar with.
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The debates over who belongs in and who who and when and how do they get elected. All of that is part of the job.
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Um and then connecting generations which is really something I think we do. You just talked about I mean we do it better
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than any place on the planet and you watch it happen. I just came from the conference room before we jumped on here
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and you walk past a grandparent and a parent and a and a kid and they're having this incredible conversation. Um,
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and so that's really what our mission is. And I'd say in a lot of ways, my
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role is not all that different than a CEO or president of any institution. I mean, ultimately got about a 100
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full-time people. Our leadership team is six different department heads. And so ultimately, myself and that group sets
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the vision. We try to make sure that people have what they need. And then we try to hire really good people to go out
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and do their jobs and and make this place what you're talking about, this incredibly special spot on the planet.
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So, um, again, I'm sure I'll drop in some other things that I get to do over
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over uh the the course of a year, but that's really I mean, it's it's it's the
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chief executive role of any institution. You're you're responsible uh for the
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good, the bad, the ugly, I guess. >> Let me turn things over to Cade who's
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going to then I think lead our discussion through a few topics and of course we will get of course I've had
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got a bunch of questions about analytics in the Hall of Fame, but I know there's
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so much going on given the 250th anniversary of America. you know the old expression, there's nothing more
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American than baseball. So, obviously you guys have a role, but let me turn things over to Kate.
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>> Well, I'm I'm curious to hear you talk about knowing something about it and
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then hearing you talk about it, but also realizing how much the game is evolving
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some. And um there's it feels like in baseball more than any other sport, there's this constant tension between
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honoring the past and innovating. And um frankly I think most people celebrate some of the recent innovations that have
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been helpful in keeping the game kind of booant in people's eyes and the fans and
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new fans. So I'm cur I mean you sit in this place where you know you're preserving the past but you're also
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honoring excellence and you're also connecting generations. So it has some of the same tension but how do you as as
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sitting on top of that which is kind of the the citadel to the history of baseball. How do you experience that
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tension and where where are you navigating that tension between innovating and staying in touch and
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staying contemporary and yet also connecting to the past? >> Well, I mean the reality is you just hit
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on I think the single biggest challenge we have and I think our staff all the time tells me um like they they hear me
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say all the time our job is to keep this place relevant for the next generation of fans. I know that you guys would love
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this place. I know that our parents would love it. Our grandparents would love it. It's how do we get my now
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18-year-old and 15year-old to love it and how do we get the 12-year-olds who come out here and mass for baseball
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tournaments to love it and how do we get people to essentially from the moment that they give a thought they hear about
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Coopertown in a broadcast um somebody mentions oh this person's Coopertown bound or oh this person is in Coopertown
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how do you get them from that moment of thinking about going all the way through
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the planning process the coming to Coopertown the experience being top-notch to becoming a member. As Eric
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said, you don't have to wait till your your zero or your five birthday. You can
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do it for any birthday. Um, and then frankly, how do you how once they've been here, because for many people it's
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a once in a-lifetime thing. Once they've come, how do you get them to stay engaged as a as a member and as a donor
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and then eventually put, believe it or not, put us in your will, which a lot of people do. It's like, how do you
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literally go from the beginning of life till the end of life as a lover of the Hall of Fame? And I think the way that
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we're doing that now, to really answer your question, because I got off a little bit, it it's thinking about how
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do people experience the Hall of Fame. It it it used to be just through I mean, when you walked in here in 1939, it was
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a small one room museum with some artifacts and some labels. And over time, we've evolved the exhibits to be
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more thematic and less timeline based and and then eventually now, I mean, the one that we just opened, which was um
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last summer called Yakyu Baseball, the Trans-Pacific Exchange of the Game, it's
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probably the most interactive and engaging thing we've ever done. It's it's less artifacts. It's more touch
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screens and video games and things that you can do. And we've been doing that
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for a lot of years, but continuing to figure out the genesis of of how you use your phone as you walk through it. but
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don't ruin the experience because you've got your head buried in the phone and
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how do you use AI but don't ruin it by going so far AI that nobody knows if this is real or fake. It's all those
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things. It is a crazy balance that we all have to think about and it's it's
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probably the biggest challenge that we'll have from now till whenever I'm
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doing this job. >> Shane, let me hold you off for one second. Let me ask one followup, then
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we're going to go to Shane. My one followup is okay, what's what organizational processes do you follow
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to try to hit that balance, right? like how do you pull in good innovation and keep out bad innovation? How do you
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strike that right balance? How do you experiment enough and not too much organizationally as a leader? What are
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you doing? >> Well, I mean, I think we early on I remember saying to the group like we
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can't be afraid to fail. That that's that was something that I learned a lot
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of the Diamondbacks. You have to be willing to innovate and sometimes the innovation's not going to work. And so
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to give you an example, in in the exhibit I was just talking about, we created a a a kind of pretty cool
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interactive that was like creating a >> a stamp. It's not going to sound very
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cool, but when you walk in, it's a very obvious you create a stamp in the baseball exhibit um the Yaku baseball
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exhibit, and it just hasn't worked exactly the way we wanted. So, we're thinking about, okay, what can we do to
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try to make it a little bit more engaging? So, the first thing is you can't be afraid to fail. And I think if
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you if you set people down a course of you know what, think big. Um start small, scale fast. That's actually what
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our IT guy at the Diamondbacks used to say. Think big, start small, scale fast. >> Um we we
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>> I don't think we ever want to be here um on the forefront of technology. We're
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just not we're not we don't have the money to screw up that big. We don't
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want to be so far out front that we're doing 3D televisions and now all of a
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sudden we got to replace the whole the whole place because we went wrong. Um so we we we look at what works at other
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places. We think about how it might work here. We encourage creativity and we just have real honest conversations
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about what might work and what might not. But I it's hard because there isn't
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a perfect answer to your question like what works. >> One last followup. give us one
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institution that you consider a peer institution that you learn from. Maybe one that might surprise us.
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>> Um, well, there's a bunch. I mean, there's there's five or six of us who
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have my job at different halls of fame that we we have quarterly calls and we just kind of chat with each other, but I
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just was um I mentioned my uh my who's your fandom. I was down at the Peach Bowl um when Indiana was was in the the
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semi-final and I went to the College Football Hall of Fame >> in Atlanta and they are doing incredible
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stuff with AI right now. Just absolutely >> mindblowing cool technology that throws
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I was with my son and my my cousin. So I guess a 15year-old, a almost 50-year-old
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and an almost 60-year-old. Um and everybody everybody was around us was was just having an absolute blast. Now,
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it's very different than we're much more about preserving artifacts. I think
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we're probably more I don't know if this is fair to say, but more of a museum,
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whereas they're more of an entertainment >> venue, but we we came back and
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immediately were like, let's have some conversations about some of the stuff
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they're doing. And >> as we build out this new experiential gallery, can we can we take some of the
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ideas from that? But I don't think there's a place I've gone yet since I've
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been here where I haven't stolen an idea or two and come back and said, "Hey,
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what do we think about?" And everybody does that. It's not just me. the whole
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whole place always has our eyes open to what's out there. >> Mhm. Shame.
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>> Yeah. I guess feeding off that Pure Institution idea, I think my maybe the
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second most uh my my second favorite museum to visit other than the Baseball Hall of Fame in Coopertown is the Tokyo
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Baseball, the baseball Japanese baseball hall of fame in Tokyo. Absolutely incredible institution as well. And I
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maybe you already talked about this. You talked about a little bit baseball as the trans trans-Pacific game, but how
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much that you've kind of are talking to like kind of the Yeah, I mean places
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like the na like exchange programs with places like the B National Ball of Fame in Tokyo. I mean that's probably the
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most the one I know, but in Korea, I mean obviously with the World Baseball Classic coming up, we're sort of seeing
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that baseball is becoming even more of an international sport than it used to be and obviously it's throughout our
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major leagues now. So, how much of like at the Hall of Fame level are are you connecting with some of these other kind
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of pure institutions or whatever kind of constitutes Baseball Hall of Fame in different countries?
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>> Well, it's funny. The the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame um we are very
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close with them. My me and my counterparts several of us with their counterparts. We went out there a couple
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times over the last few years. Um last year when well because we had this huge opportunity with Ichiro being the first
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Japanese player inducted last year and this brand new exhibit we created. We actually launched the whole announcement
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of this this initiative with the US ambassador in his residence in Tokyo. And then we we had the my counterpart
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from the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame standing there with me. He was holding I
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think a Mickey Manel jersey and I had a a Satara Oat or something kind of I mean
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there's all sorts of cool ways to now they are they are different in some ways
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they are right in the Tokyo Dome as you know so it's it's much easier to get
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through get to and that's a very one of our unique challenges is that you can't
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just accidentally happen upon the Hall of Fame but that's one of the great things about us as well but what's funny
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is how much they have they they actually are older than people realize in Japan they they opened that that hall of fame
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about 20 30 years after we did. So they've been around for 50 or 60 years and
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>> you can you can see all about Babe Ruth over there and everything like that. I
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learned a lot about American baseball at the Japanese Baseball >> Hall of Fame.
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>> Absolutely. And and in fact I was in at the World Baseball Classic before I had
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this job when I was in uh the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. The first three WBC's
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I was involved in um as a venue press chief. So I I ran the venue at Dodger Stadium um where I think the best event
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I ever went to was Japan vers Korea in 2009 Championship which was just an unbelievable international experience.
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And then in 2017 I was I ran venue uh media operations in Soul Korea and I met a bunch of people there who have not
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that long ago reached out about what if we wanted to create something similar in
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Korea. So we do all talk to each other. Um it's clear baseball is just something
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different here than it is in most countries around the world. But Japan um the Dominican Republic actually just had
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their Hall of Fame ceremony about 10 days ago for the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame. So we're in touch with all these
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places. We try to um share ideas with one another because we're not competing.
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It's not like we're the Braves and the Reds and we don't want to tell you what
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we're doing. Um we're we're all friends and we all try to borrow and steal ideas
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from one another. So, I'm going to transition back to Eric, but on the way, I'll ask one question that I know that
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we're interested in at some point, so might as well jump into it sooner rather
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than later. What's the role for analytics in the in the in the future of the Hall of Fame? And in particular,
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could you imagine ever making space for someone like Bill James who created Saber Metrics? And there's no sport out
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there that's been, I think, more affected by analytics than baseball. and Bill, I think anybody would give him
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credit as as the prime innovator. So, what is there an avenue? We we we raised this question having just had a
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conversation in the last week or two about whether Dean Oliver could ever be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. And so,
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baseball has an argument more than any other sport for analytics. Curious, is there such an avenue in the future for
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Bill or people like Bill? So I mean the the the answer is at the moment our executive we have number of
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different ways that you can get in the hall of fame but the only way that executives umpires and managers can be
00:19:52
elected is through our era committee process which um happens every three years. We look at that category. This
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coming December is one of those years. Um up to this point uh the historic overview committee that puts together
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the ballot has mostly looked at executives as owners or general managers, what they describe as team
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builders. Um, so somebody like Walter Omali, who who not only won a number of World Series championships in Los
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Angeles, but responsible for moving baseball west, he also won one in Brooklyn, I should say, but um or a
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general manager, John Sherholes or Pat Gillick, somebody who was building that team. Um, up to this point, the only
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executive that doesn't neatly fit into that category is Marvin Miller, uh, who
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was elected several years ago as the head of the players association. Um, and that was that was a little bit outside
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the box. So, I would say I would never say never. I mean, Bill does not neatly fall into one of those categories. But I
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think part of what what I think makes this place so special um is that it's not just a plaque gallery. There are so
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many people who come here and they think that they're going to walk into just all
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it is is what you see on TV, the plaque gallery. And the reality is is it's a
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three-story museum. And so Bill James has a file in our library and all of his books are are there to be studied by
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generations who a 100 years from now you're going to be able to walk in the baseball hall of fame and say can you
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pull me out everything you have on Bill James and it is going to be frankly possibly more than everything that you
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have on >> Bill Maserowski who just could unfortunately use a name and we just
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lost. Um, yeah. And so I I mean I think that that's the the reality is is that
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we don't see ourselves as just a plaque gallery and a hall of fame. We are the
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National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. And so right now, is there a path that would make great sense for
00:21:39
Bill? Not necessarily. But I wouldn't say that's out of the realm. And as you
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can probably know from people people's complaints or or liking of what we do.
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Um, we've changed the error committee process quite a bit over the years as we
00:21:50
think it when when we think it needs to be adjusted. And so if if we ever go down that route, it's it would certainly
00:21:56
open open up to a lot more executives if you if you started going down the road of non-team builders. If I mean there's
00:22:04
you wind up with scouts and you could wind up with business side who who innovated the promotional item. There
00:22:09
could be you could wind up really starting to go down a lot of paths and to this point we our board hasn't really
00:22:15
been looking to do that but I'd never say never to any idea. >> Before I start throwing a bunch more
00:22:20
questions, I know Shane wanted to jump in here for a second. Please Shane. Well, maybe one of these is going to be
00:22:24
one of your questions because it kind of does touch on more the analytic side or
00:22:27
at least I think one of the consequences of analytics in baseball and is is the kind of I I want to kind of ask what
00:22:33
your take is sort of on obviously we're seeing over the last like 20 years a
00:22:37
real change in the usage of starting pitcher specifically and that change in the usage of start pitcher is going to
00:22:45
have downstream consequences I think to Hall of Fame cases in the future. you know, kind of a lot of the I guess
00:22:52
traditional barometers like winds and stuff like that are going to I mean, for lack of a better term, become kind of
00:22:57
less less relevant or more obsolete as kind of measures of pitching quality. So, you know, obviously this is a ways
00:23:03
away because we you know, at least the current generation of pitchers still has wins, but like have you guys thought
00:23:08
about like what what you were seeing in baseball with starting pitcher usage over the last few years and like what
00:23:14
what what does like a p starting a hall of fame pitcher look like like 10 years from now basically? and and and and how
00:23:22
how yeah how how we how we start still choose pitchers. >> So I mean it's it's a great question.
00:23:27
It's certainly one that I think a lot of people have been writing about recently
00:23:29
because Felix Hernandez just recently made a huge jump on the ballot. I think the largest jump we've ever seen from
00:23:34
one year to the next and he doesn't necessarily have the the counting totals
00:23:38
that some of the others do. But realistically the guys who were elected in the 60s didn't have the same numbers
00:23:43
as the guys that were elected in the 30s and 40s. Sai Young and I mean nobody's
00:23:47
going to win 500 games again. And so, um, the answer is it always shifts over time. Um, obviously closers didn't start
00:23:56
getting elected until a certain point in time and then suddenly now there's you
00:23:59
see seven or eight guys who predominate predominantly relievers in the hall. Um,
00:24:05
I don't know what I don't know what it's going to look like and frankly it's not
00:24:08
up for us. And a good this is going to sound like a total copout but that's one
00:24:11
of the things that I think was really smart when the Hall of Fame both was started and has continued is that we
00:24:16
don't get a say. We really don't have anything to do with who gets in. We
00:24:20
honor those who get elected by either the baseball writers, which is 420 or so writers. 75% of them vote for someone.
00:24:28
And so it's really up to them to sort that out to try to figure out, okay, what is the right amount of wins or is
00:24:33
it go to whip or does it go to strike out? >> Yeah. And I guess I'm I I realize you're
00:24:38
not really kind of running that selection process. I'm just kind of predicting what that selection process
00:24:43
will look like. like the the plaques 15 years from now, will it be like strikeouts per nine or something like
00:24:49
that? Like how will we kind of like how will we honor those like this next generation of pitchers going to be like
00:24:55
150 wins or something? >> What Shane's worried about is that I'm going to be coming to Coopertown when
00:25:00
I'm 70 years old and I'm going to be there by myself because no one's going
00:25:03
to meet the traditional criterion and >> I'll be there with you. I'll be there
00:25:07
with No, that's not what I'm worried about at all. No, I mean I I do think on
00:25:10
the plaques we just saw for the first time with Todd Helton we used OPS on a plaque. Um I'm sure at one point it was
00:25:17
strange to use I don't know pick a pick a stat rate stolen base percentage what
00:25:22
at some point it probably they didn't think about how often you got >> even on base percentage we weren't
00:25:26
thinking about like 40 years ago. >> All those things have evolved and um that's part of what this place has been
00:25:31
really good at for now almost 90 years is evolving with it. Maybe we're a little slower. Like I said we don't want
00:25:36
to necessarily be on the forefront. You're probably not going to see me putting, it's not my decision, but
00:25:41
you're not going to see us put war on a plaque tomorrow morning, but maybe 10
00:25:45
years from now they do. And and maybe 20 years from now it's on all the plaques
00:25:49
because that's how things or maybe it's not. I mean, the reality is is um the
00:25:54
way you look at history, I mean, it's Felix was an interesting one. Someone said to me when I was in spring training
00:25:59
last week that well, if Felix is a Hall of Fame that Hall of Famer, then so and so also should be. And the reality is is
00:26:06
you're not everybody has their own case. It's I realize that people look and they
00:26:09
say, "Well, if this then that." But the reality is everybody's different.
00:26:12
Everybody pitched in a different era. People played in different ballparks and they all the things that um you just I
00:26:19
don't think you can't really play that game because it just you'd wind up with
00:26:23
way more Hall of Famers. And I know that one thing we do believe in here is that
00:26:27
it should be exclusive. We do not want to be the sort of Hall of Fame where 10 to 15 people are getting in every year.
00:26:32
Um, we don't look at it and say, "Who are the four best that aren't in? Let's
00:26:36
elect them." We look at it and say, "Here are the candidates, and if 75% of
00:26:40
you agree that they're a Hall of Famer, they're a Hall of Famer." And
00:26:43
unfortunately, sometimes we've had 73% or 68 and you just don't get there. That
00:26:48
doesn't mean you weren't an unbelievable player in the history of the game.
00:26:52
Doesn't mean you're not represented in other places of the building, too. It
00:26:55
just means at the moment you don't have a plaque in the gallery, and maybe the
00:26:58
next time we look at it, you might. So, let me just ask a few questions about things. I want to get back to analytics
00:27:03
in a second, but I want to ask about a few of the initiatives going on this year at the Hall of Fame. So, could you
00:27:08
tell us what the America 250 initiatives are and how the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, by the way, I'm going to
00:27:14
correct myself. I've always called it the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but
00:27:17
you've pointed out an important thing that's not actually its name. It's the
00:27:20
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. And the museum part is an important part of the Hall of Fame.
00:27:26
>> Yeah, it's been on the front of the building since the very beginning. It
00:27:29
was actually when I interviewed for this job, I remember somebody saying to me, don't forget there's also the other half
00:27:34
of it. It is in fact an museum and you better understand all that or half the building there is not going to be very
00:27:39
pleased with you because it's about it's almost half the people who are museum
00:27:43
studies majors or have master's degrees in various areas of of collecting or
00:27:48
preserving or or archives or >> curators, librarians. Um there's a large
00:27:54
number of people whose job it is has nothing to do with the actual hall of fame itself. though. Um,
00:27:58
>> yeah. So, can you tell us about the America 250 and and what's what's the
00:28:02
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum? What's their part in this America 250?
00:28:06
>> Well, I I think it's such a it's going to be such a national celebration that
00:28:09
we hear about all year long that it was pretty easy for us to look and say, okay, when you talk about a sport that
00:28:14
grew up with the country, I mean, that is it. People were basically playing baseball when they were creating this
00:28:19
place, um, meaning this nation. Um, and so we we looked at a number of different
00:28:25
ways we wanted to celebrate it. One of them um is in fact a trail through the museum, the America 250 trail that's
00:28:31
going to basically take 13 artifacts for the 13 colonies and tie them back to the
00:28:36
ideals in the Declaration of Independence. So, unity or liberty or perseverance. And so it'll it'll kind of
00:28:44
give somebody an opportunity to walk through the museum and see things that that relate back all the way to 1776.
00:28:51
We also um fast forward about 80 years or so and in 1857 um the the oldest known written rules of
00:28:59
baseball were created when the New York Knicker back New York Knicker boxers got
00:29:03
together in 1857. That doc those documents still exist and are being loaned to us um for the next 5
00:29:10
years. And so we are creating a brand new exhibit um that's both interactive
00:29:14
but also in a way when you go and see the constitution at at one of the Smithsonians in like this incredible
00:29:19
glad you're looking at a document that's 180 years old. Um that's a new part of
00:29:25
what we're creating. Um we are very fortunate. Uh Rick Monday about 50 years
00:29:30
ago in April. Rick Monday uh was a center fielder for the Cubs and two two fans ran on the field, tried to burn the
00:29:37
American flag and Rick ran in front of them, stole the flag from them and kind of kept running and saved it from being
00:29:43
burned on the field. That flag has never left his family's possession and he's
00:29:47
loaning that to us this summer. And so for the first time ever, fans will be able to come to the Hall of Fame and see
00:29:52
this flag on display and understand kind of the patriotism behind Rick's Rick's
00:29:57
um actions that day. And then ultimately the kind of the all of that kicks off the same of Memorial Day weekend. And
00:30:05
for those that have ever been, I'm sure you've probably been to one of our
00:30:08
Memorial Day weekend games. Um we host we for years we've hosted a classic game
00:30:12
here that's kind of the legends game. Recently retired players and Hall of Famers all on the field together. Um
00:30:18
this year we're making it all about um our military. It's the the Hall of Fame
00:30:22
military classic, a tribute to service and sacrifice. And so we've got players
00:30:26
who either in some cases serve themselves. We have two two major league players who were actually active duty
00:30:32
military before they got to the big leagues. We have um two dozen players who care deeply about the military.
00:30:39
Either they had a parent who served or a spouse who served or they supported military charities when they played. Um
00:30:45
and then a number of Hall of Famers who fall in that category as well. And they're all gonna be playing at Double
00:30:50
Day Field and um doing a really really cool event that um you're just not going
00:30:54
to want to miss. We've got Wounded Warriors playing with them on the field. Um we've just got an incredible
00:31:00
event put together for Memorial Day weekend that I really do think if people come um if there's an ounce of
00:31:06
patriotism in your body um you will be blown away by the cool stuff going on. Did you ever think, by the way, before I
00:31:13
get into the class of 2026, I want to talk about briefly because we've talked
00:31:16
about it on the show. As a matter of fact, what is it? The whole um you know, there's that Hall of Fame ballot
00:31:21
tracker, which I know you must be aware of that you know, the the publicity of the ballots. Sure.
00:31:25
>> Um did you ever consider this year of all years to change induction weekend to
00:31:30
July 4th, or was that never actually discussed? Like what would be more American for the Bradlo family to be in
00:31:37
Coopertown on July 4th? >> That's funny. Uh, you know, we didn't think about that. Um, interestingly, we
00:31:43
do two years from now. Um, we did move the the uh the induction weekend to August so that it wouldn't be up against
00:31:49
the Olympics, but we had not thought about moving it up. And I think um I don't know why we didn't. Um, to be
00:31:55
honest with you, maybe that would have been a good idea, but I there's also going to be a lot of other stuff going
00:31:59
on July 4th weekend, so we probably shouldn't compete against all that stuff. We kind of own the end of July in
00:32:04
the world of baseball, and I like the way that works. So, let's talk about the
00:32:08
2026 class because it's an interesting class for a lot of reasons. First of all, we have a 3000 hit player, Carlos
00:32:15
Belron. That's not that common. People don't, you know, 30,000 doesn't happen
00:32:20
all the time. We have Andrew Jones, who I forget if it's 10 time Golden Glove
00:32:24
winner, but I think there's some stat like there's only three players in
00:32:27
baseball history with 400 home runs or center fielder with 400 home runs and 10 golden gloves. And it's like him, Willie
00:32:33
Mays, and Ken Griffy. Yeah. >> Then we have the alltime leader of second baseman in home runs and Jeff
00:32:38
Kent. How are you thinking about the 2026 class and kind of what's going to go on in induction weekend?
00:32:46
>> Well, there's I mean there's a lot of different angles. You just cited a few
00:32:48
of them. And um what what's kind of unique is that that Jeff has Jeff played
00:32:52
with both Andrew and Carlos. Um so there's there's a lot of there's not
00:32:56
only teammates there. Um Carlos and Andrew are actually very good friends and and they came out for their
00:33:01
orientations together. and his two center fielders. It had been a while really since two center fielders. I
00:33:06
think only in when it came to Negro Leaguers did we have two center fielders inducted in the same class. So it's um
00:33:12
we also have Carlos played for a number of different teams. Uh he's going to go
00:33:16
in wearing a Mets hat, but ultimately um whether it's the Royals, the Astros, the
00:33:20
Cardinals, number of in organizations that um that will support him. So, I think we're going to have on top of
00:33:26
that, there is just massive pride in Puerto Rico um from Carlos and I think we're going to see a lot of both people
00:33:32
from Puerto Rico coming up. Um I'll be going down there um it 10 days I guess.
00:33:38
I'm going down there for the WBC and helping tell all the Puerto Ricans that
00:33:41
you should come to Coopertown, but also there's a huge Puerto Rican population
00:33:45
um down in the city that's going to come up. And then Jeff is obviously representing the San Francisco Giants
00:33:51
and uh Andrew is representing the Braves. Braves have always traveled really well. You see it they've had a
00:33:56
lot of Hall of Famers from that that 1990s dynasty. So it's it's a great
00:34:01
class. They all I mean what's amazing is when they came here within the last
00:34:05
month we've had all of them here for an orientation and you just watch the the
00:34:09
the reverence that they hold this place. And even as Jeff Kent wasn't a baseball
00:34:15
historian, he'd be the first to admit growing up he just said I'm I'm like he
00:34:19
was in tears half the day. like every time we turned around he was crying and he just couldn't believe what what he
00:34:25
was doing and where he was. So it's >> it's literally the meaning of the term
00:34:28
before I turn it back over to Kade. It's literally the meaning of the term forever.
00:34:33
>> Like you're forever in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And you know they can't take it
00:34:38
away from you. And I don't know if it's 1% or less than 1% of all players that
00:34:42
make it. I think there's what 300 maybe players roughly that >> just just under that. And you're right,
00:34:49
it's about the top 1%. And just before Kay jumps in, I'll say this. Um, one of
00:34:53
the other really cool things is that it's when you say forever, I actually I
00:34:57
said to Jeff Kent's wife, like I re she was getting emotional watching the intro
00:35:01
film that we have, which is the best baseball movie on the planet. I mean, I just
00:35:04
>> I was just going to say, by the way, by the way, if you we should >> that film, like even though it's there's
00:35:11
a three-story museum, when I arrived there on, you know, the Sunday of uh induction ceremony, we head straight to
00:35:17
that film. >> It's unbelievable. For those people that haven't seen it, I don't know. I'm being
00:35:21
serious for a second. I think everyone growing up in every school should watch that film. It's the most wonderful I'm
00:35:29
I'm literally in tears watching that. It's the greatest film that represents
00:35:34
baseball. It's It's beautiful. >> Well, thank you. Anyway, Dana Dana Kent
00:35:38
watched it and she was she was in tears as she walked out and I said she said, "It's just hard for me to believe that
00:35:43
Jeff is gonna be here forever." And I said, "The reality is it's not just
00:35:47
Jeff. Jeff's it's your guys kids. It's your grandkids. It's their grandkids
00:35:51
that 150 years from now they're going to be able to come in and see great great
00:35:55
grandpa Jeff's plaque on the wall. And like she just it's it's hard to fathom
00:36:00
how cool that is because it happens all the time where George Sistler's great
00:36:03
grandkid showed up here last summer and I put the his great-grandfather's glove
00:36:07
in his hand. He'd never met the guy. He only knew that he was related to this
00:36:10
Hall of Famer. And then you just watch like magic happen. Josh, I'm curious.
00:36:15
What happens at these orientations? Inductees have an orientation that's entertaining in some way. What what what
00:36:20
happens? Why do you do this? What happens at these orientations? >> Well, it's like college. We have to show
00:36:24
them where the fraternities and sororities are and all that. Um >> they get the lunch card, get the lunch
00:36:29
cards. >> Exactly. How do you swipe for a meal? Um I mean, the reality is is uh for many of
00:36:34
them, they haven't been in in all three cases this year, they had been at various points for for one reason or
00:36:42
another. Um, but quite often they've either never been to Coopertown or they've only been here because they
00:36:47
supported a teammate who was getting in and they they've only seen it during its
00:36:51
chaotic times. So, what we try we give them a tour. One of the most important things we do is we give them a tour of
00:36:56
the museum. We give them a tour of the archives. We we if they ever donated an artifact, in most cases, if you're a
00:37:02
Hall of Famer at that point, you probably donated something. We you had some moment that we asked for your bat
00:37:07
or your glove or your hat. And so, we'll break that back out again and show it to
00:37:11
them. And if it's not on display, we'll show them in the archives. And it gives
00:37:14
them an idea of what it is that they're joining. And then we spend quite a bit
00:37:18
of time walking them through what that weekend looks like because it is controlled chaos. I mean, it is it is 96
00:37:27
hours of events and parties and you've got everybody that's ever known you and
00:37:32
loved you there and they all want a piece of you and it's like here we can help you figure out how does this work?
00:37:37
How can these people be at this party while these people are at this party? And where does where do they stay? And
00:37:42
how do you rent homes? I mean, Coopertown is a village of 1,600 people. And somehow every summer it swells by 10
00:37:50
time 10, 20, 30 times that. Um, and so it's helping them figure out what's
00:37:56
driving them over to where the actual induction happens and letting them imagine what the stage looks like when
00:38:01
we put it up there. And um so there's a lot of things and just getting to know
00:38:05
our staff because the reality is there's probably five of us or so maybe a little
00:38:09
more that spend a lot of time with them helping them get through this and it's
00:38:13
just to get to know you have a couple meals and make sure they feel at ease help them work on their speech. Our vice
00:38:19
President John Chesikovski is incredible at guiding people through how do you not
00:38:24
just stand up there and say thank you to this person? Thank you. Thank you. Thank
00:38:27
you. Thank you. Read every name. It's how do you tell some stories about your
00:38:30
career that can also so we it's all that sort of stuff that goes on in orientation and it seems crazy that a
00:38:36
Hall of Famer would need that but um many of them will remind us like >> I don't know how to give a speech. I I
00:38:42
was a ball player. This is not what I'm good at. And we say don't worry we'll
00:38:45
help you through every >> Maybe two quick questions before I turn it back over to Katie who's going to
00:38:50
wrap up. Um, is there any Hall of Famer you've met and even your star struck?
00:38:56
I'm sure it happens all the time, but I'll give you an example. Since my
00:38:59
mother grew up in uh, she was a Brooklyn Dodger fan growing up, even today, every
00:39:04
time I see Sandy Kofax, I'm like, I can't believe I'm seeing Sandy Kofax,
00:39:08
whatever they called the the arm of God or whatever his nickname, I just like, I
00:39:12
cannot believe it. And, you know, years ago, I saw Willie Mays at the ceremony at Hank Aaron. I cannot believe I'm
00:39:18
seeing two of the in my view of the greatest players that Ted Williams, I just can't believe it. So, is there
00:39:24
anybody that just blows you away and you're like, I can't believe I'm seeing
00:39:28
this person. >> Well, it's it's hard. I mean, the reality is that, not to sound cheesy,
00:39:34
but they all absolutely still have that impact on many of us. Like, it is crazy that they're that we spend our time with
00:39:39
these people, but Sandy is the one for me that I also grew up with or grew up loving as a Dodger fan in Los Angeles.
00:39:46
And as a Jewish American who just has always heard stories about him, I was kind of like I mean I I had met him a
00:39:53
couple times at the Dodgers. Um but the fact that I now consider him a friend and like to think he thinks the same and
00:39:59
that every once in a while when I pick up the phone and give him a call or go grab grab breakfast when I'm in Florida,
00:40:04
there's definitely the reality of like this is kind of nuts that this is this
00:40:07
is where life is taking me. But um but I think we're we're ve what's cool about
00:40:12
the Hall of Fame is that it humbles every one of them. Like did when they when even if they had a reputation maybe
00:40:18
when they were playing of being >> it humbles Reggie Jackson really >> humbles everybody. It's crazy.
00:40:23
>> Even Reggie Jackson man we could bottle that. >> Okay. Hold on. No, no. I want I want to
00:40:28
push on this because I know people whenever people get get some kind of award and they say I'm humbled by this.
00:40:34
How is it that you're humbled? So can you just elaborate a little bit by what
00:40:38
you mean like why what do you mean by humble there and why what exactly is going on? I think it's funny when you
00:40:44
win some other award and you hear that I agree with you sometimes you're like
00:40:47
what how does that humble you but the reality is in this in this instance you are standing on a stage in front of and
00:40:54
alongside these many cases legends you grew up watching and there is a humbling feeling to that that they just they
00:41:04
can't actually believe like wow I I am standing here in front of Ken Griffy Jr.
00:41:09
and I grew up emulating him or Aussie Smith or whoever it is. Um, and I do think it's real. I don't think it's it's
00:41:17
BS. I think they they genuinely like there's something about and the Sunday night dinner that we do, which is
00:41:23
basically I mean it's just this insane um the wives and husbands split up, the
00:41:29
Hall of Famers go into one dining room and the only people in there are are them, myself, and the commissioner of
00:41:34
baseball. and they are it's like a it's they're back in their clubhouse again.
00:41:38
They get to they get to hang out and be and so you see someone like Ichiro who could one of the greatest players of all
00:41:45
time is like a kid again sitting there at a table with all the 3,000 hit guys and there's the 500 home run table and
00:41:52
there's the pitchers table and so it just um >> oh gosh they they organize themselves by
00:41:59
similar types of guys that have to be at very few that have to be at both those tables. Eddie Murray has to be at a
00:42:05
couple tables. But yeah, >> exactly. Either way, and that's exactly right. There's only a couple of guys
00:42:10
ever with 3,000 hits, 500 homers. And Eddie, actually, is today his birthday? I think it's I think today is Eddie's
00:42:15
birthday. Um >> I'll tell you, it is in fact Eddie's birthday. Happy birthday, Eddie. Um it's
00:42:20
odd that that's in my calendar. Like I you grow up watching Eddie Murray as an
00:42:23
Orio and a Dodger, and it's like, why is his birthday on my calendar? But I guess
00:42:26
that's >> Let me ask one last question before turning over to Kate. Is there do you
00:42:30
have statisticians at the Baseball Hall of Fame? And I mean like for example you
00:42:35
talk you mentioned that you emerged from the business side of things like statistitians do a lot like for example
00:42:42
I do I work I'm a quantitative marketing person like do you have a statistician
00:42:47
that helps you with customer lifetime value about who to target with email campaigns like do you have I mean forget
00:42:52
whether that person's on the baseball side or the business side are is there a
00:42:56
role for a statistician within the hall of fame and what do they do for you guys? Yeah. So, we actually two years
00:43:01
ago hired our first business analytics person. She does a great job. She's actually sitting about 50 feet from me
00:43:06
outside the door there. Um, and she does exactly that. She focuses much more on customer satisfaction, surveys, uh,
00:43:15
retail numbers, email campaign, all the sorts of things that that businesses focus on. Um, prior to that, it was kind
00:43:21
of everybody had little pieces of it, and we felt like we really needed to add somebody. And frankly, at some point,
00:43:26
it's going to be more than one somebody. We're going to have a whole department
00:43:28
of people doing it. Um, but she does a great job of helping us make smarter decisions by looking at some of the some
00:43:34
of the data. Um, on the on the baseball side or the Hall of Fame side, I mean, we have curators who are who are
00:43:41
baseball so several of them. Um, really truly deeply knowledgeable when it comes
00:43:46
to statistics. Um, some of them better at different eras of the game, some of them different. I mean, there's all
00:43:53
sorts of things that they're good at. Um, and then we actually have several people who are uh came up through more
00:44:00
like the baseball PR world, myself included, who have been following baseball stats, are massive baseball
00:44:06
fans. We might not fall into the category of Bill James or or um Theo Epstein, but we we're we're kind of
00:44:12
knowledgeable about what we do and so we try to incorporate that when into exhibits or business analytics, things
00:44:19
of that nature. >> Josh, it would be fun for us to have guys. It would be fun for us to have one
00:44:23
of those curators sometime. One of these baseball savants. Um, whatever the niche
00:44:27
might be, let's grab somebody and talk about that niche. It would be >> I'll tell you this great fun.
00:44:31
>> If you however much you think you know about baseball, Tom Sheber's baseball
00:44:35
knowledge will take it such far beyond. Every time I think, oh man, I'm a big
00:44:39
baseball fan. >> I'm ready for that because I claim to have amazing. >> There's several of them, but Tom is the
00:44:44
one that just kind of blows my mind sometimes when he can recall things. So Marissa D Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom
00:44:51
Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom's last name again. Josh
00:44:53
>> Tom Sheber. >> She All right. >> Several. I don't want to say the others
00:44:56
aren't just as good. He's just our our senior curator. >> Well, let me ask you one on the way out
00:45:01
question. Again, top of mind. Don't overthink it. There's not a right answer
00:45:05
to this question. Your favorite artifact in the museum >> for whatever reason.
00:45:10
>> So I'll give my standard easy answer that there are so many it is hard to
00:45:14
pick. But the best way that I can the best one that I've tried to because it's
00:45:18
it is top of mind is that when I when I I grew up in Los Angeles as a Dodger fan. Um they won the World Series when I
00:45:24
was 12, which is like exactly what what makes every kid love baseball for the rest of their life. Um and the final out
00:45:31
baseball from the 1988 World Series was given by the catcher Rick Dempsey to the
00:45:35
general manager Fred Claire who donated it to the Hall of Fame. And when I got this job, I I had gotten to know Fred
00:45:41
over the years um in a number of different he was very good to me as a intern, gave me great advice um and I
00:45:47
stayed in touch with him over the years. And when I got this job, he was quoted in an article that said um I expect Josh
00:45:52
to look after this artifact for the rest of time. So every time I walk past the 88 last outball, I kind of have to make
00:45:59
sure, okay, Fred, it's still there and you're good. Don't worry. Um but the
00:46:03
reality, I mean, it just every day you can walk in a museum. I could work here for another 20 years and I still won't
00:46:10
get to see all of it, understand all of it, take it. I just there's so much impressive stuff that trying to pick one
00:46:16
thing is very very hard. >> Mine Cade, by the way, if you since you never asked me and since I'm a sort of a
00:46:21
business guy, too, is the Honest Wagner T206 card. There's a place we walk down
00:46:25
the hall of fame and you can press a light and press a button that lights up. There's a bunch of different cards. Um,
00:46:31
that one every time I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not surprised the Baseball Hall of Fame
00:46:34
has one." But what there's 10 known to mankind or one just got found Josh which
00:46:38
I'm sure you saw about one just got >> very few that are at the the highest
00:46:42
level but those are a holy grail section of baseball. >> There's one that just got found that was
00:46:46
in a family for over a hundred years that just sold for 5 million plus dollars. So there's one more but that
00:46:51
that's my favorite one. >> That's a good find. >> I've never thought about it for myself.
00:46:55
I like to think about what baseball moment I would most like to see an artifact from. I have to give some
00:47:00
thought. That'll be my homework assignment. Shane, I'll be curious your answer down the road as well. Why don't
00:47:04
we let Josh go? This has been spectacular. We kept you longer than we asked. Josh, thank you for graciously
00:47:10
giving us that time. Um, keep up the great work, Eric. We'll see you this summer, I'm sure.
00:47:16
>> Thank you. I hope I get to see all of you guys and uh and truly it's it's an
00:47:20
honor to be on the show and and keep doing all the great work you're doing. >> And thank you. I want to say again,
00:47:24
thank you for everything you do. uh the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
00:47:29
because of the role that baseball plays in everything that we do in analytics and what it means to so many families uh
00:47:36
is just crucial. So, thank you for the Thank you for that. You could be doing a you could be the CEO of a lot of things.
00:47:41
Um but uh >> one will be as fun as this. I promise you. >> Thank you for being Thank you again for
00:47:45
everything you do. >> It's our honor. Thank you, >> Josh Rawitch, the president of the
00:47:50
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. That's the first half of Wharton Moneyball. Come back and join us after
00:47:56
the break. Welcome back. Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome back to the second
00:48:03
half of this week's show. Second half, liberally speaking, we went overtime with the president of the Baseball Hall
00:48:09
of Fame and Museum. Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. That was, if you if it wasn't obvious, that was an Eric Bradlo
00:48:16
choice. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching Eric. A little googly eyed. A little bit googly eyed. Every now and
00:48:23
then we get googly about one of our guests. I I was reminded I have to be honest, I'm not the hugest M. Brown fan
00:48:29
in the world, but he did win the only national championship in my conscious life at the University of Texas. So when
00:48:36
we had M Brown on a few years ago, I I felt like I had to say some really nice things. I gushed a little bit. It's not
00:48:42
great when the host is gushing. I gushed a little bit and I I was reminded of that as I watched Eric because it means
00:48:48
so much to you. That was awesome. It turned it was a spectacular interview. I thought
00:48:52
>> I I did too. I think I like the way he framed it, which is, you know, his job
00:48:58
besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame part is to store the history of the game. And that's why when we talked
00:49:05
about Bill James or whether it's Theo Epstein or etc., you know, Bill James deserves to be in the National Baseball
00:49:12
Hall of Fame and Museum cuz he's an important part of the history of baseball. Whether he ever gets elected
00:49:18
or has a plaque, I agree. I like the way he answered that as a totally separate issue and um I also thought of the way
00:49:25
you know in some sense his job is to protect the game and protect the history of the game. So I like the way he said
00:49:31
is like we innovate but you know we innovate kind of slow like you know we shouldn't be that you know let's not
00:49:37
bankrupt the I don't even mean financially let's not ruin the baseball hall of fame while we're trying to
00:49:42
create some AI 3D something something you know let's remember that you know people come here because they want to
00:49:48
think about Babe Ruth and Tai Cobb and George Sistler and Ken Griffy and you know let's never forget that. So, I I
00:49:55
thought he was great and you know, um the fact that he came out of baseball teams until I read the notes and I
00:50:01
looked up about him, I didn't realize I didn't know what his background was, but
00:50:05
the fact that he actually worked in baseball on the business side makes sense. He's the CEO. He's not a
00:50:10
statistician running the I mean, he's the CEO of a 100 person organization that's entrusted with the history of
00:50:16
baseball. Of course, he should be a business person and a fundraiser. >> Shane, I'm going to put you on the spot.
00:50:21
You have to have some moment from especially those early Red Sox championships that you would like to see
00:50:27
the artifact from. I'm guessing that would be a pink artifact for you. >> Yeah. Um
00:50:34
>> bloody sock. I mean >> the blood I mean the bloody sock is I I that one of soured a little bit on me
00:50:39
just because Kurt Schilling kind of in his po post baseball career hasn't has
00:50:43
been as as as loudable. Um >> it's got to be like a big Poppy home run. I think it's going to it would be
00:50:49
the home run ball for that one that was hit into the Red Sox bullpen. The one in
00:50:54
uh 2013, he hit a grand slam to come back against the Detroit Tigers. It's one of I think
00:51:00
>> Oh, wow. >> a couple grand slams in that particular postseason. I thought one of his games
00:51:05
against the Yankees in the series where they were down three to nothing and he had
00:51:09
>> no I mean >> that that's you know I mean right alongside maybe Johnny Damon's uh first
00:51:15
home run from 20 2004 game seven home run >> I'd like to Yeah, >> that would be kind of cool.
00:51:23
>> Yeah, that's maybe the gloves the gloves that A-Rod used to try and slap the ball
00:51:27
out of Bronson Aoyo's glove in game six. >> The the hamburger help. I don't even
00:51:32
remember that >> legal play. Totally legal. >> Oh yeah. No, I mean honestly it's it's a
00:51:37
>> it's a minor miracle the umpires got it right, but they did. >> Okay, my my answer for now I reserve the
00:51:43
right to change it is Azie Smith's glove. I want to see Aussie Smith's glove at
00:51:47
>> I think a glove over a bat or a ball because the glove is such a thing who
00:51:51
ever talked about this but I hate to say it but my favorite part of the weekend obviously is being with my family and
00:51:56
kids but before you understand when the ceremony starts this is the beauty of the baseball hall of fame. And let's say
00:52:01
there's usually 60 70 returning Hall of Famers. They have a twominute video of
00:52:06
each one. So you're sitting there for about 30 minutes to an hour where they
00:52:10
announce Aussie Smith and then they show a clip of Aussie Smith on this big screen that Aussie blocks out. And so my
00:52:16
kids and I say, you know, they always joke with me, dad, we can go now. Like I hate to say it, but look, not that I
00:52:21
don't want to hear Carlos Beltron speech or Jeff Kent's speech and Andrew Jones
00:52:25
speech, but the first hour of it when they're announcing all the Hall of Famers and they have the video up there
00:52:30
like that to me is that's the highlight of the Hall of Fame experience and weekend.
00:52:35
>> Hey man, I think the field the fielders the guy who do great things in the field
00:52:39
probably have better highlights than the hitters, right? >> Do they they announce like every living
00:52:44
hall of fame? every >> the ones that are there, the ones that are literally, oh, by the way, maybe you
00:52:49
don't know, they literally come out one at a time like now from the class of
00:52:52
1991, the Wizard of Oz, and then they put his thing up on the screen and you're all watching his highlight rail.
00:52:58
Then they go and now the Iron Man, you know, Cal Repen played, you know, >> we would increase participation at our
00:53:05
alumni reunions if we had little videos of everybody who agreed to come to their
00:53:10
reunions. Okay, fellas, let's talk a little bit of sports around um around the world. Before we do that, I want to
00:53:15
ask explicitly about the Olympics. The Olympics wrapped up this weekend. I'm
00:53:19
I'm I've been curious as I watched the Olympics off and on over the last two
00:53:22
weeks. I I was curious like what reactions y'all were having. Are there any sports that went up in your eyes,
00:53:27
down in your eyes, found yourself liking more than you expected, less than you expected? Just a few quick comments that
00:53:34
you learned, enjoyed, didn't enjoy. >> You want to go first? I just go for it.
00:53:38
>> Yeah, I just have a couple. So obviously I was really really rooting for the US
00:53:44
versus Canada. Not that I have a real, you know, I just know it's been I remember when 1980 the Miracle on Ice
00:53:50
happened. It's been obviously 46 years since the US team won. Um since I don't
00:53:55
watch as much hockey as Shane or lots of other people, I wasn't aware of like how
00:54:00
much I'll call it variance this threeonree format is like the gold medal is coming down to a threeonree. I mean
00:54:08
and Canada should have scored on the previous thing. And to me, >> it's absolutely ridiculous. They used
00:54:14
that. >> No, no, I agree. >> Weird format for the gold medal game. I
00:54:18
mean, the other game's fine, whatever. >> No, no. I'm just saying one missed shot,
00:54:22
one steal of the puck led to the US ending up with an uncontested shot on goal. And I just figured I just thought
00:54:29
that was a weird ending. But even then, I I I thought that was interesting. And look, despite I've been highly critical
00:54:35
of her throughout for her eight consecutive non-metals, I've never been rooting harder than I
00:54:41
was rooting for Michaela Shiffron on that last run in the slalom. She was clearly so far ahead. I'm like, please
00:54:48
don't hit a gate. Please don't hit a gate. Cuz like if you just ski down here
00:54:51
at Eric Bradlo speed now for the back half of this run, you're going to win the gold medal. And so to me, um, I've
00:54:59
always found in this case was slalom, but the the alpine skiing events and hockey, both women's and men's to me
00:55:07
were just incredible experiences. So those will be my memories from this Olympics. Those two events, both women
00:55:12
and men's downhill and the women's and men's ice hockey. >> Uh, I want to talk a little bit about
00:55:19
that three and three. I I want to follow up on yours before I get I get to mine because I I do kind of feel like it got
00:55:24
me thinking that because the threeon-ree format obviously is optimized towards just getting getting it over with as
00:55:31
quickly as possible. Like it's like uh I I guess I'm kind of it made me wonder
00:55:36
what actually the scoring rates are for three on three versus four on four versus five on five. Mhm.
00:55:43
>> And you know, for either during the Olympics or during regular season NHL,
00:55:48
we don't just do overtime after overtime, which is the real way to decide a hockey game because it takes
00:55:55
too long, the players get too tired, blah blah blah blah. No argument for the gold medal game again. Why they why they
00:56:01
couldn't just play that one until there was a real winner, whatever. Um, but it
00:56:06
makes makes me wonder like three on three seems a little bit too fast or or like too dissimilar to real hockey, too
00:56:13
high of a rate of scoring. If we just did overtime four on four, it would be closer to real hockey.
00:56:20
>> Mhm. but maybe would have a scoring rate high enough where we could get like like
00:56:24
I I guess I've been inspired to be like three on three is too extreme, but if we
00:56:28
just did four on four for overtime in actual regular season hockey, could we avoid the shootout? Like how how
00:56:36
what's the expected waiting time? And is it reasonable enough that if we just did
00:56:40
a faster pace or I would even say go three on three for overtime in the regular season because that's at least
00:56:46
slightly more similar to real hockey than the shootout is. So, you know, given that we can basically, I think,
00:56:52
arbitrarily up the scoring rate in hockey just by removing players, why don't we have that as an overtime
00:56:58
solution as opposed to shootout, >> I guess, is my question. >> No, for the sport.
00:57:03
>> You could also, Shane, if you wanted to, let's say you said, really, we really
00:57:06
don't want more than 15 minutes of overtime hockey. Let's start at five on
00:57:10
five for the first five minutes, then go down to four on four. No, no, no. I'm
00:57:13
just I'm actually being serious. You could just start reducing the number of
00:57:17
players. Look, you saw the same thing I did, which is obviously I mean you're
00:57:21
Canadian, you rooting for Canada. I assume I'm American, but it's not about
00:57:24
that. By the end of the game, in my view, the US was outplayed and therefore they had a better shot at winning three
00:57:32
on three. >> Yeah, it's a higher variance. >> So, you might as well No, no, but they I
00:57:37
I think they were playing for three on three at the end of the game. Obviously, they wanted to score. No, I'm just
00:57:43
saying the 40some shots the Canadian team put up to the 20some shots the US team put up and you could I mean I
00:57:51
understand we hit one off the post too, but I mean they had the better opportunities in the game. The US should
00:57:56
have been playing for threeon-ree overtime. That was their best chance to win the gold medal.
00:58:01
>> All right, give us give us some nonhockey Olympic cuts. >> Well, the thing the uh other thing I
00:58:06
mean I watched a ton of curling. Oh my goodness, it was so fun. Uh I love curling so much. which is such a great
00:58:12
sport. And there's a new kind of thing, at least new to me. I my apologies to
00:58:16
the real curling afficionados that are I'm sure the majority of our listeners,
00:58:20
but this mixed doubles curling is like a new So, previously in Olympic curling, you had the men's team and the women's
00:58:26
team and it's four people per team and they shoot two rocks each. this mix doubles. It's only two. It's a a couple,
00:58:34
so two people per team. And they don't shoot like as many rocks, but there's
00:58:39
actually rocks placed on the So, in in regular curling, all the rocks that like are thrown are the ones that enter the
00:58:45
house. This one, there's actually rocks placed in the house ahead of time. So,
00:58:49
you start out with rocks in the house and then they start throwing rocks. So, it's almost like, you know, it's it it
00:58:56
leads to like a lot more kind of interesting sort of scenarios basically. >> Shane, with only two people on the team,
00:59:01
is there just one sweeper? >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. And so, they're alternating
00:59:06
sweeping and and throwing. Huh. I miss that. That sound that does sound interest.
00:59:10
>> Yeah. No, it's it's it's super interesting. And I think, you know,
00:59:13
again, I mean, Audi was kind of telling me about like, you know, there's already
00:59:16
like, you know, because there's also like a power play. There's all kinds of
00:59:19
strategic elements I think they've introduced into already a very strategic and interesting game of curling with
00:59:25
this mixed doubles format. So, I'm I'm eager to kind of check that out in other
00:59:28
sort of situations. Anybody who is following curling is probably like, "Oh,
00:59:32
this is old news." But for me, it was new and I love this new format to be honest.
00:59:36
>> Shane, if we had a tournament where half the teams were men's national teams and
00:59:40
half the teams were women's national teams, what would the betting market say
00:59:45
about the likely sex of the winning team? Oh, that's such a good good interesting.
00:59:51
>> Are you asking Kate if if men have any competitive real advantage in curling?
00:59:55
>> Well, I mean one thing we can do I I mean I don't know the answer to this,
00:59:58
but like you could within the mixed doubles tournament, you could certainly look at the shooting percent like kind
01:00:03
of like a success rate the men and women. I will say that uh >> Hold on Shane, if the evidence came back
01:00:09
that the men had worse shooting percentage, they would blame the female sweepers.
01:00:13
>> So it's not pure. It's not clean. I mean, they they'd find a way to complain
01:00:17
no matter what, I suppose. But yeah, no, I I I will say in the mix the mixed doubles gold medal was won by Sweden.
01:00:23
Um, and the and the and the woman compo part person in in that mixed mixed uh Swedish team was like the Terminator. I
01:00:32
don't think she missed a shot. She see she nailed absolutely everything. So, at
01:00:36
least the Swedish gold medal team was carried >> in my opinion. By the way,
01:00:41
>> the null has to be that there's no advantage, right? The null has to be
01:00:44
>> possible. I'm just making this up since I don't know curling very well. Is it
01:00:47
possible that men can sweep >> harder than women? They can adjust the the disc more so than women can.
01:00:58
>> It's Yes, that that is in fact the case. Uh, in fact, they were talking about
01:01:03
some six foot five, like the Italian men's team had this like six foot6 like
01:01:08
uber athlete on it and he was just like and they actually like there's literal
01:01:11
shots where they're like only he could have swept it where it needed to be basically. So, there is something to
01:01:17
that. God, I think it is Zamboni between rounds to come out and reglaze the ice.
01:01:24
That beast is not >> I don't know how deep you want to go with this, but actually I've learned
01:01:28
also through this Olympics that the the ice is different for curling versus hockey. Like hockey ice made via Zampon
01:01:35
is too smooth. It like I was going to say it was too you can't curl a rock with that. They actually designed the
01:01:41
ice and curling to kind of be pebbled, I think was the terminology they're using.
01:01:45
um and the attack the anyway. So yes, I mean obviously deep time but yeah it turns out a Zamboni would give you very
01:01:52
bad ice for curling specifically. >> Okay. I I don't I don't I my observations are we got I was with my
01:02:00
in-laws and we were working in the north indoors fireplaces and we had the TV on
01:02:05
all the time and you just kind of saw what was going on. There were endless amounts of bobsled runs. There was
01:02:09
endless curling. There was endless ski jumping and there all of these things I found a little bit
01:02:14
>> halfpipe people on snowboards >> halfpipe for a long time but here's Eric
01:02:17
I never enjoyed the halfpipe so much I was anytime I saw these people jumping this time this was what weird surprised
01:02:23
me I was transfixed at least for the moment watching these guys jump and then it peaked for me when they did when they
01:02:29
got to the aerials watching these aerials are I you don't see it anywhere else in the world anything remotely like
01:02:36
it is just utterly dumbfounding to me that those people can do those But the other thing that jumps out to me is you
01:02:42
need enough variation for it to be interesting. Like one of the reasons figure skating is kind of interesting
01:02:48
regardless of your taste for figure skating is that there's real drama during those two minutes or those four
01:02:53
minutes. Like some people fall, some people don't. You can observe that as a
01:02:57
as a non-skating afficionado. And so there's separation, there's variation
01:03:02
even among the elite. In bob sled, there's like 4100s of a difference. It's
01:03:06
like come on. But anyway, so there's some amount of variation that's needed
01:03:12
for optimal viewing. Okay, good fun. Let's do a real quick uh what caught your eye just to close it on a
01:03:17
traditional process. One thing, guys, and let's try to be as concise as possible since we're so over time, but
01:03:23
one thing caught your eye in the world of sports. >> I'll just be 10 seconds. Uh the run is
01:03:28
over. Scotty Sheffer only ended up 11th, but I will say the following. Um this is
01:03:34
now it's not a big thing. It's the fourth tournament in a row where he's
01:03:38
had a bad first round, >> which has prevented him. Like if he if you just look at the last three rounds,
01:03:44
he's won the last four tournaments. Problem is they play four rounds, not three.
01:03:48
>> So that's just interesting to me. But um the guy like Tiger never gives up. The
01:03:54
guy made the cut on the cut line. Yeah. >> And ended up So he was 70th and he ended
01:04:00
up 11th cuz he shot I think it was 65 and 64 on the weekend. He's never out of
01:04:05
it. Ever out of it. And um he's got it didn't even look like it's not the thing
01:04:10
that's amazing on him. It reminded me about Tiger. Maybe even better than Tiger in this one respect. Like he's not
01:04:16
going to rush it. He knows it's coming and he knows that if he just stays in
01:04:21
there, he could make four or five birdies in a row and he doesn't have to force it. So that's what caught my eye.
01:04:27
The streak is over. I think it was the longest streak ever of top 10 finishes and he, God forbid, he ended up 11th.
01:04:34
>> Eric, it's funny you mentioned that. I almost texted y'all on Sunday afternoon.
01:04:37
I I knew that he had barely made the I knew he had he had bid last in the whole tournament.
01:04:41
>> He had to make an eight-footer on the 18th to make the cut. >> Okay. But then on Sunday at one point
01:04:47
after he had finished, he was tied in the top 10. There were a bunch of folks and I was
01:04:51
>> One guy made a birdie. One guy made a birdie with two holes to go that knocked
01:04:55
him down to the 11th place. >> So that was the drama that I was feeling when I looked at the scoreboard. I
01:05:01
almost texted John like coming down to the last few holes. Will his streak maintain? I saw somebody jumped him. All
01:05:06
right, Shane, what do you got? >> Well, coming back from the Olympics, let's catch back up with the NHL and
01:05:11
hockey. Uh, one thing I'm kind of interested to look at over the next couple months, car we we it was lost in
01:05:17
all the Olympic excitement, but the Carolina Hurricanes have this new goalender, Brandon Busy, who's like
01:05:22
basically since joining the Hurricanes, and they got him off waivers. This is was a goalie signed off waivers. He's
01:05:29
23-1 as a goalender for the Hurricanes. 233 and one. And I'll just say that that is
01:05:37
a I mean, that's an NHL record. So he he won 18 of his first 22 games, which is
01:05:41
an NHL record. >> Okay, hold on. This is these are weird ways to speak. It's like saying
01:05:45
quarterbacks went won loss records. You know, it's even more extreme than saying
01:05:49
a quarterback. >> No, that's right. A goal, but but this is a goal, you know, I I I and again,
01:05:54
we're not necessarily attributing it all to him, but it is still unusual that a
01:05:59
goalender will have in his first, >> you know, 27 games played 23 victories.
01:06:06
For example, just historically, the career leader in win percentage, and this is conditioning on 300 wins at
01:06:13
least or whatever, is Patrick Wah at 56%. >> Yeah. >> The current active leader in win
01:06:19
percentage, other than this guy, Brandon Busy, is is Vaselvki, and he's at 61%.
01:06:26
>> Okay. What about peripherals though? Don't want no peripherals, save
01:06:29
percentages, and expected goals. >> Oh, yeah. That's right. That's right.
01:06:32
And to a certain extent, he he's standing out but not standing out quite as much in those. But I think it, you
01:06:38
know, I I'm keeping an eye on this guy because there is inevitably, as you're
01:06:41
hinting, going to be some regression to the meet. He can't keep going at a 90%
01:06:45
win clip. But it's pretty unusual for anybody to come out out of nowhere essentially to do this in hockey. And so
01:06:55
let's let's keep an eye on him and what what happens with the Carolina Hurricanes uh over the next uh couple
01:07:01
months. anytime they come up, I'm reminded that they're whenever you talk
01:07:04
to folks the the the few people in the league that we pay that we have relationships with run analytically
01:07:11
oriented. They run kind of sharp and they all rever the Hurricanes organization and so for them they must
01:07:16
have seen something. It says something about a player when the Hurricanes choose him off off a waiver wire.
01:07:21
>> Um all right, I'm gonna go with baseball guys. I picked this up. I regret not
01:07:26
knowing who I got this from on Twitter, but now I'm just looking at fan graphs.
01:07:29
they sat at Fan Graphs and pointed out that pre-season win probabilities in Major League Baseball. So, this is me
01:07:35
bringing baseball to you guys. >> Mhm. >> Fan graphs preseason win probabilities.
01:07:40
There are 12 teams at 1% or lower and there's another seven teams at below 2%
01:07:50
above one but below two. >> This is for probabilities of winning the World Series.
01:07:54
>> Probability of winning the World Series. more than half the teams >> 19 out of 30 19 out of 30 have 2% or
01:08:01
less >> 19 out of 30 >> that's seems problematic to me by the way it's it's skewed at the top too
01:08:10
you for this health of the league or for your estimate the accuracy of those probabilities
01:08:15
>> well you know I tend to trust fang graphs but of course nobody's perfect
01:08:19
they I did have that thought shame like are these too low I mean the Guardians are in there some good organizations are
01:08:26
down in there. They seem >> That's ridiculous. >> But it connects to we're coming up on um
01:08:32
this next CBA and we're coming up on a lockout or we're coming out of lockout.
01:08:36
The M the owners are going to lock them out after this next season and it's it's
01:08:41
all going to be about a salary cap and the players resist this because the top end players do so well. But it does it
01:08:48
doesn't seem healthy to me. I mean, I I generally favor players, by the way,
01:08:52
when it comes to these negotiations, but it doesn't seem healthy to me to the
01:08:55
organiz to the league to have that kind of disparity at the start of the season.
01:09:00
Like, you're your whole fan base, more than half of the fans are looking at a
01:09:05
one one and a half percent chance of winning the whole thing. Really? >> Yeah. I mean, again, I I'm I I That's a
01:09:13
problem with a That's a problem of a salary floor, not a salary cap. that is
01:09:16
there are a lot of >> teams in baseball that are not trying to compete. >> Okay.
01:09:23
>> Right. Um and I can I could name them. They would correspond to those ones with
01:09:28
1% 2%. Uh there are some teams that are small market and actually trying to compete.
01:09:32
>> Milwaukee had the best record or whatever last year. I get it. But you know, but look, we know how
01:09:37
probabilities work. Yeah. >> And they all get stacked. They get stacked. >> No. No. It's And I do think that there's
01:09:42
a problem. I mean I mean at the top you can look at baseball and actually argue it's one of the highest parody leagues
01:09:47
in the sense that at the top you know like if you look at kind of World Series winners or like you know like playoff
01:09:54
teams over the last like couple decades it's actually almost all the league is
01:09:58
represented. >> This is I just want to address Kate's point just for one second. Obviously
01:10:02
let's I know it was 19 out of 30. Let's just imagine it was 15 out of 30 just
01:10:06
for simplicity. That's half right. Obviously, the bottom half of the teams have lower than half the win probability
01:10:12
by definition, right? >> And so the question is what would be a number you would feel comfortable with,
01:10:17
right? Because right now, if it's more if they're in the 1% or less than 1%
01:10:21
range, my guess is Fan Graphs has that at 20 or 25%. >> Total for the bottom 15 teams. That
01:10:29
doesn't seem that bad to me in terms of a total prediction. Like in other words,
01:10:34
if I had to bet you, I'll take the top half, Kade, you get the bottom half, and
01:10:39
I got to give you three to one odds. You might even say that's not enough. You
01:10:44
might even say, I got to give you 5 to one odds, 6 to1 odds. So, I'm not sure
01:10:49
20% 25% probability for the bottom 15 teams, which is only an average of about 1.5% per team. I'm not sure that's too
01:10:59
low. As a matter of fact, >> it's it's not it it doesn't speak the
01:11:02
most directly to unhealthiness. It's really about the yeartoyear >> that's the if it's the same team that's
01:11:08
different that's different that have no chance because I'm not I would not disagree with you. I
01:11:14
would just hold on as long as you're >> as long as you're going to use an
01:11:17
example. Let's use the actual numbers because you can't take the the 15th team
01:11:21
is 1.5%. And so the average of the bottom 15 is more like 8.9. Okay, so we're talking about 1% then let's say
01:11:31
the average is 1%. So 15%. >> So I got to give you five or six to one odds. That seems pretty well calibrated
01:11:37
to me. And by the way, >> it's not a question of calibration. So it's a it's a good qu it's a you're
01:11:41
you're raising a decent point, but that's not the point I'm raising. But
01:11:44
but but but Shane's I would address Shane and and to some extent what you're
01:11:49
saying, Eric, by pointing to other leagues. And I don't have answers to this, but what do you think that number
01:11:54
is? Here's what I'd turn back to you, Eric. What do you think that number is
01:11:57
at the start if if there were let's pick any organization that represents fan
01:12:01
graphs for NFL football? What do you think the bottom 16 teams get in NFL on the average season?
01:12:10
>> I'm going to say my first I'm going to stick with my first guess somewhere
01:12:15
between 25 and 30%. >> Yeah, my first guess was 30 third. My first guess was two percentage. Um which
01:12:21
I have no idea. >> What are the chances that a bottom half team in the NBA wins the championship?
01:12:25
zero. >> Yeah. This this these are the questions I would ask, >> right? Yeah. So, I mean like I would say
01:12:30
like like so like the NBA, >> you know, like the NBA to get to that 15% would you how many teams would you
01:12:38
have to include or or like Yeah, I think it's got to be for the bottom half of
01:12:43
teams in the NBA, it's got to be like more like 5% or something like that. I
01:12:47
don't know actually. I mean, again, people who do real predictions, >> right?
01:12:50
>> Okay. Well, that's that's that's all fair. >> Isn't it is it Yeah. Yeah. So,
01:12:56
>> yeah, that's the question. That's the question. That is By the way, what do
01:12:59
you think the Dodgers are >> on the same analysis? >> I see most stat I mean, they're probably
01:13:06
too high, but I don't know, like 20% or something like that. >> That's what I was going to guess.
01:13:11
Somewhere around 20%. >> 27. What do you think the second highest is? It's the Braves. What?
01:13:16
>> Half that. >> Less than half that. >> Should nine one third that 27 and one
01:13:21
third that 27 and 1/3. a more >> people don't know I I and that's the
01:13:25
part that I don't think is well calibrated. I do not think any of these prediction models are able to handle
01:13:31
this like kind of tail team on paper the Dodgers because I think the Pakakota predictions had them predicted to be
01:13:38
like 105 wins or something like that which is also insane. I think uh I I I think we're we are our prediction models
01:13:47
are I think miscalibrated for a team like the Dodgers where it's kind of you
01:13:53
know on paper you think they should dominate everybody and you forget what baseball's actually like.
01:13:57
>> Well, so just for what it's worth, the wins from fang graphs that are driving
01:14:01
these numbers are 99.4. So it's not as extreme as you might think. Though I know 99 is still a high number for
01:14:08
projected wins. So that's a very high >> if you gave 100. I mean, we scoff
01:14:12
usually at 100 wins at the start of the season as a prediction. >> This is 6 below that.
01:14:17
>> Well, right. Right. Right. >> Why don't Why don't we wrap it there,
01:14:19
fellas? Um, this has been another full hour, a little bit more than a full hour of sports analytics here on Wharton
01:14:26
Moneyball. For the whole team, Audi Winer and Absentia, the three guys who have been in here for this show, me for
01:14:32
most of it, Eric for the whole thing, Shane for the whole thing. Thank you guys for listening. Big shout out. Deion
01:14:37
Simpkins makes this whole thing go around. Uh, Marissa Raina, our producer, and Deep Patel, the boss lady, Aaron
01:14:44
Tran, running some valuable support. Aaron Tran jumped in here at the break and drop some knowledge on us. Thanks to
01:14:49
the whole team. Thank you guys for listening. Come back and join us next time. Between now and then, enjoy your
01:14:55
sports.

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Episode Highlights

  • Introduction to Wharton Moneyball
    Eric Bradler and Shane Jensen welcome listeners to the show, discussing its significance.
    “This is one of those great moments.”
    @ 00m 25s
    February 26, 2026
  • Josh Raich Joins the Show
    The president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame shares his journey and insights.
    “How would you ever turn down that opportunity?”
    @ 06m 16s
    February 26, 2026
  • International Baseball Connections
    Exploring the close ties between the US and Japanese Baseball Halls of Fame.
    “We are very close with them.”
    @ 16m 35s
    February 26, 2026
  • America 250 Initiatives
    Celebrating America's history through baseball with a new interactive exhibit.
    “It’s going to be such a national celebration.”
    @ 28m 08s
    February 26, 2026
  • The Meaning of Forever
    Inductees realize their legacy lasts generations, as their families will see their plaques.
    “It's literally the meaning of the term forever.”
    @ 34m 30s
    February 26, 2026
  • Emotional Induction
    Dana Kent expresses disbelief at her husband's induction into the Hall of Fame.
    “It's just hard for me to believe that Jeff is gonna be here forever.”
    @ 35m 43s
    February 26, 2026
  • Significant Artifacts
    Josh shares a personal connection to a historic baseball artifact.
    “Every time I walk past the '88 last out ball, I kind of have to make sure, okay, Fred, it's still there.”
    @ 45m 56s
    February 26, 2026
  • M. Brown's Impact
    Despite not being a fan, the host acknowledges M. Brown's significant achievement.
    “I was reminded I have to be honest, I’m not the hugest M. Brown fan.”
    @ 48m 29s
    February 26, 2026
  • Olympic Moments
    The host shares their emotional support for Michaela Shiffron during her slalom run.
    “I’ve never been rooting harder than I was rooting for Michaela Shiffron.”
    @ 54m 41s
    February 26, 2026
  • Unexpected Enjoyment in Sports
    The host expresses surprise at their enjoyment of the halfpipe during the Olympics.
    “I never enjoyed the halfpipe so much.”
    @ 01h 02m 18s
    February 26, 2026
  • Brandon Busy’s Record
    Brandon Busy sets an NHL record with an impressive 23-1 start as a goalie.
    “He’s 23-1 as a goaltender for the Hurricanes.”
    @ 01h 05m 26s
    February 26, 2026
  • Baseball Win Probabilities
    Fan graphs reveal troubling win probabilities for MLB teams, raising concerns about league health.
    “More than half the teams have 2% or less chance of winning the World Series.”
    @ 01h 07m 57s
    February 26, 2026

Episode Quotes

  • How would you ever turn down that opportunity?
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission
  • We’re all friends and we all try to borrow and steal ideas from one another.
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission
  • If there’s an ounce of patriotism in your body, you will be blown away.
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission
  • I was reminded I have to be honest, I’m not the hugest M. Brown fan.
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission
  • I’ve never been rooting harder than I was rooting for Michaela Shiffron.
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission
  • It doesn’t seem healthy to me to have that kind of disparity.
    Inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Evolving Mission

Key Moments

  • Baseball Hall of Fame16:31
  • Analytics Discussion19:03
  • Gushing About M. Brown48:44
  • Curling Insights58:24
  • Streak Ends1:04:27
  • MLB Concerns1:07:57
  • Salary Cap Debate1:08:44
  • Predictions Discussion1:13:31

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown