San Diego Padres, The Bandwagon Curse and Unwritten Rules | The Bandwagon
This week Hannah Keyser tells you why you should root for the San Diego Padres and their ascendant 21-year-old superstar SS Fernando Tatis Jr. Plus: Her takes on unbuttoned jerseys, The Bandwagon curse and questionable unwritten rules of baseball.
Video Transcript
HANNAH KEYSER: OK, you can be on this side, but you got to sit down. My grandmother is convinced that cats kill babies. I always thought that was outrageous. And now we have the world's largest cat, and I'm like, he might.
I'm Hannah Keyser, and this is The Bandwagon. Thank you.
Last week we had a lot of fun with the idea that a group of Marlins players even more anonymous and cobbled together than the original opening day lineup was winning-- at least, more than that intro might lead you to believe-- with heart and pluck and a schedule that features a disproportionate number of game against the Mets. And that idea of getting in on the ground floor of a team with low expectations and a high ceiling, whose success feels in some way related to your newfound enthusiasm, is sort of the whole appeal of bandwagoning. But maybe you want a slightly higher long-term return on investment than getting emotionally involved a B-list fish.
Well, that's why this week, we're bandwagoning the Padres.
- Padres! Yeah!
- Fathers.
- Oh yeah. Come on.
- Come on in. Plenty of room on the Friar faithful bandwagon right now.
- We'll make it worth your while.
- Yeah, we'll definitely do that.
- Plenty of space.
- Let's figure out the Padres.
HANNAH KEYSER: That's the voice of broadcast legend and semi-professional laugh track Don Orsillo. It was a goddamn shame. When NESN broke up Orsillo and Jerry Remy, but ultimately, much sadder for Red Sox fans-- who have since run out of reasons not to hate their team-- than it was for Orsillo himself, who landed in San Diego, a city with literally perfect weather, and also the Padres.
Orsillo is talking about bandwagoning because that's what this team specifically inspires. After decades of total irrelevance-- they weren't just bad during 21 seasons since they last won a playoff series. They were boring, too-- the Padres had a full rebrand in the past few years, complete with high-profile free agent signings. And while defensive highlight reel Manny Machado and all the Disney princes combined into one face Eric Hosmer haven't exactly lived up to that hype, it turns out that brown and yellow isn't the sewer system color scheme it sounds like. In fact, it looks pretty sweet in pinstriped form, especially when you're doing this.
Fernando Tatis Jr is the subject of multiple glowing profiles that attempt to capture in quotes and anecdotes the 21-year-old shortstop's once-in-a-generation greatness and how it just might save the game itself. And that's just in the past two weeks. Every league-leading home run is an instant gif, and still, the commercials for MLB Network tout his speed on the base paths. It only makes sense at this point that he was the first player in Major League history to hit 30 home runs and steal 20 bases in his first 100 career games. Oh yeah, he's just barely played 100 career games so far, and already, rumors are swirling about what kind of extension he can command.
Right now, Tatis's biggest problem is that his own manager thinks he should tone it down a little and be less good so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. And to that I say, well, Mr. Jayce Tingler, you were lucky that I don't think anyone-- not even if they've spinelessly capitulated to a retrograde at best and racist at worst position for the sake of what, self-sabotaging your star player, your team, and the future of the sport in which you built a career-- should be mocked for their ridiculous name. Tatis has the swag and star power to hopefully make a generation raised on instant gratification buy into the idea that baseball can be cool and even exciting, despite an average about four minutes of buffering time between action.
But finishing above .500 for the first time in a decade-- that's the Padres-- will take more than just one dude. Luckily, the Padres added Jake Cronenworth, a Minor Leaguer not ranked on anyone's top 100 prospect lists that they throw in with Tommy Pham in a trade this offseason. In camp, the cool thing about Cronenworth was his potential as a two-way player. He pitches and plays shortstop.
The expanded rosters have kept Cronenworth off the mound this year. As we've established, the Padres have a pretty good shortstop. And so instead, he's been mixing it up with time at second base and third base, and actually, mostly first base, a position that he hadn't played since college. It's going pretty well.
- Lined at-- caught at first by Cronenworth. He goes up and brings it down.
HANNAH KEYSER: Those plays were all made with Matt Stairs's old glove, which Cronenworth had been borrowing via Wil Myers, while testing the limits of just how versatile one guy can be. I mean, check out these dance moves, Also, Chris Paddack is manifesting his last name as a living pun by making full cowboy cosplay look cool. Actually, I'm not sure he's making it look cool, so much as no one's going to tell these days-- otherwise.
Root for the Padres. Welcome to the ground floor of one of baseball's most fun, most promising teams, if you like it here consider sending flowers or a fruit basket to Rick Hahn.
All right, now we're going to do fan, not a fan.
- Unbuttoned baseball jerseys.
HANNAH KEYSER: OK, multiple people have been doing this. And most notably, Clayton Kershaw--
- Show us your chest.
HANNAH KEYSER: This seems not in keeping with his personality, right? It was wide open, and he had no chest hair. His pecs stand out, so that's-- he looks like some plastic Ken doll pec [BLEEP]. Like, it's just totally smooth. And that's fine for him.
- Real men have chest hair.
HANNAH KEYSER: Fan.
- Bandwagon jinx.
HANNAH KEYSER: How are the Marlins doing?
- I don't know if Bo Bichette is on the IL.
HANNAH KEYSER: Oh, I know. Oh my god, what if something happens to Fernando Tatis Jr?
- The curse is real.
HANNAH KEYSER: I will be so conflicted. I will feel so powerful, and that would be amazing. And it will be sad for everybody else. But mostly great for me. That would be amazing
- You would have superpowers.
HANNAH KEYSER: Fan.
- Everyone's getting hurt, but I have superpowers. People born in 2000.
HANNAH KEYSER: The very first baseball player born in 2000 hit a home run. Not the very first baseball player to be born in 2000, but the very first of that cohort to hit a homerun did so this week. That's fine. Lots of people were like, oh my god, this makes me feel so old. No. What makes you feel old is the fact that you're [BLEEP] old. It's not his fault. Fan.
- Paper straws.
HANNAH KEYSER: So, everyone has a bad take, and my worst one is that I love straws. For a while, that was fine. You could have plastic straws, now you can't have plastic straws because they're bad for the planet, which is true. Global warming is probably the crisis of our generation, even more so than fascism.
So, we all switched to using paper straws, which on the one hand, it's very confusing, because I thought we weren't supposed to be wasting paper-- save the trees. Also, they [BLEEP] suck. They disintegrate. If you just, like, lick a piece of paper over and over again, it loses structural integrity. And then, we put it soaking in your beverage. Also bad.
I don't like the mental ones, either. They feel gross, and we have to get the little teeny tiny squeegee to clean out the insides of them. Bad. Bamboo straws are cool. It is tough to find a good, sustainable straw, but not so tough that we shouldn't do it, because think of the polar bears. Paper straws, not a fan. Other sustainable straws, fan.
All right. We're doing baseball on the Bird It's-- (SINGING) Is that it? Did I get it right?
- Nailed it.
[TRUMPET FANFARE]
[METAL BAT]
[BIRDS TWEETING]
HANNAH KEYSER: Apparently, the self-evident greatness of Fernando Tatis Jr's Monday night grand slam against the Rangers caused a bit of a stir and some dissension over whether or not it's a good idea to hit grand slams whenever you can. The Padres were already up by seven runs in the eighth inning when Tatis swung in a 3-0 count to put the game away. Rangers manager-- understandably-- Chris Woodward was not thrilled and specifically cited the unwritten rules of baseball-- that don't actually say this because they're not written down anywhere-- but apparently implied that you're not supposed to do that. And then Padres manager Jayce Tingler also took the position that really hot hitters should settle for walking in a run because that'll make the opposing pitcher feel less embarrassed. Even Tatis apologized under duress.
You know who hasn't heard of this unwritten rule, which-- while still unclear on its precise parameters, seems tailor-made to strip the game of its most viral moments-- opposing pitchers. Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez tweeted, 3-0 counts rule. Side eye, side eye. You just have to pitch better if you don't want that to happen. I never see that rule, and I take myself as an example because I'm the king, guy with a crown, guy with a crown, of 3-0 counts. Shrugging man, shrugging man.
[LAUGHTER]
- Like my mom reading Twitter.
HANNAH KEYSER: Amir Garrett went with a simple, I don't follow unwritten rules, ellipsis. Collin McHugh provided a whole tutorial on how pitchers should prepare for aggressive hitters. Swinging in a 3-0 count should not be against any rules, no matter the score. Before a game, I would always look up to see what percentage guys swings 3-0. If it's over 20%, it means I just can't grove one. The guys who will never just give you a pitch at the plate are the toughest ABs. Good point.
And Pirates pitcher Joe Musgrove offered up his thoughts. Quote, "You can't sit in the dugout. You can't take your mask off. You're not allowed to high five. You can't sit next to anyone. No spitting. Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot." An extra dot. "All rules that suck. Guys that will hack it in any count are the most dangerous ones."
And I don't know what he's trying to say. He might just be anti-rules, like, altogether, which is not the message of this particular segment by any means--
- Let it burn.
HANNAH KEYSER: But I think he ends up on Tatis's side. Just goes to show you. Even opposing pitchers think that that unwritten is dumb.
- It's dumb.
HANNAH KEYSER: This week, we are rooting for the Padres, who are primarily fun because of Fernando Tatis Jr, who provides more fun than apparently anyone can even handle. And he should not let them tell him to do anything differently than he already is. In fact, I hope he manages to drive in five runs with one swing while his team is up by 10 runs, and the count is 4-0, and we're in the 15th inning, somehow.
- Take that, stodgy old baseball rules.
