Champagne Socialists, The China Iran Axis, And MLB Opening Day | The Big Ben Show

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All right, boys and girls.

Welcome back to another edition of The Big Ben Show.

I'm your host Ben Dominic.

Follow me on X at B Dominic.

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of the clips, updates and other things that we like you to see that I

do on Fox across the week.

Today, I want to talk to you about one of the things that I had an

opportunity to chat about this week with my friend John Roberts.

And that's this brigade of leftists, particularly organized by the

Democratic Socialists that went down to visit Cuba.

It is a who's who of all the red idiots who are involved in this

movement, including the likes of Hassan Piker, the daughter of Ilhan

Omar and a host of other people from code pink and other related

organizations all going down to Cuba to protest against what the

Americans are doing to them.

This despite, of course, the normalization that President Obama did

back in the day, which was supposed to make everything all better.

They're doing this in the context, of course, of increasing threats and

concerns on the parts of Cuba that there is going to be an effort made

by the American government leading led by Donald Trump and by Marco

Rubio to actually change our relationship with Cuba, leaning into the

so-called Don Roe doctrine that is designed to establish America's

interests in the Western hemisphere.

It is against this that all of these different leftists went down

there to propose their alternate agenda, which is just doubling down on

communism. And of course, they had to do it in style.

It was like rolling blackouts of take place throughout the day, every

day, all around the country, right? 11 million people. But today's

a beautiful day out here. It's like 75 degrees sunny. People are

partying. People are partying the streets there. I don't know if it's

like a island mindset. I don't know if it's like, I don't know if

that has something to do with it. I'm sure that has something to do

with it, but like, they're just chilling. Like

the argument that Piker and his friends, who all of course were

also part of the influencer campaign to support Zoran mom Donnie, is

that the fault of everything when it comes to the Cuban's

situation is the United States. That it's the fact that we have this

type of trade embargo that we've had, even though Cuba trades

with other places all around the world, that it's that embargo with

United States that is to blame for the rolling blackouts for all the

challenges that they face. Otherwise, life would just be one

grand big rolling party. And that's the kind of thing that you

believe if you're a communist or an idiot. But I repeat myself,

that it's the height of of of hubris for someone like Piker to

complain as he did about the five star hotels that they were

staying at in Cuba not being as good as the five star hotels in

America, all while wearing $1,500 Cartier glasses, a $3,000

Cartier ring, and a $700 Guyabara. That's the kind of

champagne socialist that really leans into the champagne part of

it. So we're returning from Cuba to the United States with

heavy hearts because we've seen such conditions that people are

living in where they have to figure out what they're going to

feed their kids that day, how they're going to get to work. The

lights are always going off, not a drop of gas and fuel has come

into this country for now three and a half months. It's

unbelievable to see it's like they're taking them by the

neck and pushing a tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter. And

people are exhausted. And so we're leaving thinking that what

our government is doing is just so cool. And we want to go

back and get people more active to oppose this policy that's

being run by a small group in southern Florida that pretends

they care about the Cuban people actually don't give a about

the Cuban people. So it was a very, very profound trip. And I

think people are going back with a lot to say and do about

the response. If you actually give a bit about the Cuban

people, then you think that they should be free and shouldn't be

required to live under a communist regime that so many of

them have escaped or tried to escape over the past several

decades. And that small group of people that she's talking

about is actually a giant group of Cubans who made it to

America, some of whom by the way are in the US Senate or

occupying the position of Secretary of State who have

connections with the island that obviously inform their

opinions much more than one media Benjamin. But to understand

the kind of level of foolishness that we're putting up with

when you're defending a regime that has so clearly failed its

people, you need only listen to the kinds of of reactions that

they're representative spout when they get on American TV.

You say you're not responsible putting this blockade aside

though Mr. Deputy Foreign Minister human rights groups have

reported that nearly 90% of your citizens live in extreme

poverty, nearly 80% of your citizens intend to emigrate has

your system of communism failed the people of Cuba.

I, I don't know which are your sources and which are the

human rights organizations like claims such.

I just don't know where you're getting your figures lady, you

know 80% of our people want to leave. I don't know, you know,

maybe, you know, I guess I guess I have to find out at the

point of the gun. No, look, the, the simple fact is that we

have seen the failure of the Cuban regime. We've seen the

way that it's failed its people. We continue to see it. And as

much as a sunpiker and code pink and all the rest of these

idiots would like to lay the blame for that at the feet of

America. The truth is that it is at the feet of communism at

the, that comes at the end of the socialism that they

advocate for here in America, but would be very frustrated if

they actually had to live under that kind of regime. You're

listening to another edition of the Big Ben Show, I'm your

host Ben Dominic. We'll be back with more right after this.

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grow at meta.com slash community. Happy to welcome back to the

Big Ben Show, Michael Sobalic. He is senior fellow at the

Hudson Institute, the author of countering China's greatest

game, and you can follow him on x at Michael Sobalic. I

wanted to talk to you about a number of things related to this

coverage that I keep hearing across the airwaves, including

my very smart people that are talking about the way that the

current Iran conflict, whether we're calling it a war today or

not, I haven't been updated, is affecting China. How it is

affecting China, what China's relationship is actually like

today with Iran and with the lessons that are being taken away

from it, particularly about Taiwan. First off, let's just

get this out of the way. How close is the relationship really

between the Chinese and the Iranians at this point? Are they as close

as perhaps they used to be? It's they're close, but it's not

an equal relationship. So let's unpack that. In 2021,

Tehran and Beijing inked this 400 on paper, a 400 billion dollar

deal, which, let's be real, was a lifeline for the regime in

Tehran. And it was basically Beijing saying, we're going to

bankroll your strategic existence to help you weather the

storm of sanctions from the United States. And in exchange,

we're going to get discounted oil. And we're going to help you

fund your proxies in the Middle East that target the

Israelis and by extension and indirectly the Americans and

the free world. So it's been a mutual beneficial

relationship for both sides. Beijing's play by backing and

supporting Iran for years now has been in large part to keep

the United States tied down in a region that is quite easy

to get tied down into. And we would know a thing or two about

the history of being tied down in the Middle East. China's

like, we're going to pull that lever. We're going to

in Indonesia. That's right. We're going to pull that lever

and we're going to make sure that you guys always have to watch

your Middle East flank because of the United States.

There's less bandwidth to focus in the end of Pacific, which is

where the main real China threat is militarily. So that's been

their gambit and China, like I mentioned a few seconds ago,

they get discounted oil from it. And this is important to

talk about, particularly with what happened in Venezuela

earlier this year, because if you rack and stack

Venezuela's and Iran's oil exports to China,

it means a lot for those two countries. Like, I think Iran has

been sending somewhere like 90% of its oil to China. It's a

huge number of Venezuela, very substantial too. China

depends on those two countries for around 20% or so of its oil

maybe a little less. So it's not great for China what we have

done in Venezuela or Iran. They can also use their reserves

and Russia, maybe some other exporters to backstop that.

The real challenge for China is going to be if the

straight of Hormuz remains shut down and their

gold partners that they also buy oil from can't reliably and

quickly get shipments to market at appropriate volume.

That will be tricky for China in a few weeks or a few months.

So we'll see how that story plays out. But at least for now,

it's a nuisance for China. One that for the moment, they

should be able to weather. The questions about

that proximity are ones that came up in addition with the

decision by President Trump to delay the planned meeting with

Xi that he said is because we're in the midst of this

conflict, I need to be here. What kind of thing do you

expect to happen when that meeting does occur in terms of a

conversation about Iran and is there any possibility

this is something that I am particularly concerned about

that if at the stage that this conversation happens with Xi,

the situation does not look like one that is going well

in terms of what the Israelis and the United States are attempting to do

that markets are still nervous, that things have not improved.

If that conversation ends up happening, is there a concern that the Chinese could use

this as an opportunity to basically present themselves as being able to broker

some kind of deal to end the conflict? One that might involve

hypothetically up Chinese military presence in the

straight-of-form moves or something along those lines.

So this is something that China has tried to do in Ukraine.

Yes. They have they've put themselves for you. You anticipated where I was going.

Yes, they've Beijing tries so hard diplomatically, they've tried

and Zelensky has been like, thank you for your interest in

in my piece, but I'm not interested in your solutions.

So I mean, if Xi Jinping pitches that, I do not expect Donald Trump

to reply with much interest. I expect that he will not.

I also expect, though, that there will be some people

publicly who express the feeling that he should. Certainly people on the outskirts of the

administration and then others in the critics and the media who will

be seeking an offering. Well, it's interesting,

speaking of outskirts of the administration, it was just a few days ago

in a conversation with the economist that Tucker Carlson said that we need to

make our peace with viewing China as an equal partner geopolitically

and cooperating with them and making some compromises with them.

So that thinking is out there. I expect others to echo it in the future.

Here are some of the headlines that I have in front of me.

What Iran crisis is teaching Taiwan about war with China?

The US-Iran conflict has brought renewed focus on the central role of

air defense systems and concerns, especially being watched, especially

closely in Taiwan, where the government aims to complete its T-dome,

multilatered air defense network next year.

And let's say US strikes on Iran, empower China's ambitions for Taiwan.

The US military action gives, this is Taiwan news,

against Iran gives China more room to pursue its ambitions toward Taiwan.

Here's Charlie Campbell in writing in time with a sort of opposing view.

The Iran war is distracted and depleted the US military, but it may also have

saved Taiwan basically by demonstrating what we can do with air power.

Taiwan worries over US support to counter China.

Taiwan, this is concerned by a depletion of US

missile stocks during Iran war depleting stocks of long-range cruise missiles that would be

vital for the US to help defeat any Chinese invasion.

Lots of talk about this cut through and tell me what the truth is in terms of the reaction

from Taiwan. Is this something where they're impressed by the capabilities when it comes to air power?

They're impressed by some of the things that we've been able to achieve?

Is it one that makes them worried because we're depleting our resources?

Is it all of the above? Are all these different tanks that I keep seeing come across my screen

correct on some level?

Taiwan publicly and I think genuinely is happy and grateful that the United States is demonstrating

its force and willingness to use force. During the Ukraine war, the Taiwanese vice president

had this big op-ed in the Washington Post saying this is good for our security because it signals

to China that the United States will follow through on threats by backing partners,

by backing Ukraine with armsales. In this case, they've been publicly supportive as well because

we're doing more than backing with armsales, we're actually fighting a war.

Let's unpack this though. There are two ways to measure this. There's intent and there's capability.

On the intent side, this does send a deterrent message to China because it signals that when we

make a threat and an adversary doesn't respect it, we're going to follow through an executing

that threat. That's good for deterrents. On the capability side, it is hard not to notice that

Indo-Pay Com is being depleted and those resources, those missiles, those ships, and those interceptors

are being sent to sent Com for this war against Iran. Not only are the Taiwanese clocking that,

the Chinese are clocking that because I know for a fact in their conversations with the Trump

administration, with officials there, they are asking them, how are your stockpiles and the

Indo-Pacific doing right now with this war you're fighting. Everyone sees this. Ideally,

in grand strategy, you want your capabilities and your intent to be aligned and not fighting against

each other. This is the real world. Life is complicated. America is a global power with global

interest, which means we're pulled in a lot of different directions at the same time. The biggest

challenge we have ahead of us is making sure that our capabilities are such that they can match our

intent and our will, which means we need to have a defense buildup right now.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated last week that U.S. forces fired

786 JSSMs and 319 Tomahawk missiles in the first six days of the Iran War, several years of

production in both cases. How do we step up that production? If we accept your argument,

I accept your argument, certainly, that if we want to be able to have the force to match

the decision-making of policymakers and particularly the President, how long of a timeline do we

really have to do that, just given how quickly these things go once you start using them?

Years. This is going to be a multi-year project to build up, not just a reconstitute what we've

already fired, but to build up what we need to deter the People's Liberation Army in China.

This will not be measured in weeks or months. These high-end platforms that you need in the

early days of award to establish air superiority and to take out the Iranian Navy, which we did quite

quickly, these platforms are not cheap and they take years to develop and we need to view this

as a multi-political cycle process that need both parties bought in.

What you're talking about, basically, is that we're using up a lot of the same things that we

would use in a potential hypothetical China fight to do something that is a war of the President's

choosing. He did make the decision to do what was necessary here from his perspective,

but do you think that the people involved, the planners involved, knowing how long they've

been planning this and how long they've been wargaming it? Do you think that they had a full

grasp of how quickly they would run through these things? Because one thing that I do know from

talking to Mike Gallagher and others in the past is that when they were running wargames for

members of Congress, they were shocked at how quickly you're out of it. You don't have anything

else and that simply took them aghast, at least according to the Congressman and to others

that I've spoken to. Do you think that it was internal recognition? Once you pull the trigger on

this, we're going to run through stuff at the stock a lot quicker than the general public understands?

Yes. I think this was one of the big warnings of the joint chiefs who were sending to the President

while deliberations were underway about munitions, high-end in particular. One thing that gives me

some comfort is that in the early days, yes, they're using a lot of tomahawks, a lot of high-end

stuff. Now, because they have air superiority, we're sending like eight tens over the

sides in Iran. Yeah, I think it's so funny because people, the layperson tunes in and they hear

that and they're like, oh, that sounds awesome. And I hear it and you hear it and it's like,

oh my gosh, that is one slow-moving target. Precisely. Eight tens are loud and slow.

So, if you can send them over enemy territory, you have accomplished something impressive.

With that understanding and with the fact that they were sending that message, how feasible is

this? Because the truth is, there's going to be, we're two and a half years away from another

President who's going to be making decisions in a world that has been dramatically changed by

Donald Trump, but is also going to be confronting one in which many of the same concerns remain.

We're not going to, I think, solve the China problem by the end of this term. So, given that,

how quickly can this actually be done and done effectively?

For the Iran problem set, I'm optimistic that the President can get something concluded that's

favorable for the United States as long as it's a viable political solution to the problem of

radical Islamist running the country. So, the Venezuelan model probably will not work in Iran.

There has to be something longer lasting. I'm hopeful and cautiously optimistic that he can get

that done, but on the China front, which is what I think you're really asking about, this has to

be viewed as an investment in America's strategic leadership because this will not get much like

our weapons problem. This is not going to get solved in weeks or months or in one or two

election cycles. This is the second Cold War. This is the 21st century overriding strategic

challenge for our generation. How much do you think that, well, how much do you believe that

the people who care about this type of issue wish that they could have the last decade back

in terms of being able to build up our military and recover from the amount that it had become hollowed

out during the wars of attrition in Iraq and in Afghanistan? All the time. It goes even deeper

than that. Not just can we have those weapons back, can we get those supply chains back that we

allowed to leave our shores and our allies shores because we were more concerned about lowering

consumer prices. That is a decision that history will look back on us and will judge the generation

of American leadership harshly that made those decisions. We're trying to edit undue,

control Z, our way through all of these problems right now. This is kind of a theme and

been in all these questions that we're talking about right now. These challenges are massive

and the time horizon to fix them is not short. We can do this. I want to be optimistic here. We

can fix these problems, but it will take time. One thing that I think people also lack the

understanding of, and though if they listen to this show, they've heard me go on about it at length,

is just how incapable our allies are when it comes to this type of thing. They just don't have

anything close to the resources that we do and they don't have, in many cases, functional

navies and the ability to protect power in any kind of real way. It's nice to have the Europeans

come along for the ride here and there on certain things, but they really just don't have that

power projection. I think that part of the problem here is that Americans hear this and they

are probably naturally going to go back to the idea of, well, can we really afford to be the

world's policeman? Can we really afford this type of thing when we are trillions in debt,

when we have the kind of challenges that we have domestically, which gives a lot of truck,

I think, to the argument that we just have to write off Taiwan. It's not something that we're

going to fight and die for. It's not something we want Americans to fight and die for,

and we shouldn't be, if this is going to be something that takes years, we should be spending

that money back here at home. What do you say to that argument? Two things. Number one, we should not

so quickly forget how integrated we are with the world and if we forget, look at COVID. COVID

came from China, and maybe I'm being too glad, but I feel like we've kind of memory hold the

pandemic in 2026 at this point. We don't want to remember it because of how horrible and how

stupid it was, but I understand, yes, you can't treat it like a bad movie. That's right, that's right.

As understandable as that impulse says, because let's not forget where it came from,

and neither the Biden administration or, frankly, the second Trump administration has held China

accountable for starting this thing because they've been more concerned with the trade agenda,

which is a problem. But more specifically with Taiwan, why does this matter for America? It

matters for a few reasons. Number one, when you wake up in the morning and you open your refrigerator,

if you have a smart refrigerator, if you have a new car that has a lot of fancy chips and magnets

inside of it, your daily life as an American depends on technology that is made in Taiwan and

is made of nowhere else on the planet, but in Taiwan with these high-end chips, if you use AI

anytime in your life, the chips powering these frontier models are made in Taiwan and are made

in nowhere else in the world. So that's one reason. Second reason is just for military concerns.

Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait, you could argue is an even more important choke point than the

Strait of Hormuz with Iran because of this tech element with these small AI chips that come from Taiwan.

If China ever goes after Taiwan because of our commitments to Japan, it's a high probability

something is going to happen to an American base or a service member somewhere over there.

And that should matter for us not just because our promises matter to allies,

but let's be real here. Taiwan is a democratic country that loves freedom. And that in and of

itself to be clear is not enough just because they love democracy. We need to go five of them. That's

not sufficient, but it matters. And when you take all those three things together, there's an

ideological affinity, their allied interests, and the technology we, meaning we, like American people,

depend on every single day come specifically from this location in the world. That's like the size

of New Jersey and the population of Maryland. It's a very important dot in the world that it's

kind of like the like the Berlin Wall, I guess, in the Cold War. It's this dividing line that matters a

lot. I watched, of course, with amusement when the president was greeting the Japan delegation.

How good is our relationship with the Japanese at this particular juncture? And how concerned are

they that this, that either the Iran conflict or the expenditure of our resources or something

like that is will presage a movement toward Taiwan? Japan right now is doing what we have begged our

allies to do for years, which is to be more vocal about the China threat to stand up and talk about

and they're doing it. And they're doing it in ways related, not just in general, but related to

Taiwan in particular. And again, this is where like visual cues, like something as simple as a map,

makes sense of everything. If you look at Japan, we tend to think of it as the big main island,

but that's like the southernmost archipelago of Japan is freaking close to Taiwan. And if China ever

against Taiwan, all of this supply chains for Japan, a lot of Japan's trade, but also their oil

from the straight-of-form news, all of that could be threatened by China quite easily. And as

regards to America, if they have Taiwan, they have open sea access with their submarines to the

Pacific Ocean, which they do not have right now, we can track what China's military is doing under

sea because we have that first island chain locked down. If we lose it, it's harder to track what

they're doing. Japan knows all of this, so that's why they're speaking up more than they ever have

been recently. The attitudes, I think, of Americans when it comes to these conflicts is, I've said,

is entirely dependent on success. The Venezuela raid, the exfiltration of Maduro and everything else

that came afterwards, you saw the opinion of the American people go up, meaning they went from

skeptics to being, oh, that worked. Yes, of course I support it, kind of thing. If the Iran conflict

is viewed as either, let's say not a positive, meaning it could be either a negative or it's

something where people are basically like, sure, we killed a lot of what seems like to be religious

radicals, but are they really all that different now? And they'll be having their firing off missiles

again in two, three years anyway. Let's say that's kind of the result. Does that degrade the argument

to defend Taiwan? Or is it something where people need to kind of lean in and say, Taiwan is

actually more important even than what we're looking at in the Iranian situation? Is this an argument

that you feel that you're going to have to have if the Iran conflict does not have a positive end?

If it ends poorly, this will be more than a conversation. It will be a hotly contested debate.

And one, that frankly, Americans would be right to question. I think it's so easy for Washington,

swamp, beltway types to be really overconfident about high in the sky issues like grand strategy

and to not take the time to realize, no, for like, for like 99% of Americans, they view this rationally.

I don't know about you. I mean, you know, I talk all the time to my barber about a rules-based

international order. A true man of the people. Yeah, the point is taken. But look,

is that an argument that people who believe that we need to have a posture that is ready to

confront the China threat, that they are able to make and prepared to make to a populist that could

become far more skeptical in the aftermath of Iran being something that, you know, for the

effect of the average American, just made their gas prices go up by a dollar.

No, I'm not convinced that they're prepared at all to make that case. Partially because it's

difficult to talk about and explain AI and these tiny chips that power these models and let alone

to talk about the export controls that make Taiwan so precious and meaningful, that's really

hard to talk about in message if you're a politician. Number one, number two, the hangover from Iraq

and Afghanistan is still so strong. And if the Iran issue does not go well, the Iran war there

does not go well, it's going to be an uphill climb. And what you need, and speaking of former

Congressman Mike Gallagher, he has made this case a lot of times that for transformative foreign

policies, you need two things. You need a spark like a crisis, unfortunately, historically for

America, you need a crisis and you need transcendent leadership in that moment to unite not only the

political parties, but the people behind a shared vision of what to do. And I do not see that

transcendent political leadership for that education, for that unity. I see us as maybe more

divided now than we have been recently. There's a running line within the media space from back in

the 2010s that everybody was saying from the sort of buzz feeds of the world, oh, we're pivoting

to video. Is in terms of assessment, is the pivot to Asia basically about as dead and fully,

like more of a memeable falsehood laughable than pivoting to video?

Oh my gosh. The pivot to Asia is yes, it's memeable because it's always around the corner.

It's always it's always next week, next week we're doing it. It's always coming. So I mean,

listen, the one scenario where I would say actually it could be a thing. The one scenario would be

if the president in the matter of months, I don't think you can do this in weeks, but in

months, if he can resolve this Iran crisis effectively, actually conclude it in a way that

locks down stability in that region for years to come, then there's an opportunity to actually

and really pivot. But then you have this deeper question come in, which is what is the president's

actual China policy? If his China policy is to secure a trade deal, then no, we're actually not

going to pivot to Asia because that would be primarily a commercial way to view the Chinese Communist

Party, whereas I believe they're an ideological geopolitical threat. So it's going to come down not

only to how properly we can execute this war, it's also going to come down to how we perceive

Beijing and whether we're seeing them for who they are. Last question for you, the one thing that was

of course cited as part of this pivot to Asia was bridge Colby's lead, defense doctrine and

everything that came with it. What is your assessment of, and I don't really mean this in the

like personal who's up, who's down, why, but more in the what argument is currently winning the day

internally in this administration as it relates to China policy? I think there are two live debates,

both of which give me some concern. One of them is that we can get a win-win economic deal with

China, which is clearly not in bridge Colby, Pentagon lay, and that's commercial stuff. That is

concerning. On the military front, what really concerns me, and I'm not even sure if this is what

bridge is arguing, but I'm starting to get the sense among some that there's the sensibility that

we need to prepare the end of Pacific for a post-independent Taiwan future. It's a loss cause at

this point, and we just need to do the best to make our allies resilient, so when Taiwan falls,

they can be okay. I think that is a losing strategy. If that kind of thinking does get locked in,

and again, this is early, I'm not saying that this is locked in by any means because there are

lively debates in any administration, clearly in this one, but if that sensibility does get locked

in, that is detrimental to certainly to Taiwan, but to the United States, too.

Well, you'll have to guide us through as these arguments play out in the future. You can follow

Michael Sobelic on X at Michael Sobelic. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Thanks

so much for taking the time to join the Big Ben Show. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval,

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accounts. Happy to be joined on the Big Ben Show by the great Bill James. You can follow him on X at

Bill James online. He is an incredible writer and historian of surrounding baseball,

an innovator, and someone who I deeply respect and like to talk to whenever the new season approaches.

Bill, how do you prepare after all these years for opening day?

I try to get outside at least twice a week, walk around. It's been basketball season here

until a few days ago when Kansas was eliminated from the NCAA tournament by a shot that went up

with three tenths and was second left on the clock. So that's marked the start of the

baseball season, and I'm reading stuff and complaining and trying to learn who's on

New Zealand stuff. How about you? You know, just given the fact that we have been left with a franchise

here in Washington that has seemed remarkably uninterested in winning over the last five years,

I basically just try to figure out which narrative I'm going to have when the team inevitably

disappoints me. So that's been my approach for the last couple of years. I have so many questions

for you about this upcoming season, but I particularly wanted to start by asking you about the

new ABS challenge system. What do you think about it? What do you make of it?

I think that it could have been done a lot worse, and there are probably 40 ways that it could have

been done worse, and a couple that it could have been better, and it will mostly work.

It will be, I think, automatic and an accepted part of the game by July 4th, I think.

The complaints from purists now that the game has kind of gone down this road of trying to

innovate in certain ways to achieve various ends and satisfy complaints from fans. Do you think that

basically just being a purist about the game is now just kind of gone along the wayside? It's no

longer really a point of arguing about it? The purists tried for 40 years to kill the game,

and they were doing really well for until about five years ago, when baseball decided they

had had enough of that. It was time to fix some of the rules that were decades out of date.

A situation in which everybody has a better look at the play than the Empire

is kind of intolerable, but that was the real situation 10 years ago. It's not really sustainable

to keep doing what you were doing in 1900, in 2026, and I'm glad the baseball finally got over that.

I know that there's changes, obviously, that come with all of that. I wanted to ask you what

your perception is of the ban on shifts and any of the unexpected impacts that it's had on the game.

No, no, I never liked the ban on shifts. I don't see if that was necessary. It was like

what he called a tip of the cap to the purists. A lot of the new rules are actually designed

to horseshoe to play the game. It's supposed to be played rather than trying stuff. A lot of them

are more efforts to preserve the game than efforts to actually change the game. That one is again

an effort to keep the game from changing. I think a certain amount of fresh water in the game

is a good idea, and I'm all for it. I did not see that it was necessary to ban the shift.

It has made a difference in that we had reached a point where anything up hit up the middle

was an out. The ban on the shift has changed that too. That's only an out 96 percent of the time

or 97 or 98, whereas it was 100. But that's not a very larger notable change.

If a fan this season wanted to focus on one or two statistics about a player,

what two are the most important from your perspective to follow, to assess how that player is improving

or not during the season? Well, a young player or early in the season, I look a lot at the strike

out at a walk rate to figure out if that's tracking with his career norms. If an older player is

striking out more, all of a sudden, that's kind of a red flag to me.

Quite a few of the best players in the game are in their 30s now,

because they're and judge started late. People forget that he's actually a player of,

he's so great that he's sort of immune to the rules that affect a lot of other people.

And if he gets 10 percent worse, nobody's even going to notice because he's still going to

be great. But he is 33 and that is old for a baseball player. So you have to start paying

attention to it at some point. You know, I am dealing with a people situation here in Washington.

I wonder if you have any thoughts on our new skipper, Blake Patera.

No, I'm looking forward to seeing what he did as and how he manages the team. But at this

point, he's a great sight for me. I'm sorry to say. That's all right. That's okay. I wasn't

expecting to just say he's going to completely change things. He's going to turn things around.

You can have confidence. I should have said that. That's just so we'd have something to talk about.

The reason that lefty hitters have trouble against lefty pitchers is it because

they got fewer opportunities against them in the era of specialization.

No, not at all. It's like that. You can't say that it doesn't have anything to do with it,

because it probably does have something to do with it. But it's just in the game. It's always been

in the game. Yeah, you can go back to a hundred years ago when look at a player who has never

lived in his life like Luke Eric or Babe Ruth. And they still hit better the wrong way.

Where they still had better when they're facing a right hand in pitcher. There are very few

players in baseball history for whom that is not true. It's sort of a universal thing.

The shift we still have not made is getting people to understand that this is not an individual

trait. It's not one of those things that some people have and some people don't. Everybody

is better when facing a pitcher who throws me on the side. And the differences are an individual

variant, but it's not an individual trait. It's just part of the game. And it's always going to be

there. Always had to be there. I have a couple of questions from friends that I wanted to ask you.

One is from someone who is a big devotee of your work. He's one of our interns at the Daily Wire.

And he wanted to ask me to ask you, your base running game loss system changed how I view a key

part of the game. How do you wait a runner who is selectively aggressive versus a high volume

base dealer? And if you were building a team today, would you trade some on base skill for an

elite gain loss profile? Yeah. That's one of those impossible issues because I absolutely

understand why managers talk about being aggressive. Because I don't think you can play any game

very well back on your heels and just waiting for the other team to give you something.

That's the formula for losing your reach into the game. Oh, wait a minute. It's got one more

tenth. I understand why people want to be aggressive and I understand why managers teach you to be

aggressive. On the other hand, it's not the percentage move. So you've got to look at both ways.

In this era, we don't have very many players already any who just steal bases for the hell of it.

I loved Ricky Anderson. My daughter Ricky Anderson. He was one of the most fun players ever.

But Ricky was going to steal it. He could be down 14 to 3. And if he goes first, he's going to steal

second and third. And if he goes this is easy, they won't even bother trying. It's 14 to 3.

There isn't really anybody who runs that way anymore. Those guys have all

moved on to the last generation. And I kind of missed them. But I understand that that wasn't really

enough. And if you're Ricky Anderson, it's a great approach to the game. But if you're not

Ricky Anderson or Tim Reigns, then it's probably not the smart way to play it anyway.

You obviously are aware. I'm sure of all the different younger talents who have

emerged in some recent years and that are at the beginning of their career have signs of greatness.

If you had to bet on one of them in achieving a kind of amazing career,

absent injury or something along those lines, who do you think of as the top people who are in

the early stages of their career that you would bet on to have that kind of success?

Well, I lived near Kansas City and that makes the question really easy because

this guy in Kansas City named Bobby Webb Jr. Who is the obvious answer to that question no matter

where you play. I think he's 25 now. And he's had, I remember now, it's three or four years

in the majors, but he's been great every year. Last year, down year for him, he was still probably

top 10 MVP. He's, if he continues to be healthy, he's, well, he's already probably the

second greatest player in Kansas Royals history behind George Brett. And, you know, he's not

he's not so far behind George Brett. He can't talk about it in the same in the same breath.

I'm a Red Sox fan as I worked for them for 78 years. And they have a young guy who's even younger

as a career in Roman Anthony who has not achieved as much yet as Bobby Webb. But in the

nationally, of course, she got a car arm strong with the Cubs and the shortstop for Cincinnati

Del Rosa, the, and they is dear recruits, who remembers, I don't know, the asked me in a week all

them. The, um, uh, Ellie is a phenomenal talent that he also has every chance to be a top

little player by the end of his career. I wonder where you rank Mike Trout in all time center

fielders. Yeah, it's getting to where we're going to have to ask that question. The, um, because

for a long time, we were wondering if he was headed for very top rank. If he was headed for the

Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Sy Young class, uh, Wolfs Johnson. His last six or seven years,

it's become more and more clear each year that he's not quite going to make it to that level.

So then we have to face the harder question of where do we put him? Uh, probably, uh, there's no,

I don't think it's getting any question. He's a Hall of Fame player and deserves to be

is closer to Mickey Maddle than Willie Mays in the all time structure and, uh,

guess you have to be my age for that. Maddle to be an actual memory than somebody from the history

books that we all make fun of because he asked what the, um, uh, is he greater pride than Joe Morgan,

but probably not Morgan to MVP awards and, um, he might be greater than anybody from the 1990s,

which, you know, it's pretty good. He's not as quite the same level as Albert Poole's. I don't think,

I don't think I quite get to the Albert's low. A very distinguished career, a marvelous career,

not quite as good, not quite as great career as it once looked by him might be.

I, uh, have to ask some questions because I am the, uh, surrounded, uh, as it happens in my career,

by a lot of people, uh, from New York and, uh, some from Baltimore. So one of the questions, uh,

that I got, uh, from a couple of friends for you is about, uh, the, the struggles, uh, in New

New York, uh, the, the, the meds have had particularly, uh, you know, the David Sterns, is there

something about the, uh, uh, analytic mindset, uh, that is hindered in running a blockbuster

budget, just, uh, sort of an important caution or something along those lines.

It, yes, there's, uh, the analytical mindset, normal, it works, could work best on a smaller

budget. And would you have a big budget, which you're always going, what the front office is always

going to do is spend money to solve the problem. And as long as you're spending money to solve the

problem, you, you do not get, um, you do not get cost effective solutions. It's the same

principle as government, right? The, um, government does the same thing that they, they look for the,

the most expensive way to solve the problem and try that first, you know, the, uh, uh, that is,

has been the best problem. That was a challenge for the Red Sox, while I was there, the Red Sox

were very much an analytical organization, but the analytical mindset is harder to, is harder to

make work in when you have money than when you don't. That said, there are a lot of,

of, of cash-strapped organizations in baseball now, that, um, have moved past the analytical

mindset. It's like, uh, that was 20 years ago. And let's go, let's go on to something else.

And so they're kind of, they don't have A or B, and they're so they're going to struggle.

Mm-hmm. The, uh, plate of the Orioles, they have had some success, but they've got,

coming off of two playoff sweeps, uh, and, uh, and just kind of an underwhelming performance.

Do you think that they have any hope this year?

Yes. I mean, I, I certainly expect that bounce back year from the Orioles. The, uh, the Orioles are

a really smart organization. They do a lot of things well. They produced,

an inexplicable amount of talent in about five years. And last year, quite a number of those

players had down years. And I don't think that will happen again. I think there'll be formidable

competitors for the Yankees and Red Sox at the time, possibly the blue jays in their division.

I expect them to win 94 more games.

That'll be great news to, uh, to my friend Ellie. Uh, the, the challenge that comes from changing

media in baseball, uh, you probably, I'm sure I've heard of the shuddering essentially of the

Washington Post sports section. They're, you know, they've retained, uh, a couple of people,

but the truth was that that section from my perspective as a local fan of, uh, of the franchise

and, and of other DC sports and area sports is that for a long time, it had, uh, catered to

much, you know, discussions about race, discusses about discussions about fairness, you know,

the transgender issue, cultural war controversies, et cetera, as opposed to covering the teams.

And I feel like they're effectively, they, they waged a war against Dan Snyder

over the Redskins name and over his ownership for years that really was their animating force.

At the same time, we saw this, uh, our local team, you know, a, a, a win-a-world series and then

basically take itself apart twice. Uh, and, uh, now they seem to be in a much worse scenario. I

wonder if part of the consequence of not having a thriving sports media, a thriving local sports media,

at least, uh, is that franchises can get away with this kind of thing a lot more often,

especially within baseball. Do you think that's accurate?

All right, it's a new observation to me. So I, I don't know if I want to pass, pass judgment on the idea

of top of my head. Um, the media has, the Kansas City star used to employ in the sports stand.

I think about 75 people and now it's probably, I don't know what it is now, but if it's more than

10, I would be shot. That's a national phenomenon. Um, the, the battle of sports to get through the

Wilk shield is a national phenomenon. And Washington may be a place where that shield is particularly

thick and particularly hard to break through because of the nature of the city or, um, perhaps it's

just a renewal cycle that perhaps that had to fail so that what can work would have room to operate.

I don't know.

The one more media question, it just, the dominance that the New York Times has shown

in scarfing up a lot of these, uh, reporters that now all right for the athletic, which is part

of their, you know, massive, repertoire staff, um, you know, I, I'm not dissing the athletic. They

obviously, you know, are, there, there are many of their writers, I think who are very good at what

they do. Uh, but it does seem like something is really lost when you don't have that type of local

connection, uh, with reporters who are, you know, covering these teams, not just, uh, because,

you know, they're paid to do so, but in many cases, because they grew up watching the team,

or they grew up caring about the team, and they have memories of the mistakes of the past.

You know, and when it comes to that idea of renewal that you just said, do you think that that's

something that could potentially be restored in the future? I think could and will, um,

to take a shot at New York Times, what they're trying to do now is innovate and, uh,

new and there's every indication that it will be effective. I would note that historically,

the New York Times sports coverage is what's the technical term, not with a crack, uh, the, uh,

uh, yes, that is technical. The greatest sports writers in the country have always been

guys from Dallas newspaper and the, uh, Chicago and Washington and L.A. and Seves is a secret

people. And the, uh, New York Times has always been the prestigious place to be and, um, staffed by

old guys who hated everything about baseball and everything about football and just,

you know, uh, what times just trying to do now has every indication that it will make their

sports coverage better than it has ever been. And I truly believe that it will for them,

but the local issue is a serious one. Uh, and I will expect the continued growth and continued

development of, um, local media that doesn't work for the local TV station. It doesn't work for

the local newspaper, but it's not hard to find and people are familiar with it and, uh,

and comfortable with it. I, I certainly hope so. Uh, I'll, uh, go out on this. When you assess the

landscape of contracts in, uh, Major League Baseball right now, what do you think is the worst

one in baseball? Worst contract. Uh, um, um, such a wealth of, of opportunities. I'm not sure.

The, uh, you have a candidate? I, though, I do think that there's, I mean, there's a, there's

a list, but, you know, I, I try to be more optimistic about things, but, you know, it's still just,

it does boggle my mind, uh, you know, at this point that there's still some of these decisions

being made, uh, when we have so much evidence, you know, in, in the NFL, uh, there's so much less

data and evidence to go on. You're making a bet often on, you know, people who could, I mean,

look at the success that the Seahawks had, for instance, with Sam Darnold reclamation projects,

sometimes, uh, you know, in the NFL can be very quick. Um, but I think in, in baseball, you still,

it's, it's a longer, longer road. So, well, here's, here's probably what I should have said.

Is it baseball teams, um, signed a lot of contracts that the front office knows perfectly well,

are not, are going to be drains on the organizations for a, a resources over time. Uh, and that

happens in part because, uh, general managers could fire as soon as you have a bad year.

So the main focus becomes, let's not have a bad year this year. So we'll all be here next year

and we could worry about this next year. So, um, there are a lot of 33-year-old players who aren't

there on judge who signed big contracts that they, everybody in the world knows that you're not

going to, he's not going to be worth that kind of money, but the organization decides to do it

to take a shot at doing what they can this year. Hmm. Uh, I, I know I said the last question, but

I actually have one more. There's, there's, there's been a, uh, a real backlash to the increase

in ticket prices, uh, in Major League Baseball. Uh, uh, Donald Trump actually complained about it,

uh, remember in the interview, uh, on the Let's Go podcast, uh, that, uh, air right before he won

his second term, uh, about how few people could go to Dodger's games because of the increase in

pricing, uh, you know, for a family of four, you're looking at just, uh, you know, more than $400

to do that kind of thing. Uh, and I wonder how important it is for, uh, Major League Baseball to

try to address that problem. Just given how much I think Baseball thrives as, uh, as a, as a sport,

when you've got stands that are full and people who are regularly going to games and not just on

the weekends, but during the week, if they can, um, it's something I certainly try to do during the

season is even if my team is struggling, uh, and I just think it's a good thing to do. Uh, but, uh,

you know, when it comes to Major League Baseball, I'm not sure that they care as much. Right. It's very

hard to get local organizations to impose a long-term view on when they have short-term problems.

Right. It is so expensive to run the Baseball team now that it's very hard,

it's very hard to get people to say, okay, let's, let's create a space for those who don't

have disposal when come to come to the game. But if you don't do that, the long-term effect

is that soccer grows bigger and bigger and offshoot sports, many of which are great sports,

you know, volleyball is a great sport, but the, uh, the other sports thrive when Baseball doesn't

make room for lower-cost seats for people without resources to get to the game.

I, I think that's totally true, and I think it's all the more important to get, uh,

that local support, uh, in the game. Uh, Bill James, well, um, since you said you'd take two more, uh,

if, if people want to, uh, prepare for this, uh, season and, and are considering maybe doing

something that's a little old school, uh, you know, I've noticed that, uh, more and more when I've

gone to games in the past couple of years that there are some people who keep score, uh, and I wonder

if you keep score, uh, yourself still, uh, or, uh, or if you've, uh, gotten opinion about whether

that's something that's good in terms of, uh, paying to the attention, paying attention to the game

in different ways. Well, that's two different answers spent. Um, I think it's great, and it's kind

of a thrill to me. The most of the games I go to now are Kansas University baseball games. We

have season tickets and that's great. And when I see somebody scoring the game, that's wonderful.

Do I do it myself? No. The, uh, I did for many, many years until two things happened.

One, my wife started keeping score. And since she's keeping score, I just kind of rely on her

scorebook. And two, the, um, it's all in the newspaper now. The next day, anyway, you can go with,

check and see what's that ground ball, the second or ground ball, the short, the fourth,

the name will be the, the, not the newspaper. I shouldn't have said that, but it's, it's online

somewhere and you can find it. So I have gotten out of the habit. Maybe I should buy a new scorebook

for the new season and print my name on the front and get back in the habit.

I think that sounds like a great idea. Bill James, uh, thank you so much. You are a legend and, uh,

and it's always a pleasure to talk to you about baseball. Thank you for having me on, man. I

appreciate your attention. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We

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learn how at america cures dot com paid for by farma so one of our gripes at

the big bench show and across the country when it comes to hollywood is that

they don't do original movies anymore they only do franchises that they

can't launch movies with with out you know lying on 60-year-old stars

people who are quite long in the tooth now and that when it comes to

picking younger directors people are always just interested in playing it safe

we've seen some separation there in recent years obviously the success of

weapons last year and the overwhelming success of

sinners not just in america but did good overseas numbers and got tons of

awards has changed up some of that but i think the thing that really

cements this is being a narrative about hollywood that can't really be told

the same way anymore is the impressive performance

a project Hail Mary this past weekend when it saw an incredible debut

Ryan Gosling apparently can open a movie after all

and with you know a story written by the same fellow who wrote The Martian with

direction by lord and miller who you know i'm sure Kathleen Kennedy which is

that she had never fired off of their solo project years ago

that's something that i think is really impressive and laudable

the fact that you can still get butts and seeds to watch an original

movie that isn't based on ip that isn't a bunch of superheroes

that's something that is very good and that we ought to praise when it comes out

so i hope that we see more of this we're going to see

you know whether this is the kind of thing that can be sustained in the future

but i really hope that hollywood starts taking the lesson from the idea

you don't just have to make these ip movies you don't just have to make

these ones that have connections and and recognizable superheroes you can

actually find a good story combine it with a good writer combine it with a good

director team and actually get people to get their butts and

seeds so congrats to that team and i encourage you to go out and see the

movie it's pretty darn good i'm been dominant you've been listening to another

addition of the big bench show we'll be back next week with more to dive

back into the friday

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