The Sporting Class: What You Can’t Control, with David Samson

He’s watched one movie per day for the last 30 years. He’s a germaphobe. He obsesses over the efficient use of his time. But when David Samson, the ex-president of the Miami Marlins, just last month, received the news of his daughter’s sudden illness, the life he meticulously engineered was upended forever. David sits down for a candid discussion about his failures as a father and his hopes for his daughter. Also: electing a commissioner; Giancarlo Stanton’s best home run; Jerry Reinsdorf’s “Happy Birthday”; the time Derek Jeter berated David across a Cooperstown souvenir shop; and oops, we forgot to tell Skipper he’s not on this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Happy birthday. Sending best wishes and hoping all is well. Have you no shame?

• 0:15Pablo Torre?

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• 1:14Pablo Torre?

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• 1:59Pablo Torre?

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• 2:23Pablo Torre?

  Hey buddy.

• 2:26Pablo Torre?

  So you have, I want to be very clear with our audience, what's happening here today. You're gonna be out of here in an hour, almost literally. You got, you got, you got places to be. It is not lost on me that you made time to do this. And I have really missed you.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Thank you. I was at a, a deli and I lost track of days and I was asked by my daughter's mother, my ex, Cindy, to get a sandwich, bagel, a bagel with Nova and cream cheese. And I wanted one too, so I went to Sable's and I completely didn't understand why there was a line out the door because I had forgotten that it was Young Kipper. And so I am online, I get to fourth, it's my turn almost, fourth, and a doctor calls and that's my life now. So when the doctor calls, that's it, whatever you're doing, and it's happened during the taping, nothing personal, that's it.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  You take the call because I'm on their time, I'm on everybody else's time but mine. So I get offline, I then do the call, get back online, get to the front, and before I can make an order, the guy looks right at me and says, "Do you know Pablo Torre?"

• 3:45Pablo Torre?

  Oh no.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  And I said, "Yeah, why?" He said, "Oh, I've seen you on a show." I said, "Thank you so much, can I get you anything?" I said, "Yeah, I wouldn't mind a schmear."

• 4:00Pablo Torre?

  Oh god, you went to, you went to Sable's?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:03Pablo Torre?

  Was it an Asian guy who asked you that?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yes, it was.

• 4:06Pablo Torre?

  I met that guy probably two weeks before you had that.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yes, you did.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  It was all octogenarian Jewish women getting ready for

• 4:17Pablo Torre?

  The best.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Arab Young Kipper. Then it was me with a backpack, because that's my new thing. I have shoes that I bike with because I bike all over the city now because I won't sit in traffic like I did today. And I don't, and I, and I comfortable shoes and I'm getting food and because I'm trying to have my family eat because we're not eating, we're not sleeping. And the first thing I'm ready to order, I'm late because my daughter has certain times that I can see her in between therapies and the, the delay is, "Do you know Pablo Torre?"

• 4:50Pablo Torre?

  There's, there's, there's a variety of ways that I need people to understand and appreciate what it is that your life is now. Um, one of them, I hope, is informed by the fact that you're the person for whom normal, everyday [BLEEP] is fascinating through the lens of how you see the world. We've done episodes with you about losing your senses of smell and taste. We've done episodes with you in which you bring us inside of baseball arbitration against your former employees. We do episodes with you with John Skipper typically sitting right here in between us. He is not here today. He was supposed to be, then we said we should just do this, me and you, because the thing

• 5:31Pablo Torre?

  that you always bring to the table is a level of candid strangeness that reads as foreign, even alien, to so many of our mutual friends. And now, in what you're dealing with in the present, which only begins to explain why you haven't been on the show as people have expected you to be on, your own show, Nothing Personal.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  I've been gone for two weeks as my family has been dealing with a critical situation. I have a daughter who is seriously ill, and it, it came out of nowhere. And I have been spending the last two weeks trying to figure out how to do the only thing that matters, which is to take care of her and my other children and my family. And I've made a promise to you all that you've been with me for all these years, that I would not in any way lie to you, I would not in any way mislead you, I would not in any

• 6:37Speaker 01

  way do anything to break the trust that we've built together over all these years, where you know you're gonna get it from me straight. And I wasn't ready. That's the bottom line. I wasn't ready to talk about it. I wasn't ready to think about it, other than to do what was in front of me, which was to figure out how to deal with something that is unthinkable, unimaginable, can't be happening. And you open your eyes 24 hours a day, and it happens. It's in front of you. There's nothing you can do. There's no escape from the nightmare of a life-changing in the blink of an eye. My struggle is that I can't find the meaning right now. I can't.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  It doesn't serve as a distraction to me right now. And on September 12th, when I got the call about my daughter, out of nowhere. It was out of nowhere, Pablo. I mean, it was out of nowhere. This was not... There is no way to describe what it is when the phone rings, and it's someone calling you who you speak to often. But you knew that was a strange time to call, because my brain is keeping track of where people are and what people are doing, because I thought that I would always want to be ready for whatever particular call could come at a particular time, because I always try to plan for any possible outcome that could possibly happen.

• 8:06Pablo Torre?

  You and me eating at a restaurant. You're already... If you haven't listened to David on this show before, you should know that he's already planning the exit strategies. You have, as a function of your foremost desire, control.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  The irony. I don't have control over anything. Nothing. I can't control. I can't make my daughter better. I can't put my family back together. I can't put our lives back together. I can't do anything. I can't control when the doctors call me back. I can't control when test results come. I can't control one thing. And that's why I'm biking back and forth to the hospital every day from where I live, because... And I've got...

• 8:54Pablo Torre?

  Show them. You've shown your feet before.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  So I have cuts all over.

• 8:58Pablo Torre?

  You've shown toe.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I've got... I'm bleeding everywhere.

• 9:01Pablo Torre?

  You have bandages under your blue dress socks.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  I can't deal with the fact that I can't control the outcome. I've never entered a fight that I know...

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So that's that. So biking in New York is a problem because people are idiots.

• 9:22Pablo Torre?

  You're somebody for whom, again, the piece of tape on the side of the table, whether the water bottle has a label on it, whether this thing got breathed on by somebody else. You're someone for whom the small things have always been comically frustrating.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  They're easy. No, but they're easy. Look, there's a yellow sticker here that says control. Has that always been here? I have a yellow button.

• 9:45Pablo Torre?

  I didn't, I didn't, I didn't ever notice it. But you are tracing it back and forth with your finger. You called me on September 12th. And it was one of the scarier calls that I've received from someone that I care about. Because I was

• 10:05Pablo Torre?

  almost immediately informed, not with words, but with tone of voice, that something really scary had just happened to you. And

• 10:18Pablo Torre?

  look, man, I, I

• 10:21Pablo Torre?

  in the attempt to, of course, respect and abide by the boundaries that are protecting your family and your daughter, I don't want to say more than, of course, you want me to say. So I want to focus in, frankly, on just you as a person that I think we as a show, certainly our audience, but we as friends of yours have just really been worried about and thinking about. I just wonder if, if there is any degree of zooming out, or is it all very zoomed in right now?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  I'm trying to gain back some sort of control over something. So I find myself doing thing, I mean, I've, I've just, my life has changed in a way. I don't know how it'll change back and it manifests itself in ways I can't. I haven't watched a movie. I haven't watched a movie since September 12th.

• 11:15Pablo Torre?

  That's scary.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And I watched a movie every day for decades before that and I can't. It, I, I, it's not a time issue because there's 24 hours in a day because I can't sleep. Because waking up brings you back into the nightmare in which I find myself. So I'm not sleeping. I thought maybe doing the show would be a distraction. So I started doing that on September 29th.

• 11:36Pablo Torre?

  After taking, again, two weeks off.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Two, which I.

• 11:39Pablo Torre?

  Jesus, the scare, the part of what was scary is that, so I remember talking to Coco. Coco calls me and he's like, hey, here's what I think my approach is going to be with David. Because our assumption would be he's going to want to work day one. Because that's just his constitution. That's what he will want to do and it will be our job to push back. And when word came that in fact, you could not, would not, did not want to do the thing that has always been your comfort zone, the thing that you do for fun. That provided you, by the way, in the decision to become a media person, some establishment of control over your life. I'm going to do this that makes me happy now. I'm going to find out what that is.

• 12:21Pablo Torre?

  When you didn't want to do that, it became very unsettling. Were you surprised about that? How you personally responded?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  When I got the phone call, my, the, the first thing I thought of was that I, I tried to fast forward to everything. I tried to do what I do in my brain, which is to go through every pathway. Where does that end? Where does that end? What do I do now? How does this work now? What calls do I need to make? What do I need to do? And every single pathway led to just another nightmare, led to another maze where I, I didn't know how to get out of that state I was in after that phone call came. And I've never had that before because there's always been an exit.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  There's always been a strategy that I've been able to go through my mind faster. And it's the reason why I have trouble with relationships because I go through all of it way faster and all of a sudden Levitar will say, slow down, David, I'm not there yet.

• 13:30Pablo Torre?

  That you see how the story is going to go.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  I have it.

• 13:32Pablo Torre?

  And you've, and you've sped there because time is also something that you are measuring.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  The ultimate irony. The ultimate irony of my measuring of time and, and understanding the time runs out and then thinking about that now, I, I just.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  I've thought a little bit about God because I'm, I struggle with that. I always have, but now I'm struggling way more. I, I sort of imagine God, whatever entity that is, laughing at me. Because this is the hell that I would have someone choose for me. And I've never had it. I've gotten away with everything in my whole life because I've been able to talk my way out of it. I've been able to maneuver my way out of it. And I have no play. It is checkmate. And the humor in that, that I wanna see. And I thought if I got back on camera, that I'd be able to pull back and enjoy the irony

• 14:36Speaker 01

  of the fact that everything that I have been able to do, I, I don't know how to do anymore. I, I, I don't have it yet. I don't have it yet. And so my thought was I'd start doing the show immediately. I said to Coca, it was Friday night, like, I'll be back Monday. And then it just became obvious that I, I didn't have the pathways projected right. I had them all wrong. And I'm still getting them wrong.

• 15:03Pablo Torre?

  The desire to even see the humor in a cruel and cosmic joke. That you, by the way, I, I wanna make this clear too. The story of you, as I have best understood it, is not of a man who's never experienced tragedy. It's of a man who has always found ways to shed the inefficient waste of time that attends the rituals of human emotion. It's not you don't feel it, it's just that you're like recognizing when it's a waste, when it's not.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  It's always been a waste. It's always been a waste. And it's not that I feel it's still a waste. And, and I'm, and I'm stuck in that waste. And I've always been able to dismiss the waste. Maybe now I'm beginning to understand how to say it. The things I feel right now, they don't help. They don't move forward anything. They don't make her better. They don't make me better. They don't make my two other kids better. They don't make my Cindy better. I don't even know what I. It sounds so harsh to say my ex-wife. The mother of the daughter makes it sound weird. The mother of my children. It's, it's, we are a team.

• 16:16Pablo Torre?

  The reason I focus on you as opposed to your daughter is not merely because of the privacy and the confidence that I want to protect. Dude, it's just like, so for people who don't know, like, how close we've become, like, part of, I was like, explain to Liz, like, what happened.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  And we- It was a gut-wrenching text she sent me.

• 16:39Pablo Torre?

  But we, we had stayed with you and your daughter.

• 16:46Pablo Torre?

  How many weeks before September 12?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  There was nothing wrong.

• 16:50Pablo Torre?

  We, we, we were in the same house together, um, watching movies. The, the, the fucking earthquake that destabilizes everything that isn't stopping yet.

• 17:05Pablo Torre?

  The reason I turn my focus to you is because I genuinely haven't talked to you enough. And my hope is that there is something here, as people who live in front of a microphone, to think out loud about. And I just don't really know, um, what's okay to poke you about.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  You're never at a loss for words. You can poke all you want. I, I, I think I'm sharp enough to not allow the pokes in the place I don't want them.

• 17:37Pablo Torre?

  And just tell me, please.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  But I may not be. I, I don't, that's the other thing, and that what scared me about doing the show is my respect for the audience and, and I've always-

• 17:48Speaker 01

  That's been the thing since the first time I did Nothing Personal is I just, and there was one person listening to my first show in October of 19, and Coke and I have been together ever since. I just respect people's time because I want my time to be respected. And so how can I ask for that if I won't give it? And I've always been willing to give it. And I don't want to sit in a waiting room at a doctor's office for 45 minutes. I just, I can't handle that. And there is no more on my time. It's done. Like, it's done.

• 18:19Pablo Torre?

  What's done?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  The ability to have someone respect my time the way that I'm willing to respect theirs, it's done. Because now I'm on somebody else's schedule. All day, every day, no matter what happens, no matter what plan I have. What's unbelievable to me is that all I'm asking for is like, communication. It's what we do for a living. We communicate. You don't have to lie to me. You don't have to mislead me. You can not like me, you cannot love me, but just tell me what's happening. And I've had to learn a new language because it's, it's a new language when you're in the world of doctors. They don't speak English.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  And then, of course, the, the first thing is, don't Google anything. Well, hold on, I need to teach myself. Because otherwise, I'm at a disadvantage. And I don't go into conversations at a disadvantage. I won't do it. Because then I, there's an opportunity to lose. There's an opportunity for me to get something wrong. The doctors don't sit and teach you all of this language. The healthcare, you know, I got a call from the insurance company. Hey, it's the complex case manager calling to just anything you need. Yeah, there's a lot I need. All right, well, thank you for the time. Like, that was the call. So it was not, it was a check the box call. And I'm not imputing the insurance company. It is what it is.

• 19:45Pablo Torre?

  I mean, big picture, I just feel like you're on a journey through the American healthcare system. Of course, with various advantages that you are trying to leverage that are not nearly helpful enough, even with those advantages.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  I have so many advantages. I have so many things that other people in my position don't have, which is another source of, of guilt that is, that weighs on me like, like a 2,000 pound. Wait.

• 20:08Pablo Torre?

  But, but just listen.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  And it doesn't even matter.

• 20:10Pablo Torre?

  Well, that's, that's, that's, that's the thing is that like you have, you're somebody for whom you've collected, uh, real bonds and relationships with people who in the nightmare scenario that you're living ostensibly, you would absolutely draft in the first round of just like people who might let me cash in a favor right now. And you've been doing that. And yet, it's, it's fucking.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Life.

• 20:37Pablo Torre?

  It's life.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  And, and so, you know, Jeff and Fred Wilpon, just people I competed against for almost two decades.

• 20:45Pablo Torre?

  The Mets owners.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Tooth and nail, the former Mets owners. And we were in the NL East and I'm talking in the owners' room, on the committees, on the field. You want to talk about two different ways to look at the same sport you're in? The Mets and the Marlins are opposite. There was barely anything we could agree on because they're in a different situation than we were in. But you, you live with people and you work with them. And my show is based on truth telling. Uh, off the subject. Anyway, thank you to Jeff and Fred who were great, of course. But what I was thinking with my show is I can't talk about Jerry Jones anymore. Well, I don't even know if I can mention his name.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  What if I need Jerry Jones to help with something in Texas? And I was thinking about, well, I can't call Stevie Kohn because all I do is refer to the chop shops and the fact that he's literally, figuratively, I don't want to use literal anymore, incompetent, but may have great connections to the possibility of the thread of a chance to make something better that I have to see if I can make better. So what am I going to go on Nothing Personal and talk about the Mets offseason and the fact that, you know, Pete Alonso? I, I just, I can't come to grips with it. That's part of the, the process that I'm trying to do right now and I don't have an answer to it right now.

• 22:12Pablo Torre?

  I, I, I.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  My son said to me, you're not going to call Jerry Reinsdorf, right? I was in Chicago. Oh, God. My son was with me when Jerry Reinsdorf in Cooperstown approached and said, "Oh, it must not be pleasant having him as your father." That's what Jerry Reinsdorf said to my son. And it became memorable. It was the same day that- I mean, that's pretty funny. That Derek Jeter and I had a shouting match in the Hall of Fame museum. Wait, wait, wait. What was that? What happened?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Derek Jeter has a problem. I mean, that's the bottom line. He has a problem of aptitude. He has a problem in everything other than being a shortstop. And I hadn't seen him since the transaction. So he took over the Marlins? He got Bruce Sherman to buy the Marlins for a price that Bruce Sherman shouldn't have paid, and Bruce knows it. And Derek got Bruce to do it because Derek Jeter was the player and the idol. And he took over the team, and it turns out that he's a shortstop, not a president. So he got fired, of course, and that was the end of Derek Jeter. And I had not seen him. And I saw him in Cooperstown, and I approached him with my son. And I just said, "Good to see you," and extended my hand, and he just looked at me. And he's much taller than I am, which, so are you.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  And he said- He said, "Oh, you brought your camera crew, I'm sure." And I said, "Actually, that's my son." He said, "Sure, it is." And my son was just standing there, like jaw open. And then Derek started talking about how angry he was about everything. And I said, "Derek, I'm happy I live rent-free in your head, and thank you for watching the show every day." He had people listen to our show every day, every day, while he was still employed with the Marlins. And I then just said, "Okay," and he started walking away. I started walking away, and then he yelled across the Hall of Fame store some terrible thing toward me, and my son was standing right there.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And this is Derek. See, I have to understand from a kid's perspective, who was with his friend who was a huge Yankee fan. As am I. There's Derek Jeter, like, yelling. Dude, I love this. At Caleb's dad. It was ridiculous.

• 24:22Pablo Torre?

  To recap, so you, I mean briefly, cause.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  And this was recent.

• 24:25Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, because the last, uh, [bleep] dude. We were just talking about in this studio, how Ichiro, how she had to do out at Cooperstown. You were there as part of the delegation.

• 24:36Pablo Torre?

  And you had taken Caleb, I remember you telling me this, you had taken your son and his friend to go basically live a dream that any baseball fan would have. And part of the dream that I don't think I ever considered was Derek Jeter basically motherfucking your dad, which is so good.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Which, of course, and then Caleb's response, hey, what was the highlight of the weekend? As we're driving the four hours back, cause I didn't want to miss a show. So Sunday after the ceremony, I get right in the car to make it back, cause I have a show Monday morning. And, uh, highlight, when, uh, Jerry Reinsdorf and Derek Jeter put you in your place. For him to think about, oh, I guess Jerry Reinsdorf is not on the list of people who you can count on now.

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  But the fact is, if I called Jerry Reinsdorf today, and we were in Chicago, my daughter got sick in Chicago, she was there for work, she doesn't live there, and we were in Chicago for longer than I've ever been in Chicago without winning a playoff series, and, uh, I would have called Jerry, and I, I said.

• 25:36Pablo Torre?

  You would have called whoever.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Anybody.

• 25:37Pablo Torre?

  You could, who could help.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Anybody, and, and Jerry would have taken the call? Well, no, I would have had to leave a message, and I would have had to say why I was calling, cause otherwise he wouldn't have taken the call. I think my last text from Jerry was, you have some nerve wishing me a happy birthday.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Cause I do wish him a happy birthday.

• 25:54Pablo Torre?

  That is another favorite thing you do.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  I'm, I remind, cause I, I don't want, anyway, I'm a birthday person, I, I like saying happy birthday, and his birthday is the same as my late sister who passed away way too young, and they have the same birthday, so I've always known Jerry's birthday. So I always text him on his birthday, and, um, I have it here, I mean, it was.

• 26:14Pablo Torre?

  Please read it, cause it is, it's one of the funnier things about just how you do human interaction, is that you are also just like cheerily out of the ether wishing people happy birthday, when the last memory they have of you is, I [bleep] hate that guy.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Happy birthday, sending best wishes and hoping all is well. Have you no shame?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Telling you, it's right there.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  It's literally right there.

• 26:44Pablo Torre?

  Have you no shame in response to that specific birthday message?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  I'd like to tell you I'm making it up, but as you know, with me, it's right there. So I had not seen Jerry and I saw him in Cooperstown and the first thing he did when I said, Jerry, this is, I'd like you to meet my son.

• 27:02Pablo Torre?

  Why, why, why does-

• 27:03Speaker 01

  His first comment was, "I'm sorry."

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Can you imagine hearing that as your, as your son?

• 27:11Pablo Torre?

  I, I have two, two thoughts. Two thoughts. One is that Caleb is used to it. Second thought, second thought is, uh, why does Jerry Reinsdorf hate you?

• 27:24Speaker 01

  He's very unhappy about nothing personal and-

• 27:27Pablo Torre?

  So your show is listened to by the executive class across all sports, but baseball is particularly, of course, interested.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  A lot of people listen and-

• 27:36Pablo Torre?

  Cause you're one, look, for those who are just meeting David for the first time, former president of the Marlins, blah, blah, blah, blah, but, um,

• 27:44Pablo Torre?

  the member of the C-suite, the executive class, a guy who's home that I stayed in with your daughter, with Liz, with Violet, um, you have a World Series trophy, the literal, the real thing, because you are the president of a team. And so you talking about all of this in the way that you do with me on your show with Dan, with Levitard, yeah, people, people don't love it.

• 28:08Pablo Torre?

  Although they must listen.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  So this is, this is it. So hate listen or love listen to me is the same. I just want you to listen. And, uh, the, the background with Jerry goes all the way back to when Rob was, 2014 at a hotel in Baltimore, when, uh, he did not want Rob to be the commissioner and I did. And we went at it with votes. We were trying to collect votes. I was secretly meeting with the Washington Nationals owners while I had someone telling Jerry that the Nationals owners were out of the room because Jerry thought he had the votes to block Rob and he did. And there were three or four votes. And, uh, I actually, you know, it's, it's, the way, the way my life has changed before.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  September 12th, I had gone to the framing store because I had a piece of my life that I wanted to have framed. And what it was-

• 29:03Pablo Torre?

  You're a collector of things, by the way. That's the other thing you learn when you visit your home, is that you frame and collect and honor the various cool experiences.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I do, because I, to me, it shows me, I don't do it for others. The interesting thing is, people think that I do it like for charge admission. But that's not, I do it for me.

• 29:26Pablo Torre?

  I'm talking about, so if you watch Nothing Personal, you'll see David sitting inside of a giant baseball glove, and behind him are various artifacts, in the way that many people have artifacts. The stuff I'm referring to is the stuff that's off-camera, that you don't actually talk about, that I was blown away by. Because you take the time to frame it and put it up, and it is for you and those you love.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  So I have here a picture. I wonder what date, geez, September 9th. Everything was great September 9th. I was, I was at a framing store, and I happened to have taken very copious notes during the vote for the commissioner to replace Bud Selig. This was back in 2014. And I kept all the notes. And what I have is me counting votes. And the first vote was Rob 20, Tom Warner 10. And that means that there's no commissioner. Is it white smoke or black smoke, the one when there's a pope?

• 30:23Pablo Torre?

  Oh, white smoke.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  So black smoke is when there's not?

• 30:25Pablo Torre?

  I believe so.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  So, I'm Jewish, so I don't-

• 30:28Pablo Torre?

  Well, I'm Catholic.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  I don't remember. Oh, and you don't know the color of the smoke?

• 30:31Pablo Torre?

  Which is the most Catholic thing. You know, white smoke is what is released when they pick a new pope.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  But don't they do smoke at the end of every day?

• 30:37Pablo Torre?

  I believe so.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  I think it's the black smoke, meaning we're still going. We're still in the conclave. That's what the movie said. So, it was 20 to 10. So then there had to be another vote, and I have second ballot with a list of the teams circled who voted against Rob.

• 30:53Pablo Torre?

  You have, this is-

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And then the second vote-

• 30:55Pablo Torre?

  This is a screenshot of-

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Was 21-9.

• 30:57Pablo Torre?

  A screenshot of handwriting, of you just keeping ta- again, measuring.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  I have it. And then, the final one is seventh ballot. Rob wins, 23 to 7.

• 31:09Pablo Torre?

  Alright. What you're showing me is the political process for how to elect the commissioner.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  And I was right there.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  And Jerry Reinsdorf was sitting directly across from me. And Jerry Reinsdorf wanted Tom Warner because Jerry Reinsdorf didn't think that Bud Selig or anyone Bud Selig wanted would be hard enough in labor.

• 31:31Pablo Torre?

  Owner of the White Sox, Jerry Reinsdorf, and the Bulls.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Right. And so during the course of this process, Jerry Reinsdorf is counting to eight because you need eight votes to block in baseball. You need a final score of 23 to 7 with the 30 owners. And so Jerry and I were counting votes. I had to count to 23, and Rob's not in the room. He's up in a suite in the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore.

• 31:55Pablo Torre?

  Does Rob Manfred know that you are doing this?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I'm on the phone with Rob, talking about the different teams and which teams, how we're gonna get the teams.

• 32:04Pablo Torre?

  What, what, what a thing to have you, David Samson, doing all of this.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  And the final, final, we had to convert Ted Lerner, the late Ted Lerner. And to do it, Jerry-

• 32:17Pablo Torre?

  Owner of the Nationals.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Owner of the Nationals. Jerry Reinsdorf had gotten to him. And Ted Lerner had said that he won't vote for Rob because of some Masson deals, which is the regional sports network that he and the Orioles had been fighting over for years. And we found a solution, which is we, Ted Lerner is one of my mentors. And we got Ted Lerner to agree not to vote. We got him to give his son Mark the vote. So Ted Lerner could say he never voted for Rob. But Mark Lerner agreed to vote for Rob. Ted Lerner allowed for Mark Lerner to vote for Rob. And Bud Selig didn't know. Rob knew because I called Rob. I said, "We got the 23rd." Rob said, "Get Bud to call a vote." Reinsdorf said, "Call a vote? Call a vote. You don't have the votes."

• 33:02Speaker 01

  I know you don't have the votes because Jerry was with Ted Lerner.

• 33:06Pablo Torre?

  Oh, God.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And we had Ted Lerner stay with Jerry because let Jerry keep thinking. So when we called for the vote, Jerry was like, "Hey, you're calling for a vote. You have no chance." He's sitting two feet from me. And I said, "Call the vote, Bud. Call it right now." So Bud calls the vote, and then it's announced 23 to 7, Rob wins. And Reinsdorf could not understand. His look to me, I've never been looked at that, that way by anyone in my life, in my life, the way he looked at me. That's the story of how Rob became commissioner. That's what happened with Jerry.

• 33:41Pablo Torre?

  Have you no shame.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  That's what it was. Apparently I don't.

• 33:54Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 34:27Speaker 05

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• 35:12Speaker 05

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• 35:24Speaker 06

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• 36:02Pablo Torre?

  One of the reasons why we have become close friends is because your stories are not merely, "Here's a war story from a thing that happened." It's the strategy. We're talking franchise swaps, we're talking, we're talking just power plays that catch people by surprise. Everyone is surprised except for you.

• 36:26Pablo Torre?

  You found the way to play by the rules and get the outcome that you, that you were fighting for.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  I learned it from George Steinbrenner, by the way. George Steinbrenner told me, and, and this is one of his, one of his mantras, is, "Don't, don't be upset with me for what the Yankees do because I don't break any rules." It's like the, it's like what Ballmer tries to say, except Steinbrenner, you know, other than when he got suspended and when he hired people and all these.

• 36:57Pablo Torre?

  Other than the stuff that enabled me a fruitful childhood as a Yankee fan? Outside of all the things that, you know, uh, got him famously punished?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And suspended.

• 37:09Pablo Torre?

  And suspended from, from the game.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I would say, other than that, he's nothing like Ballmer.

• 37:16Pablo Torre?

  But, but the point being.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  He always said, "Listen, I'm gonna play by the rules and you take your revenue sharing." He was so angry when we beat his team in the World Series because he felt, literally felt like the players beating him were the players he paid. And he would sit in the suite at Pro Player or Yankee Stadium and we would spend time and...

• 37:35Pablo Torre?

  The players he paid because of the luxury tax?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, revenue sharing.

• 37:38Pablo Torre?

  Revenue sharing.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  One of the, one of the letters that I have framed that I don't talk about much was the letter of congratulations from George when we won. And it, I felt like it got signed with blood.

• 37:49Pablo Torre?

  Did it also end with, "Have you no shame"?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  No. It might as well, though.

• 37:55Pablo Torre?

  By the way, so I'm like, we're taping this before game three of Yankees-Red Sox. And I've been watching the Yankees towards the end of the season especially, closely. And...

• 38:08Pablo Torre?

  One of the things that you told me when we were just on the phone, one of the rare times you've been on the phone, like the only time actually before this sit down that we've been on the phone talking. And I like forced you to like talk to me because.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 38:21Pablo Torre?

  Dude, it's just, what I told you is what is now clear, I think, to everybody, which is that I genuinely love talking to you and I love hearing about what's in your head. And this has been a chapter of your life in which I think you lost confidence in that, in that I would feel that way. So you don't need to thank me. It's just frankly, as always, a mixture of total self-interest from me because I think it's good. But also I was worried that you were behaving so differently. This is my very long way of saying that you were telling me about Giancarlo Stanton, your former employee, or in this case, according to George Steinbrenner's framework, one of his also.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  I love Giancarlo and we go back a long way. And he's a Yankee and he wants a ring. And I want him to get a ring very, very badly. And he's known my kids. He met my daughter when she was young, you know, 12 years old, maybe. And he's known Caleb since he was, I don't know, first grade. We drafted him, I want to say oh nine, and I want to say he was in the big leagues in 11. But I may have it, I probably have my years wrong, but you forget as the years pass, but.

• 39:34Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, he made the bigs in 2010.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  2010, so yeah, he was, Caleb was seven years old and anyway. So I was speaking to him and the way we do right before the playoffs start, where we have the same conversation each year, like, all right, like, let's go. Like it's ring time right now. And this conversation was very different when I spoke to him about what was going on in my life. And.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Some things are just more, like all of a sudden, things are more important. And it was the day where Stanton hit his 450th homerun against the Orioles.

• 40:12Speaker 07

  The 2-2. Fly ball, deep right. Jackson back, on the track, at the wall. See ya! A three-run homerun over the high scoreboard. And the Yankees are on the board, 3-0.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  He hit a homerun in the first inning and my daughter and I were watching. And it was-

• 40:29Pablo Torre?

  From the hospital?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yes. And she smiled at the homerun, which was amazing. Because she doesn't even like baseball. She hates that I'm in baseball, hated it growing up, hated the attention.

• 40:44Pablo Torre?

  It took you from them.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  It took me from them, always. So it's always associated with that. And I just texted Giancarlo, like, hey, why can't you hit like 162 homeruns? Because if you're thinking of people and sending love and hitting a homerun, like, just, can't you think of someone different every night?

• 41:05Pablo Torre?

  So to just explain, though, what happened is Giancarlo Stanton does the Babe Ruth thing. He does the thing in the movie when a-

• 41:15Speaker 01

  He had just heard news that was-

• 41:17Pablo Torre?

  A sick young person has inspired him to win one for the Gipper.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  And I just thought to myself, as president of the team, why didn't I line up like 162 sick people? Like, forget worrying about sliders down and away on a 1-2 count, just line them up. And he laughed. I get, it's so ridiculous, but you think, now, I went back into my president's mode for a hot second.

• 41:44Pablo Torre?

  And you're like, wait a minute, what if I held Giancarlo Stanton emotionally hostage with an unending series of sick children? Could this be the new Moneyball?

• 41:54Speaker 01

  It can't be. It can't be that that was in my head, it just can't.

• 41:58Pablo Torre?

  But of course it is. That story in a nutshell, right, is a reminder of two things. One is that you are always you. But the second thing is that who you are, we've really pressure-tested. And the thing that I keep on thinking to myself, as you sit there and fiddle with the labels that say "control" on them-

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Has that always been there?

• 42:20Pablo Torre?

  I don't know. I'm sure it has been. Is that you are, for those who were wondering-

• 42:27Pablo Torre?

  At your core, Lebhard likes to say you're a bunch of wires and you know, circuitry and all that stuff. You're a [bleep] dad.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  I'm a dad. And I never thought, am I that cliche that it takes something bad to be, I mean, it can't be that I'm that. Am I the guy who on my deathbed is gonna say, I shouldn't have worked so much? I don't think I'm gonna be that. But I'll tell you, it's uh,

• 42:57Speaker 01

  it's control. It keeps coming back to that and I don't want this to sound wrong.

• 43:02Pablo Torre?

  No, no, no, but I-

• 43:02Speaker 01

  I'm trying, I can't make it better. And when I make things bad, it's on purpose. When I am stirring it, or when I am trying to accomplish something that people may not realize that I'm trying to accomplish, I get that I'm that way. And I'm fine with being that way. It doesn't bother me. You can call me whatever names you want. The situation I'm in now that I can't wrap my arms around is when I'm in the hospital, I wanna be out of the hospital. When I'm not in the hospital, I wanna be in the hospital. And I've always been someone who's so happy and comfortable where I am. Always. I've just always loved whatever I'm doing because that is the ultimate in how selfish I am. I'm always doing what I wanna be doing.

• 43:45Pablo Torre?

  You get to choose.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  That's been my principle.

• 43:50Pablo Torre?

  You working to get to the point at which your life is one way and now on September 12th, it's another.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  6:42 PM.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  God. That was that. And there's no other that's to be had.

• 44:04Pablo Torre?

  You have tried for your entire life to transcend, optimize, avoid, account for, deliberately win the game against the human condition. And you are stuck, not in control of what happens to one of the people that you would give everything.

• 44:32Pablo Torre?

  To help.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop. So that's the other issue I have is I I'm not giving up the thought. My assumption is that I have no control because I haven't found the right path. So what I spend my days and nights doing is figuring out, okay, that's not it. Dead end. Next. Okay, that wasn't it. And so I so I'm gonna keep going. And I can't stop. So it's causing me to be tired and grumpy and to transfer anger that I have towards something that I shouldn't be angry about because what can I do?

• 45:04Pablo Torre?

  The guy, the guy that kind of just trying to sell you some smoked fish, man.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:09Pablo Torre?

  And also like and subscribe.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Do you know Pablo Torre?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  If you would have seen me at Sable's that day, you would not have believed what happened that day.

• 45:20Pablo Torre?

  Oh, man.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Twenty people online fighting over the last bit of herring.

• 45:27Pablo Torre?

  Ahead of the holiest day of the year.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Do you know Pablo Torre?

• 45:46Speaker 05

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• 46:27Speaker 05

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• 46:42Speaker 06

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• 47:12Speaker 08

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  John Skipper just texted, are we taping yet?

• 47:56Pablo Torre?

  Oh, no.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Did you not call?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Wait, does anyone work for you?

• 48:02Pablo Torre?

  Dude.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, with you.

• 48:03Pablo Torre?

  It's, it's.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  You tell me you do things.

• 48:06Pablo Torre?

  No, we, I, I, I don't want to, whatever. John, I, I, I am, sources close to the situation tell me that John Skipper has been informed that we're doing a very different episode than the one originally planned.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Can I give you one more thing to think about?

• 48:18Pablo Torre?

  What you got?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Do you know I didn't know the number of episodes you had done on Balmer until our friend at Sables said, wait, are you recording number six?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  And I paused by saying, I'm sorry? He said, well, there's been five episodes, and now are you taping a sixth?

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Think about that for a minute. When he's surrounded by lunatic people trying to get food before the fast. So, I was thinking about the way you are with Balmer, the way you are with investigations, the way you've built this show. And I need you to teach me because you have to, as an investigative journalist, run into dead ends. You have to run into, okay, that wasn't right, that's not right. What happens? Do you ever run out of the path?

• 49:08Pablo Torre?

  Of course. I think the thing-

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Do you drop the story then?

• 49:11Pablo Torre?

  Well, this is, this is, I'll tell you, it's such a good question. And my staff sometimes laughs, I think, at what my solution tends to be, which is, when you try really, really, really, really hard at something and it's a dead end, the question I ask is, is that attempt to try really, really, really hard that doesn't come up with the thing you want, is that attempt now part of the story?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  To you, everything's part of the story, though, no?

• 49:38Pablo Torre?

  I've come to realize that that's my way of making peace with this, is-

• 49:44Speaker 01

  I'm not at peace, Pablo.

• 49:45Pablo Torre?

  No, and you shouldn't be. You really shouldn't be. And you're, the way that, look, as far as I can tell, as you're, as someone who loves you, the way to think about this, and not that I have ever gained the credibility to talk or advise on this, but the way that I see you intuitively, living your life in the way that unsettled me and jarred me and made me afraid, is, I think, exactly what you should be doing, which is inefficiently and hellishly and unrelentingly stopping the other shit that you'd prefer to do to be a dad.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  It's the-

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Can you imagine the failures I've had as a dad?

• 50:40Speaker 01

  This is the monster of all failures.

• 50:43Pablo Torre?

  I don't, I mean, I'm gonna be the person who says the obvious, which is that, of course, this isn't your failure.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, but that's, if you're a consequentialist, you're a consequentialist, so.

• 50:57Pablo Torre?

  We had dinner, you, me, Liz, Cara.

• 51:04Pablo Torre?

  In August or whenever it was that we were together, and we talked about consequentialism.

• 51:10Pablo Torre?

  And how, for you, drunk driving is something that you don't grade on a curve.

• 51:18Pablo Torre?

  What was the outcome?

• 51:21Speaker 01

  If someone dies, that, to me, is, it's not manslaughter. I mean, the legal code doesn't agree with me, but I'm a consequentialist in that way. But there's a concept in law called the eggshell skull, which you may be familiar with.

• 51:34Pablo Torre?

  I am not, although this feels like a thing that I should be.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if I, if I tap you on the head

• 51:41Speaker 01

  and it crushes your head, but I didn't realize that it would crush your head, it crushed your head, it's called the eggshell skull, I'm still liable for that. That is still a crime of a different level. Even if I argue, well, wait a minute, when I touch everybody like that, they're all fine.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  You find your victims as they are.

• 52:03Pablo Torre?

  You're somebody who thinks that the eggshell skull defense is not a defense.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  I am. The people who drop stuff off overpasses on a highway is the example that I often use. It's fun, just kids having stupid fun. You drop a little stone, you drop a penny, it goes through a windshield, and the car crashes, and the person dies. That's, that, to me, should be the end of your freedom.

• 52:26Pablo Torre?

  And so, when you think about your daughter now...

• 52:32Speaker 01

  All I want is for her to have health and...

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Freedom, I just want, I want for her what I've had. That's the trade I want to make. I want to take it from her because if we were doing a show because I was sick, I'd tip my cap and say, my God, I've done a lot. I've had, I've had the most fortunate, amazing life and, you know, I, I just don't want, I want her and I want my kids, I want people I love, I want you. Like, I want people to have the opportunity to do everything they want to do. And I've had that opportunity. And the harsh reality is that opportunity ended September 12th. It just ended. And I don't have the path yet to have that return.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  As a matter of fact, I'm almost positive that there is no going back ever. There will always be a new path. But this path, it's so dark to me, triple entendre, that I can't see around the corner. I can't manufacture how to maneuver through it. I can't control the result of it. And I, it's so unsettling that I just have a permanent stomach ache. Anyway, I don't know what we were talking about.

• 53:51Pablo Torre?

  No, we were talking about eggshell skulls.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:55Pablo Torre?

  The consequences that you wish to prevent. The last thought I have is that how you do this, how you've been doing this, how you've been doing your career, strategizing, scheming, finding the ways to win. It just makes me think that even if the consequences are not controllable, guaranteed, any of that, it's hard to think of someone better to have leading their team. Your daughter has you doing your best and I don't know if there's a better draft pick than David Samson. And I'm not just saying that.

• 54:38Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you're gonna try everything.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Every path. And you're right.

• 54:44Pablo Torre?

  It's not gonna be because you didn't [bleep] try.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Thanks. I gotta go.

• 54:51Pablo Torre?

  You gotta go.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  All right, thanks.

• 54:53Pablo Torre?

  I love you.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Love you too.

• 55:04Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Sound design by Andrew Bersick and NGW Post. Theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.

• 55:38Speaker 08

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 56:11Speaker 03

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