Bob Costas: Dodgers “ruining” MLB? Dan Wilson’s flub, Michael Jordan’s NBC debut, ’28 Olympics host?

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, how you doing doing great?

00:00:07
Speaker 2: I see you, not just hear you in my ears. We're talking about the Angels, So it's.

00:00:14
Speaker 3: Hey, let's start with the good stuff though, Bob, So what do you have for us on this World Series? And do you believe Doc Roberts and how he says the Dodgers are ruining baseball?

00:00:26
Speaker 1: You know that played well to his team, that played well in the stadium, It played well to Dodger nation. It plays into the resentments that many baseball fans have, understandably of those who play, as Brian Kenny puts it, hedge Fund Baseball, and those teams like the Brewers and like some others who have to be more resourceful and nonetheless succeed, but they feel like they're outmanned. But that was Roberts in the exuberance of the moment. We all know that Doc is a really good guy. He respects the game. He wasn't trying to salt anybody or anything like that. What I do know about this series two things. People still seem to look at baseball the same way they would at a football game, where when one team has clear advantages, they'll press those advantages. The quarterback touches the ball on every play. Michael Jordan and Lebron James touched the ball almost every time down the floor. Wayne Gretzky plays extra shifts in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It doesn't work that way in baseball. Baseball's more random. So it looks like the Dodgers are just pile driving past everybody. Milwaukee won ninety seven games best in baseball. They blew them out. If Toronto wins Game one tonight, it's very close to a certainty that the series at least comes back to Toronto for Game six and seven. And we know what happened with Seattle when they came back home down three to two. Are the Dodgers the favorites, Absolutely, and they should be. But if you know anything about baseball and its history, are they prohibitive favorites?

00:01:58
Speaker 2: No, Bob, Listen, this sounds like your Yankees back in the nineties and the two thousands, Right. They had spend more money and they were just better, but they didn't win every year, right, So I mean, now it's just the Dodgers turn to do this, and the Yankees won all those and everyone hates a team or they want to root against the team just as much, if not more than they want to root for another team.

00:02:20
Speaker 4: You get more because you know, you get more.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: Eyes on you when people want to see you lose than they do when they want to see somebody win. And that's kind of where I feel like we're at. And the Dodgers haven't. Dodgers have a bunch of good guys. They haven't done really anything like off the field, they haven't done any scandals.

00:02:35
Speaker 4: They got a bunch of good dudes that seem to just win baseball games.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, when you think about it, there's a parallel there to Joe Torre's Yankees. You know, people might not have liked George Steinbrenner, you know, huffing and puffing with everything, but Tory comes in establishes a different tone. How are you going to disrespect or dislike Derek Jeter or Bernie Williams or Jahe Posada, all those people. It wasn't just that they were a winning team. They were a likable team and the way they went about it, and then when they happen to be in the World Series and the immediate aftermath of two thousand and one, and there are all those emotional scenes and people wearing NYPD and FDNY hats. I think that was all washed away, and other than when people were rooting for the Diamondbacks perhaps in that series. Other than Diamondback fans, I think people felt good about the Yankees in that circumstance. But you know how it is Notre Dame, the Cowboys, Duke. They have as many people nationwide rooting against them as rooting for them. One thing for sure, this is a safe prediction on this World series. The ratings are going to be through the roof. You've seen what the ratings are in Canada. The Jays are almost a national obsession, and overseas across the Pacific Ocean, all of Japan's going to be up watching these games to see Otani into a lesser ausent Yamamoto and Sasaki. The Dodgers bring, you know, name brand and a large market already, and when you combine it with those other factors, I haven't got the figures in front of you, but I'd be surprised if this goes six or seven. You've got to get deeper in the audience builds. Although it'll build for the game that Otani pitchers, which would be Game four at Dodger Stadium. If it goes six or seven games, my guess is this could be the highest rated World Series since the Cubs broke the curse in twenty sixteen.

00:04:22
Speaker 5: All Right, so this is great for baseball. So give us your preview. Yeah, give us the preview of what you think not only is going to happen, but how the series breaks down to get to Game six or Game seven.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: It's not imperative, but it would be good for the series. Would really be good for the series if Toronto wins Game one tonight and established that this is a competition, not a coronation of a Dodger dynasty. Getting out of there with a split, you know, despite the fact that we can get carried away. If you play three games against a cellar dwelling team, the odds are the that team wins one of those games, if those games are in July or August. Now I realize that you approach it differently in October, but if Toronto gets out with a split, I think the odds are overwhelming that they come back to Toronto and they certainly have a chance with two games at home. If they come back down three to two, let alone up three two I think that we've got a series that has a chance to go to a seventh game, and then the ratings will be really through the roof they will.

00:05:26
Speaker 5: Bob, I agree.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: I think you got all of Japan watching, you got all of Canada watching, and you got all of America watching, not only in LA but people that want the Dodgers to lose.

00:05:34
Speaker 4: They're all rooting for the Blue Jay.

00:05:35
Speaker 2: So I think the ratings for the series are going to be outstanding, which needs even my next question.

00:05:39
Speaker 4: You're tight with Rob Manfred, you know him very well. Everyone everywhere you.

00:05:43
Speaker 2: Read, ratings are up, attendance is of interest in baseball is up. And then all of a sudden, we hear, well, we need a salary cap. I'm sorry to bring us down, but we need a salary cap and we need a lock down.

00:05:54
Speaker 4: These players can't.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: Keep doing what they're doing where we hung up here, Bob, explain this to me because I can't.

00:06:00
Speaker 4: You're one of the smartest people I know.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: Maybe you can explain this to me because no one else has been able to explain it to you.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's a lot of small and middle market teams that think that the thing is out of hand. But that's been the refrain forever, no matter how much the economic landscape has changed, the threat of a lockout, and even if it's imposed after lockouts. Historically in baseball history, you haven't lost any games after strikes, which strategically take place during seasons or just before the season begins. Then we have lost games, and in some cases lots of them. So this may be just the tactic. All right, We're going to impose a lockout technically in December of twenty twenty six. That gives us plenty of time to work this thing out. One of the problems, if that's the right word, is that Tony Clark is in a difficult position as the head of the MLB Players Association. Going all the way back to Marvin Miller, who finally got into the Baseball Hall of Fame, is one of the most significant non play in the history of the game. Marvin Miller stood fast, it wasn't a negotiating thing. It was a matter of principle. There will never be a salary cap, and Don Fear and gene Orza were just as hardline. Tony Clark doesn't want to be the first guy who yields ground on that particular issue, which was always a red line for the players. But think about it, in one form or another. The NFL, the NHL, and the NBA all have some version of a salary cap. This should now not be a holy war anymore. All the matters of principle, the players of one over time as they should have. Now this should just be a hard nosed business negotiation and not a matter of principle that can't possibly be violated no matter what else is going on. We're not going to be able to roll back the clock and the players standing on a street corner with a tin cup are having to have off season jobs. That's not going to happen. I hope the two sides can realize there's a lot of mutual interest here and let's see if we can negotiate a deal like businessmen rather than people that are on opposite sides of a holy war.

00:08:08
Speaker 5: I agreed.

00:08:08
Speaker 4: I agree with everything you said.

00:08:10
Speaker 2: Here's the problem with and I don't want to get into a debate that you'll win because you're way smarter than I am.

00:08:14
Speaker 4: Well, here's my thing. You're here.

00:08:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cap hasn't fixed anything in the other sports. It hasn't fixed basketball. It hasn't fixed the NFL, it hasn't Hockey's you can make argument hockeys worse since they went to a full cap, I mean football, they traded the players have to switch teams every year. NBA they have all these different well we have to They keep changing the rules. So you know, this guy can go back and the Celtics won.

00:08:36
Speaker 1: You can't even understand. You can't even understand why the NBA thing is. Sometimes just like, let's let's pick up sides of the schoolyard. Let's all get together, will be a team. We'll walk to the schoolyard, you know exactly. We three will walk to the schoolyard. We'll have the team. We'll take the two best guys we find there, and that's our team.

00:08:53
Speaker 4: I agree.

00:08:53
Speaker 2: So that's why I mean listen, as you know, I'm a player, so I'm going to always argue against it.

00:08:57
Speaker 4: But you know you explained it. We explained it.

00:08:59
Speaker 2: But to me, a cap is not the answer. And there's got to be a way we can make this work. And I just don't want to see any time missed. I know we're you're away. There's already dominating stuff. So like as you know someone famous one said, can we all just get along?

00:09:12
Speaker 4: Please? Like in baseball, just just get along?

00:09:16
Speaker 1: Yeah? Apparent apparently not. You know, I'm hoping. I'm hoping that relations should be better now. You know, back in the day when the owners really were screwing the players. This is a different situation now. I know it was a one off. But when Bryce Harper drops an F bomb on Manfred to whatever extent that represents a portion of the players electorate, I don't think that's a hopeful sign. You know. Uh, they have to respect the owner's position and the commission's position. They don't have to agree with it, but they they have to to view them as, if not partners, there's at least some overlap of mutual interest, and let's sit down and negotiate that. By the way, before I forget this to your earlier point, AJ, people will irrationally hate whatever they want to hate. But you're absolutely right. You look at the core of this Dodger team, Mookie Bets, Freddie Freeman, Shohey Otani, Clayton Kershaw also bound for the Hall of Fame. Dave Roberts is going to get in when you look at his overall record there's five Hall of Famers, and no rational person can say a bad word about any of them. They conduct themselves with class and complete respect for the game. People should celebrate that in this era. Yeah, it's a good call.

00:10:36
Speaker 3: Those guys are quite likable.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: I know that's that's where the rub is in this series, because Toronto has a bunch of good likable guys too. But we had Shane Bibron, he was awesome, right, We've had Max, We've had Jeff, we'vet Hoffman.

00:10:50
Speaker 4: We've had all these.

00:10:51
Speaker 3: Guys consistent winners, though, so it gives them something to root against with the Dodgers, I do believe that side of the equation.

00:10:58
Speaker 4: Bob, to take a.

00:10:59
Speaker 3: Turn here, you didn't call postseason ball for the first time in a while.

00:11:03
Speaker 1: Did you miss it? I missed a little bit being around the game, But we talked about this before, and I don't want to belabor it. If you respect the game and you respect your craft, you want to reach your standard, or at least come close to it. And I think that my standard in a number of areas, but one of them was calling baseball was pretty high and I tried as best I could, but I couldn't consistently reach that standard. If you let me edit all the games, it just put together, here's the best hour of these three. And you know, then it might have sounded just like it always did, or pretty close. But I knew I just couldn't do it as well as I wanted to anymore. You know, father time is undefeated. I can still do the other things, a number of them pretty much as well as I ever did, but I just can't. I couldn't reach that standard. And that was my own decision. No one forced me into it. There was no pressure of any kind. That was my own decision. And as I may have told you guys, I made it a year and a half before the twenty four season. As soon as the twenty three season was over with, or toward the end of that season, I said, next year will be my last one, and I was only just hoping to end on some kind of grace note that I could feel good about. You know, it's maybe a tortured analogy. I'm hoping that Clayton Kershaw gets into at least one game. I hope it's at Dodger Stadium, and I hope he sets the side down one, two, three, and it could be a lopsided game and just a mop up role. But he walks off the mound in that scenario feeling good about that moment. Now, even if he came in and gave up four straight home runs and then was pulled, that doesn't change the truth about his Hall of Fame career. But you want to feel good about the ending, and I didn't quite manage that. And it's only because of it's baseball. You know, if I had done not so well on some other assignment, I wouldn't like it because you're a professional, you care about your craft. But because it was baseball, you know, it was a little more emotional for me in that respect, and I just I wish I could have done better. But I did do my best, but my best was no longer good enough.

00:13:01
Speaker 5: Baseball is a place in everybody's heart, and you have a place in everybody's head calling games. So I appreciate that from you. And I never saw anything that was different so or heard anything that was different.

00:13:14
Speaker 1: That's nice. That's nice of you. You know, by the way, when when you know your form of players, you put yourself in a situation, whatever the game situation is that you're watching. I can't help but think, boy, Brian Anderson did a great job on that Otani call. You can't just say going, going, gone, your boilerplate call. He understood the moment and he framed it with his call. There's so many good young broadcasters. Kevin Brown who does the Orioles, he did earlier series. You the group that you were with AJ and then in that threesome. And I love the story though about getting ejected from a game. I like it when guys get anecdotal as opposed to always analytical, and you're talking about how you had to explain it to your son, like why you got to go out of the game and edit what you actually said to the umpire. I love that kind of stuff that colors baseball. And there are so many good broadcasters. Now, I don't need to take up any more space.

00:14:10
Speaker 5: All right, Well, you were watching the last series. Let's let's hear what you have to say about, anecdotally or analytically about the move that Dan Wilson made to pitch not their best two relievers and go with the Gizarno, a good reliever but not their best. What were you saying to yourself as.

00:14:31
Speaker 1: You're watching it? Not a second. Guess in the moment, I'm just sitting there right what are they doing? You've got to go to Muno's in that situation. People have been saying this forever, even in some regular season games. Why wouldn't you use your best guy when the game is on the line. There runners on second and third. Even if Munos can't finish the game, if he gets you out of that and then he pitches the eighth, okay, then you can bring somebody else in in the interim. No one ever met men this. What if we score again? What if we pad our lead a little bit? So then there's less pressure on Brash or Bizardo or whomever you bring in the game. And the series and the season are on the line right now, you have to go with your best and there is stats to show you know. This was the third time in the series that Springer had faced Bizardo. He had never faced Muno's during the series. So you guys know better than I having that second third look at a guy and his repertoire on what he's going after you with. And if you talk about a reliever, the reliever generally comes in there with two or three pitches. Max starters have have more. There are quantifiable stats to indicate that the idea of multiple looks at a pitcher definitely helps the hitter. So that's another factor in this situation. Look, Dan Wilson did a very good job got them to the cusp of the World Series, but I can't follow the rationale in not going to Muno's and that's situation.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Hey, Bob, you live in southern California, so you're part of Los Angeles, okay, because you know they like the Anaheim Angels are part of Los Angeles, Like they're not even close, but you know there's still the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which I've yet to figure out. But have you seen what's going on with them? The no air conditioning thing, one year contract for their manager, Like, do you follow it all? Because this is a great soap opera. The lawsuit thing is that's happening. I mean, this is all happening in the same time. It's it's craziness.

00:16:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're kind of a star crossed franchise. You know, they signed Albert Pooholes. He's still at his peak. He became a good player, but not a great player like he was in all those incredibly epic years with the Cardinals. They they retained Trout, they tried to some extent to retain Otani. They signed Rendon coming off a great year when the Nats won the World Series, and Rendon decides he doesn't want to play baseball anymore. You can't say that Artie Moreno wasn't trying. And then the lawsuit thing which was tossed in there. I don't know if the one year deal for Suzuki indicates that we'll see what happens after a potential lockout. It's not exactly a vote of confidence, you know. I know he's a respected guy around baseball, but when all the players have much more security than the manager does, I don't know that it helps the situation. But I'm looking at this from a distance. I don't have any insight info.

00:17:30
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00:18:33
Speaker 4: Okay, that's fair.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: That's fair because we're before you, before you spoke to us like God in our headsets, we were kind of digging into it, so you know, we have to go back to it after you get off. So we wanted to get God's thoughts on that too, all right, before we speaking of God, used to.

00:18:46
Speaker 4: Work for NBC back back in this ya.

00:18:49
Speaker 2: You used to do the NBA and it was kind of when I was growing up, it was Jordan, and before that it was Magic and Larry and that whole thing. But Jordan was kind of the guy that like kind of took the NBA to the next Your thoughts on him doing broadcasting because he kicked it off the other night and he sat down to the story he gave about having to shoot the free throw and being nervous.

00:19:09
Speaker 4: I thought was awesome, And I know Michael, You know, Michael. How cool is it that he's going to be on TV telling kind of his mindset.

00:19:16
Speaker 1: It's really cool. I think the way they're going to use him and this is the smart way to use him. Mike Tariko went down to Florida and interviewed him for like two hours, and they'll release a lot of that in little three and four minute chunks like they did on the first game on Tuesday night. What you want him for is historical overview. You don't want him to break down the first half. Someone else can do that at halftime. But you want his view on how the game has changed. You want to pose this kind of question to him, I would think, and maybe Mike did somewhere along the line. If the Bulls at their peak play the Warriors at their peak? Who guards Curry and who guards you? Then you move to the edge of your seat to hear Jordan's answer. You don't want to waste Michael Jordan's time by saying the Celtics had a cold shooting first half, what should they do in the second half? The zillion guys who can analyze that. You want the stories and and the the insight from a big picture perspective. For Michael Jordan, I wouldn't expect except maybe on the conference finals. Uh espn ABC has the finals, but NBC has the conference finals. Except for the conference finals, I wouldn't expect to see Michael at the scene at all. I think he'll just, you know, do something from a distance if he does it, and the great majority of what he'll do, at least during the regular season is already in the can. In that long interview he did with Tariko, that's a good call.

00:20:41
Speaker 4: Look, it was awesome.

00:20:42
Speaker 2: If you saw that interview, it was awesome where he's like, I had to shoot free throws. I sold my but he said he sold his house and the guy or something and he had to shoot a free throw for this kid, and he's like, I was shaking in my boots.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: It was aj aj, you're you're connected to one of my few public athletic moments because you couldn't you couldn't turn my wild pitch, which really could have been a pass ball. You couldn't snare it. Okay, this reminds me we're talking about Jordan. This is the truth. And there were witnesses. Larry Bird Night at Boston Garden nineteen ninety two or ninety three. So I'm the MC. There's no game, but Boston Garden's completely sold out. Magic Johnson shows up as a surprise. All of Bird's Celtic teammates are there through the years. So we do a rehearsal in the afternoon at the garden. And now I'm walking off and there's a rack of balls and I say, toss me the balls. We're gonna shoot some free throws. I hit ten for ten and walked off. I have very few highlights. That's one of them. Ten for ten hours before Larry Birdnight.

00:21:48
Speaker 2: Wait, did anyone see this, because that's like me saying I played golf and I made a hole in one.

00:21:52
Speaker 4: But I was playing by myself.

00:21:54
Speaker 1: So yes, there were witnesses. There were witnesses. I'm sure they would sign an Affi David.

00:22:00
Speaker 4: All right, the DA in NDA. They signed in DA.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: In fairness, In fairness. I was at the University of Indiana a couple of years ago, I had a niece who was graduating, and so I went to the arena there with their sports information guy and we're chatting, and I said, Hey, I haven't shot a long time. Let me take ten. And I only made five. So I was hot on bird Night, but thirty years later I wasn't close to it. Was good.

00:22:29
Speaker 4: Ten for ten though, And you walk yes or no, Bob? Were you doing the Olympics.

00:22:35
Speaker 1: No? No, not not in Milan, not the Winter Olympics, you know, with the with the domestic Olympics in twenty twenty eight, you know, I think that NBC will lean into some of the nostalgia of it. I would assume that almost every prominent American Summer Olympian would be there. You expect to see Michael Phelps there, and Simone Biles and Carl Lewis and all that sort of stuff. And I would imagine, just as they'll do with the NBA, that they'll lean into some of their broadcasting history. So, assuming I'm still upright, and sometimes people can't tell when I'm upright, I'm sitting now, but if I'm still able to do it, I would imagine that I might drop by now and then in twenty eight in Los Angeles.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: Good, I know who to call for tickets, and I wanted to know, so I wanted to do yes.

00:23:22
Speaker 3: But Bobby look great. So it's always a pleasure. You know, we appreciate it. I know that we are we are to do with how we do the show and all of that.

00:23:32
Speaker 1: So thanks for That's just because that's Scott. That's because I'm technophobic. You know, I had a flip phone until seven or eight years ago, so I can't figure anything out except for a simple zoom. So that was my only condition. I'll do the show anytime you guys ask, but it has to be on a simple zoom and before we run here just the thought the last time I was on, which was before the season started, And you know, you can't place too much credence in comments, but foolishly I looked at some of the comments after that appearance, and I guess this is just natural. One of the subjects was Soto and then also Otani, and people infer wrongly that because you work for MLB network, you're automatically just chirping a party line. But anyone that knows anything about me knows that I've always said whatever I think politely, I hope, But when interviewing commissioners or whatever it is, my opinions are my own. They're not something that's issued from the commissioner's office. So when I had said a year before that that it's good for baseball that Otani signed with the Dodgers, that's just true overall. Look at what he's brought to the game overall. If he was in a smaller market, just figured to say that some way there was a way that a smaller market could entice him to be there. Then you don't get the ripple effect. And now it's more than a ripple effect. He's going to get booed. In Toronto. People thought that I and others were dissing the Blue Jays because apparently they were in the mix for Otani, like oh you know Canada, or oh you don't like the Blue Jays, or oh you're in the dodgers hip pocket. No, it's an objective assessment of what this means, not just for the Dodgers, but for baseball. This is good for baseball overall. No one's Michael Jordan. But when Michael Jordan was at his peak in the nineties, the other teams in the NBA should have chipped in and helped the Bulls pay his salary because he was good for the league, not just good for the Bulls. Otani is good for baseball, not just in America but internationally, and now that Toronto's in it, that's good for baseball internationally. And let them boo their lungs out. Luckily for him, he's going to start at Dodger Stadium, but they're still going to have to contend with him at the plate. So you know, one of the things I'm just I just like to talk baseball. You can stop me whatever you want. When people talked about when people talked about what's comparable to the three homer game and the six shutout endings with the ten strikeouts, there's nothing directly comparable. And the postseason and the spotlight matters. But as you guys know, Rick Wise once pitched a no hitter that was a near perfect game. Only one guy reached and he hit two home runs in the game. Still doesn't match with Tani, but that never comes up in this conversation. The other one would be Gibson pitching perfect game in nineteen sixty seven to win it for the Cardinals in game seven at Fenway Park. So he pitches a complete game. It's this third complete game of the series, all three of them wins, and he hits a homer at Fenway Park. He was a good hitting pitcher. But just citing those things, as remarkable as they are, is proof. You know, Poohol's going five for six in a World Series game in twenty eleven and three of them are homers. All those incredible things. Reggie hitting three homers on the pitch first pitch three times in the last game in seventy seven, as great as all those things are. Well, Tani Trump's the Hall.

00:26:49
Speaker 3: That was the beauty and it was a good history lesson. We did segments on it just to bring up the amazing feats in baseball in the past.

00:26:56
Speaker 4: We do have to jump.

00:26:56
Speaker 3: You're right, I'm getting the producer.

00:27:00
Speaker 4: This was great.

00:27:00
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

00:27:01
Speaker 4: We need to make you a regular on here so we can put them back. Now.

00:27:04
Speaker 3: We got the now, we got the zoom and the iPad set up. We're going to go now.

00:27:07
Speaker 1: Yea happen a hundred people call my people?

00:27:10
Speaker 4: You got it? Sorry, thanks bothering the series.

00:27:15
Speaker 1: See you guys.