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This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:13
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:14
Let's get into it.
1:15
All right, guys, this is a special episode on a special day because there's some special circumstances.
1:20
Don't worry.
1:20
We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Thursday of this week.
1:24
Don't worry.
1:24
We are not going to get out of order, but kind of big news dropped in the baseball world.
1:28
And just real quick, before any of you guys go ahead and tune this out.
1:31
Well, I'm not a baseball guy.
1:32
I don't like it, but it's boring.
1:34
Don't worry about it.
1:35
There is a payoff for you at the end of this podcast.
1:37
There's there's some good things that we can learn from this scenario.
1:40
And the scenario I'm talking about is the Houston Astros scandal.
1:43
So yesterday on the 13th of January of 2020, Major League Baseball finally handed down their
1:48
punishment to the Houston Astros organization kind of for their signed stealing scandal,
1:53
which in baseball terms, this is the biggest scandal probably since the Black Sox scandal,
1:58
and certainly since the PED scandal of the 90s and early 2000s.
2:01
And the Black Sox scandals was, you know, that was over a hundred years ago, right?
2:05
But here's the deal.
2:06
I'll kind of give you the idea for some of you that are not aware.
2:08
I will bring you up to speed as quickly as possible.
2:11
There was evidence from the 2017 season that the Houston Astros were using
2:16
in stadium technology in their home ballpark to get the signs from the catcher as to what
2:23
the pitcher was going to be throwing.
2:25
And then they would communicate that to the batter at the plate.
2:28
So they knew what pitch was coming.
2:30
So for those of you that don't understand how much how big of a deal that is,
2:33
if you've got a guy that just throws two pitches, well, let's keep it simple.
2:36
He throws a fastball and a change up.
2:38
So let's say his fastball, he throws it at 95 miles an hour.
2:41
And his change up comes in at 87 miles an hour.
2:44
Doesn't seem like that big of a difference.
2:46
But when you're throwing it from 60 and a half feet, which is how much home
2:48
field or home plate is from the pitching rubber, that's really close.
2:52
Like that's a really, really close distance.
2:54
And so seven, eight miles per hour makes a huge difference.
2:57
And if you know as the hitter that it's a change up that's coming, instead of a fastball,
3:02
you can sit on it.
3:03
Because if you guess change up and it's not a change up,
3:06
the fastball just blows right by you.
3:07
So this was a huge deal.
3:09
And so they had a monitor that was by the dugout and they would communicate
3:13
using an outfit, you know, a camera that was in the outfield and then they would be able
3:16
to communicate to the guy at the plate.
3:18
They did it kind of haggardly though.
3:19
They would like bang on trash cans or something like that to let the batter at the plate know,
3:24
hey, the off-speed pitch is coming type of a thing.
3:27
It doesn't guarantee success.
3:28
But if I'm the hitter and I know exactly what pitch is coming, that's good for me.
3:32
That's really, really good for me.
3:33
So this was something that happened in 2017 season.
3:36
That was the year that they won the World Series.
3:38
That was the year that their second baseman, their all-world second baseman,
3:41
Jose Altuve, won the MVP, but this led to a gigantic investigation, right?
3:46
Massive investigation.
3:48
And we kept hearing this was going to be some of the strictest punishments we've ever seen
3:52
handed out by Major League Baseball.
3:53
And we'll get into the punishment here in just a second.
3:56
But just remember that.
3:57
That was kind of the thing that we were all expecting.
3:59
And I remember talking with friends that were baseball people and I'm like,
4:01
well, how bad could this actually be?
4:04
How bad could this punishment actually be?
4:06
This isn't like in college where you can take away scholarships and you can have them
4:09
vacate victories and championships and all that kind of stuff.
4:11
Like, what could they actually do?
4:13
But then yesterday, the supposed hammer came down for Major League Baseball.
4:17
And so this was the punishment that they were given.
4:19
The team was fine.
4:20
So that's ownership.
4:21
They were fined $5 million, which is the maximum that a commissioner can find
4:25
a owner in the Major League Baseball.
4:26
So they find them the max.
4:28
The general manager, Jeff Loonow, and the manager, AJ Hinch,
4:32
they were both suspended for one calendar year.
4:34
But both have since been fired by Houston.
4:37
Jeff Loonow was seen by a lot of people as one of, if not the best general manager of baseball
4:41
and the bench manager or essentially the main manager.
4:44
AJ Hinch was seen by many people to be one of the best managers in all of baseball.
4:48
And so those were not small things.
4:50
And then they also lost their 2020 and 2021 first and second round draft picks.
4:55
Okay.
4:56
Now, the one thing that is kind of pending in all of this is Alex Cora,
4:59
who is the current manager of the Boston Red Sox.
5:02
He was the supposed ringleader of this plan.
5:05
Okay. So he was on the staff.
5:08
He was on the coaching staff in 2017 in Houston.
5:11
And then the very next year, he was hired by the Boston Red Sox to represent them.
5:16
And they won the World Series in 2018 in a team that was considered by many,
5:20
to be one of the greatest teams ever.
5:21
I think it was 108 regular season wins won the World Series.
5:25
Didn't even really look bad in any of the games during the playoffs.
5:28
But there's supposedly going to be a much bigger punishment coming for Alex Cora.
5:33
It could come today.
5:34
It could come while I'm recording this. I'm not exactly sure.
5:36
But as of this moment, there's no punishment for him.
5:38
And most notably, there is no punishment for Carlos Beltran,
5:41
who is the current manager of the New York Mets,
5:43
who was a player on the 2017 Astros or any other players.
5:47
Okay. We'll get more into that here shortly later.
5:50
So there was reaction from the Houston Astros.
5:52
Okay. So because they kind of have to come to their defense to a certain degree.
5:55
So the owner, Jim Crane, he came out and did his normal,
5:59
you know, kind of somber press conferencing and read a prepared statement
6:02
and took a few soft Polish type questions.
6:04
But he said that this scandal doesn't in any way taint their World Series victory from 2017.
6:11
In no way, in no way does this taint anything.
6:14
We just want to move forward. We just want to,
6:15
which is always convenient when somebody is like pounded for something that they've done wrong.
6:19
Don't they always? Ah, we just want to move forward.
6:21
You know, we don't want to look in the past.
6:23
We only want to move forward.
6:24
Allah Mark Maguire when he was talking in front of Congress.
6:26
I'm not really here to talk about the past.
6:28
I'm here to talk about the future.
6:29
It's like super convenient.
6:31
Now the general manager at Jeff Loonow, he kind of had a little bit of a ridiculous take on all this.
6:35
He kind of decided in his statement that he released that he just wanted to kind of throw
6:41
everybody under the bus, except for himself, right?
6:43
He told everyone, I'm not a cheater and it's everyone else's fault was essentially what he said,
6:47
even though they had evidence of two specific emails that was talking directly about the system
6:52
that they had in place, the video system they had in place in order to steal these signs and cheat.
6:57
You know, he was on those emails.
6:59
So either he doesn't read his emails or he's full of crap.
7:02
I'm just going to go ahead and assume the latter and then former a manager, AJ Hinch,
7:06
he took responsibility for his role kind of.
7:09
This is a guy that of everybody, he will probably get another managerial job in Major League Baseball.
7:15
He's just that good.
7:16
So he's going to spend a year, you know, basically licking his wounds.
7:19
Maybe two, three seasons down the line.
7:21
He'll get another job, but it just kind of is what it is.
7:23
But I thought it was interesting because of all the people in this process,
7:27
whenever these allegations were coming on, he was the most smug during this entire process.
7:33
He was asked during the ALCS this year, 2019 or that would have been last year's ALCS 2019.
7:39
He was asked about this at one of the press conferences and he said,
7:42
this is a complete joke and blah, blah, blah, but he was so smug about everything.
7:46
Like, ah, you know, these teams, they just wish they were as good as we are.
7:49
So they just claim that we're stealing signs, blah, blah, blah.
7:52
AJ Hinch does not come out, you know, looking well in this entire thing.
7:56
And one of the interesting things about AJ Hinch is he obviously knew that this was going on,
8:01
but as opposed to addressing it directly with the players and telling them to cut it out,
8:05
he tried to like destroy the monitor, like unplug it from the wall to like,
8:10
encourage them to stop doing this as opposed to just talking about it, which,
8:13
okay, I guess that's one way of doing things.
8:16
But then there was kind of the greater reaction from the baseball world.
8:19
The general consensus coming from everybody else from the other teams, players, former players,
8:24
you know, whatever the situation may be, it's not the punishment was too light that it didn't
8:29
really punish the owner, Jim Crane. I mean, Jim Crane still has his team.
8:33
He still has his title. He still has his banner. You know, he doesn't have a GM or a man or anymore,
8:37
but you can find those. I mean, they're, they're not exactly growing on trees, but he can kind of
8:41
deal with that. I loved what David free said. So he's a now retired baseball player and
8:46
as a Lewis Cardinals legend, but he said this on Twitter, didn't really expect the punishment
8:50
to be this harsh, good for MLB stepping up. Still don't know what's more frustrating, though.
8:55
An ex teammate of the World Series title, making public, public statements about his team cheating
9:01
and so many guys being down to use a damn trash can. LOL should take the ring. So I, I tend to
9:07
agree with his sentiment that we should take the ring, but we'll get more into that later.
9:10
And he was making reference to Mike fires. So Mike fires was kind of the, the main whistleblower
9:15
and all this. He's a pitcher that was on the 2017 Houston Astros. So a lot of people see him as kind
9:20
of a hero in this. Like, oh, he's the whistleblower. It's like, wait a minute, he was on the team
9:24
at the time they were cheating and he knew they were cheating. And yet he didn't say anything.
9:28
You know, that's kind of interesting, interesting at the very least. Some other reactions. Aaron
9:36
Judge, who's probably the least hateable Yankee of all time. And that is saying something because
9:41
they're also easy to hate somewhat, but Aaron judges seems to be a very, very stand up guy.
9:45
He finished second in the MVP voting in 2017 to Jose Altuve. It wasn't exactly close.
9:51
So Jose Altuve won by a comfortable margin, but he had a tweet back in 2017, basically
9:56
congratulating Jose Altuve for his win on the MVP. They went, those two teams went on to face
10:02
each other in that postseason. Aaron judge actually went back and deleted that tweet. So
10:06
deleting a tweet from two, three years ago, that's kind of kind of a big deal. But here's the funniest
10:11
thing. This is the funniest of all reactions from all baseball people. And that was from Pete Rose.
10:15
Poor Pete Rose, that guy, he'll never get into the hall of fame. He's probably the greatest
10:19
hitter ever who will not end up in Cooper's town because he's been banned for life. But Pete Rose,
10:23
the guy that's been banned for life, forbidding on baseball games, especially games that he was
10:28
managing, even though he's still to this day will not admit that. He says, I can't imagine doing
10:32
something like that. I mean, I don't know if he's just trolling or what if he's just bored,
10:37
but that's next level. You know, I'll give it up to you. I'll give it up to Pete Rose. I can't
10:41
imagine doing something like that. I mean, I was a manager of the Cincinnati Reds and I was betting
10:46
on games that I was managing. But gosh, dang it. These guys are putting up cameras instead of trash
10:50
cans. Let us know what pictures are coming. That's just across the line. So thank you, Pete Rose,
10:54
for giving us a little bit of that. But here's the thing. Here's my opinion of the punishment
10:59
that came down for the Houston Astros. I'll just give it to you as quickly as possible.
11:02
It was way too soft. The thing though, is it doesn't even actually punish the team?
11:09
It just doesn't. In my opinion, this doesn't solve everything. But in my opinion, Houston
11:15
should be forced to vacate the title. They should be forced to vacate the 2017 World Series title.
11:21
They should have to take down their banners. They should have to, you know, send their rings back,
11:24
whatever the situation may be. But here's the thing is I've also said before, maybe not on this
11:28
podcast that I think the whole concept of vacating titles doesn't take the results of the games away.
11:34
It doesn't like mean that these games didn't happen. Like I remember like when the USC was
11:39
having their problems with the football program and everything and they're like, Oh, well, they
11:42
got to vacate this many wins and they got to vacate this title and they got to do all those
11:46
different things. Does that mean the game didn't happen? Did the fans not buy tickets and fight
11:52
for a parking spot and go inside and pay $15 for a beer and you know, watch the game not happen?
11:58
Did some of those guys not get concussions? Did some of them not suffer career ending injuries?
12:03
Did those games just not happen because we can just go back and snap our fingers and oh,
12:07
it just, it just didn't happen, right? But they should be forced to vacate the title.
12:12
That this seems fair. At this point, you caught them red handed in the season where they won the
12:17
title, right? And if you remember, that was an insane World Series. It went seven games and the
12:22
Dodgers lost the Astros. They lost at home. They lost the World Series. Now you can't just hand
12:28
the 2017 Dodgers, the World Series, nor do I think any of the players that were on that team
12:33
would even want that. But that that would at least seem to be some sort of justice.
12:37
But here's the thing is if you're one of the other 29 teams, which you know, and I'm not going to
12:43
talk about the macro thing here because there's this idea that a lot of teams are kind of involved
12:48
in some sort of next level technological cheating. But you know, we're just going to focus on the
12:51
Astros because they're in the, you know, they're in the eye of the storm here kind of a deal.
12:55
But the situation is is if you're one of the other 29 teams, even teams that have won a lot of
13:01
world titles, you know, like the Cardinals having one 11, the Yankees having one 27 teams that have
13:05
won recently, the Giants that were probably the best team in the decade, whatever situation may be,
13:09
you got to kind of ask yourself, does it pay to cheat? But the reality is, is of course it does.
13:17
Of course it pays to cheat. I'll give you this scenario. I would go to all the other 29 teams
13:23
and I would guarantee you that all of them would say, yes, if you said, hey, in the 2020 season,
13:29
it's going to cost you four draft picks. So you're, you know, first and second round draft picks for
13:36
the next two years, $5 million, the career and reputation of your general manager and your manager.
13:44
But you win the World Series. I guarantee you that the other 29 teams would take that.
13:51
It would be like, wait, that's it? $5 million for draft picks and a couple of
13:57
couple of guys that'll find jobs elsewhere, probably maybe hopefully. Of course, most of them would
14:02
take that. If no one would know, you would absolutely take that. And this is why, because Pedro Gomez,
14:08
who has been a guy that's a longtime baseball guy, he said that there are certain estimates
14:13
coming in that the Houston Astros just off of the 2017 World Series made about $60 million or so
14:20
directly as a team, right? So that, but the thing is, is that's not just from merchandise
14:26
for selling things that say World Series on it. It's not just from that. The very next season,
14:31
they can charge a certain percentage more for season tickets because they're coming off of a
14:34
World Series and people will pay it. The general fans that are just traveling through Houston,
14:39
they want to go see the Astros play because they're defending World Series champions. You've got,
14:43
you know, people that are fighting for their ad space, you know, to advertise inside the stadium,
14:49
on the radio, all those different things, all of those things go up because you won the World Series
14:54
because not a few years before that, the Astros were historically bad losing over 100 games every
15:00
year. And now we're turning around and they're winning over 100 games every year. And they're
15:04
winning the biggest of all prizes, the World Series Championship. So of course it pays to cheat
15:09
in these scenarios. The other thing, and this is the last thing I'll say about the punishment,
15:14
is I was astonished that no players were punished in any way, shape or form. None whatsoever. This
15:21
includes Carlos Beltran, who was on the 2017 team, but now was hired by the Mets. I swear to goodness,
15:26
the Mets just can't get out of their own way. Of course, they hire a guy that is immediately in
15:31
the hot seat with some sort of a scandal, a well known, well liked guy in Carlos Beltran,
15:35
but it seems to be by the MLB investigation, a cheater. But the thing about it is, is how do you
15:40
not punish the players? And some people have said to me, and you know, some people have said to
15:45
other pundits, it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, how can you just do this to the players?
15:49
Like, how could you do that? Because the thing about it is, you can't know what each player was
15:55
involved. Like you can't know, okay, it's 25 man roster is, you know, the backup catcher who's out
16:01
in the bullpen or something like that at the moment. Is he as responsible as the MVP from that year?
16:06
Is the guy banging on the trash can? Do we know? Was it an assistant coach or was it a player,
16:12
right? Was it a star player that was in a free agency year or an arbitration year or something
16:16
like it would have been a mess to try and do that. But it just seems astonishing to me that
16:20
major league baseball found no way to be able to punish these players. Now the reality is,
16:25
is this is a couple of years ago, a lot of those players aren't even playing anymore.
16:29
They're certainly not on the Astros anymore. So what exactly do you do? So it's a tough situation.
16:33
But I got to thinking about this whole situation, just thinking about there's a lot of victims.
16:38
Like this is one of those things when people talk about victimless crimes. That's almost
16:41
never the case. This certainly isn't the case, right? So I just kind of made a list of the big
16:46
victims in this story. And the first is the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is the first and last
16:50
time you will ever hear me say that I feel bad for the Los Angeles Dodgers because I love watching
16:54
them lose. But two years in a row, they lost to teams that are it seems pretty apparent we're
17:01
cheating. The 2017 Houston Astros beat the Dodgers and the 2018 Boston Red Sox seemingly cheated.
17:08
They also beat the Dodgers, right? I mean, that that's a tough thing for a very proud franchise that
17:14
has not won a title in over 30 years. A huge market would have been huge for Major League Baseball.
17:20
And you got to feel bad for them. You also have to feel bad for the other teams at the Astros
17:25
destroyed on the way to their, you know, kind of the last three years of success they've had in
17:30
the playoffs. So they beat the Yankees twice. They beat the Red Sox, Indians, Rays. You got to
17:34
almost feel bad for the Nationals in a way. They just had an amazing World Series where the road
17:39
team won every single game in the World Series. But, you know, you're kind of glad now I was
17:43
rooting for the Astros in the World Series, but you got to be glad now that the Nationals won.
17:47
But it does kind of sully and weird in the process a little bit in one little side note,
17:50
and then I'll hop right back on for you Yankees fans that are crying about this like, oh gosh,
17:56
we got screwed and we would have got another championship and blah, blah, blah. Y'all are the
18:00
same fans that don't want to talk about at all that y'all won championships in the last 15 years,
18:07
you know, or 20 years or so, with a bunch of guys that were on PEDs, Andy Pettit and Roger
18:12
Clemens and Alex Rodriguez and all these guys, the Yankees were one of the dirtiest teams and
18:16
everybody knew about it. So, save me your crocodile tears about, oh, we got screwed with the playoffs,
18:21
the Astros. Okay, I don't want to hear it from you Yankees fans. What about the rest of the Al West
18:26
teams? You got the Mariners, you got the Athletics, you've got the Angels and you got the Rangers,
18:31
they had to play the Astros a lot. And they, every time they went to Houston, they got destroyed.
18:36
The Athletics were really close to winning the division in a few of those years and ended up
18:39
having to be a wildcard team that affected them directly. How about this? I haven't really heard
18:44
anybody talking about this. What about the cities of the defeated teams, the teams that I've mentioned,
18:49
right? I mean, because the thing is, is if you make the postseason, like an actual postseason series,
18:55
right, if you get to the DS, you're guaranteed at least one home game,
18:59
if not multiple, if you make it to the championship series, you're guaranteed two home games.
19:05
That's a lot for local businesses for hotels and restaurants and places that, you know, have,
19:09
have bought the licenses to sell gear and stuff like that. Just the local folks in general,
19:14
the excitement you get when your teams in the playoffs and you roll around with the, you know,
19:17
team flag on your car and all those different things like, you got to feel bad for those teams.
19:21
You got to feel bad for those cities. I feel bad. Here's another victim to 2020 Houston Astros.
19:26
The Houston Astros that have not made it onto the field yet, because everyone is going to hate them.
19:32
The Houston Astros, as they're currently constructed, have a lot of very, very likable players,
19:37
but man, they're going to be incredibly hated. And the thing is, is guys, the AOS is still a mess.
19:42
All four of those other teams are pretty much not great. So the Houston Astros are probably
19:48
going to make the postseason again. Can you imagine? Man, just the amount of attention that's going
19:52
to be on them. Some more victims, you got specific players that were directly affected
19:57
by the Astros winning these games. This is one thing that I thought about because I can remember
20:00
back to those 2017 games and you can remember hearing Joe Buck and John Smoltz talking on the
20:07
broadcast about how seemingly these pitchers for the Dodgers are, it must be tipping their
20:11
pitches, right? And how, you know, they're, they're kind of getting destroyed. Think about these
20:15
pitchers that have to carry these numbers after these postseason into furry agency or into arbitration.
20:22
Like the, these pitchers that just got destroyed by the Astros in it, you know, really made their
20:27
E. R. A's, Caddy Wampus or whatever the situation might be that that's tough. You got to feel bad
20:31
for Aaron judge not being the MVP because without how O'Zell to they having the year he did,
20:36
Aaron judge as a first or second year players, I think it was a second year player would have won
20:42
the MVP. Like that that's insane, right? And he's, he could carry that into his arbitration
20:49
and into his future contract negotiations. He can't do that now. Think of it. Think about the legacies
20:54
of certain players. Clayton Kershaw comes to mind. This is a guy who is probably the greatest
20:58
regular season pitcher of all time. But the only thing that people want to talk about with Kershaw
21:02
is how he can never get it done in the postseason. Well, he was in line to win. I think it was game
21:06
five of the 2017 World Series and he gave up some runs late. I mean, if, if the Dodgers win the
21:12
2017 World Series and Clayton Kershaw pitched at all well during that postseason, that monkey's
21:18
now off his back. And you know, I think about, you know, transitioning over to the current
21:23
great Astros hitters. Like I feel bad to a certain degree for Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and
21:29
George Springer and those guys because they're such great players. But at the same time,
21:34
you got to know that all those guys knew that this was happening. I'm especially heartbreak,
21:39
heartbroken over Jose Altuve, because he is probably my favorite player. That's not on the
21:42
St. Louis Cardinals. I love that guy met him in New York, got to hang out with him a bit, you know,
21:47
he's the little engine that could. He's like five foot five. The dude is just an amazing player.
21:51
There's no reason he should even be in the majors, much less be one of the best players.
21:55
But now those guys every time they have an accomplishment, Bregman, you know, finishing close to the
22:00
MVP this last season, Springer going into arbitration this year for a salary, you got to question
22:05
everything those guys have ever accomplished. I feel bad for the Houston Astros fans right now
22:11
for the long suffering Astros fans that just didn't get it done, never got that World Series
22:15
and then they get one. And now this, you know, I feel bad for baseball fans in general,
22:21
people that just love watching the game. You don't like seeing this because here's the thing.
22:24
I feel bad for the game of baseball because it seems like we were just getting away from some
22:29
of the scandals from the steroid era, right? And now all the conspiracy theorists that have
22:34
been taking a nap, they've been in hibernation. They're a full alert now, right? You know,
22:38
the baseballs are Jews. This has got to be happening in every clubhouse. You know,
22:43
who's going to be the next one to get punished and when's going to be the next foot to drop?
22:47
And you know, what are the other shoes going to drop? Whatever the situation may be.
22:50
And I just wish all that that wasn't here. I wish there wasn't this drama. I wish there wasn't
22:54
this type of nonsense, but, but it is, right? But anytime you're talking about something like this,
22:59
one of these conspiracies or anything like that, you have to ask the question who should be blamed,
23:03
right? Everyone's like wanting to play the blame game. And here's the thing is it's pretty simple.
23:07
Everyone, everyone should be blamed. So just initially, let's go back to Mike fires. This is
23:15
the player. Again, that kind of blew the whistle years later after having gotten his World Series
23:20
ring. Does Mike fires feel so bad that he's planning on giving up his World Series bonus?
23:25
Some of you guys didn't know that. But if your team wins a World Series, you split a gigantic pot
23:31
of money amongst the players. Is he going to give that bonus away? Is he going to send it over to
23:37
the Dodgers players from that year? Is he going to donate it to charity? His blood money? Does he
23:43
feel that bad? I assume he doesn't feel that bad. I'm assuming he still has his ring and a
23:47
safety deposit box or a safe or somewhere special in his house. But yo, he's the hero for coming out,
23:53
right? But guess what? There are so many players and coaches on the Houston Astros that are to
23:58
blame for this, right? You got players that didn't want to say anything didn't want to speak up.
24:03
It's their fault. You had players or managers or, you know, executives that came up with the idea.
24:08
It's their fault. It's everybody's fault. And the thing about it is, is the general consensus
24:13
again is that there was no justice served here for the other 29 teams. We don't feel happy about this.
24:18
Like there's not happiness in Major League Baseball that, okay, MLB got it, right? They should have
24:25
been much more severe, right? A death sentence, if you will, I go back to the SMU days within the
24:30
NCAA, right? But the thing that this all kind of creates. And so here's the payoff for you guys that
24:35
just had to listen to me rant for 20 something minutes about baseball, even if you didn't care,
24:39
is because all of this comes down to one thing, all that comes down to one singular thing. And that
24:44
is justice. Justice had to be served in this situation. And guys, in the grand scheme of the
24:51
world, this is nothing. This is baseball. This is a game where adults get to play a kid's game
24:56
and get paid millions and millions of dollars for it. This isn't even that huge of a deal.
25:01
It's going to go down as a huge deal in the history of baseball and the history of sports.
25:04
But in the grand scheme in the world, it's not a big deal. But when we're talking about justice,
25:09
is how can you look at this situation with the Astros? And how could you be, you know, an atheist
25:15
or an agnostic and be okay with this ruling? How could you get there cognitively?
25:20
How about if you're a secular humanist, right? How can you get to a ruling and follow me here,
25:27
guys? How could you be an evolutionary biologist and be okay with this ruling?
25:31
Because the thing is, is in those worlds, in those fears of influence, whatever, atheism and
25:37
agnosticism, secular humanism and, and biology and all these different things, like these types of
25:42
people, the only justice you have in your world is tied to this world. There is no such thing as
25:51
cosmic justice. That's why, and I'm not going to get into a big diatribe here. But when you talk
25:56
about social justice, most of those things aren't tied to any type of a gospel-centered ideology
26:01
or theology, right? Because we don't have to do all the justice we can down here because we believe
26:08
in cosmic justice. But if you're one of those other people, why are you even budding your head
26:13
into the conversation about justice? Because it's as if the only justice you understand is here.
26:20
Because one of the reasons why I can close my laptop after I record this and move on with my life
26:25
and not be completely affected and, and distraught at, at how this is all going down and how mad I am
26:31
about how baseball didn't get the punishment right is because I know that God has the ultimate
26:37
judgment seat. Again, this is not a huge topic, but remember God sees everything. He sees everything.
26:43
I was reminded that Romans 1219 beloved never avenged yourselves, but leave it to the wrath
26:50
of God for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord. In the Proverbs 21 15,
26:57
when justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but terror to evil doers. I can find solace.
27:03
I can absolutely find solace in the fact that I don't think justice was served here.
27:07
And there's a larger application here. There's there's kind of three application points I want
27:13
to get to you. So the first is when you sense that there's been injustice somewhere in the world,
27:18
always remember that God's got it. We don't always have to write the score. We don't always
27:24
have to overturn the tables ourselves. Sometimes God does call us into action, right? As a sheepdog,
27:29
he's going to call us into action, but ultimately he's got the final say, he's got the final say on
27:35
justice, right? But there's a couple of other applications that I think are even more pragmatic
27:40
for you guys that maybe think I took that last point a little too far. I think it's highly
27:44
appropriate, but here we go for you more pragmatic types. For you, you will be tempted to cheat.
27:49
And your reaction in those moments will say a lot about who you are.
27:54
So some of you are going to be tempted to cheat in sports, right? Maybe it's pickup basketball,
28:00
maybe it's a collegiate athletic of some kind, maybe it's a golf tournament. You're going to be
28:04
tempted to cheat. You're going to be tempted to cheat in your taxes and businesses or something
28:09
like that. You're going to be tempted to cheat on your spouse, right? Even though we already know
28:12
that about 50% of the men in the United States, certainly go ahead and do that anyway. But the
28:18
thing about it is is there's no temptation that is going to lead to sin. Oh, sorry, let me rephrase
28:24
that. Let me back up a little bit. Some of you all just had like a little explosion in your brains.
28:27
Being tempted is not a sin. It's your reaction to the temptation, right? Jesus was tempted,
28:33
right? 40 days, 40 nights, he was tempted, right? In every way conceivable to us, right?
28:39
That wasn't sin. It's how you respond to the sin. It's how you respond to the sin, right?
28:44
But a lot of you guys, you're not preparing yourselves for when you might be tempted
28:50
to cheat in all areas of life. You haven't had that discussion with yourself yet.
28:55
And some of you might think that you're too weak, that you couldn't possibly overcome the
29:00
temptation to do that. And again, I got to throw this out to you in 1 Corinthians 10. We see this.
29:04
No temptation is overtaking you. That is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let
29:09
you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape
29:14
that you may be able to endure it. So there is not some temptation that is so powerful that you
29:19
can't get around it. And the last application point for you guys is this is this is a great
29:25
teaching moment for your kids. And I'm using that term broadly. So if you're a grandpa listening to
29:31
this, talking about your grandkids, if you're a coach that, you know, volunteers your time and,
29:36
you know, coaches, whatever sport in your local community, I'm talking to you as well. This is a
29:41
great story or this is a, not really a story. This really happened, but this is a great thing to
29:46
talk about them. This is a case study for those kiddos, right? Especially if you're teaching baseball.
29:51
Because this is one of those moments where this is bigger than baseball.
29:55
This is, this is bigger than whatever sport you're teaching or coaching. It's about integrity. It's
30:00
about character, right? And this is a great opportunity to teach your, your kiddos that, hey, look,
30:06
these guys won these titles. But now look at where they're at. So I remember back, and I'll probably
30:12
remember this till the day that I died at my university that I went to University of Central
30:17
Oklahoma. I remember when you would run around the track in the gym there in the wellness center,
30:22
there were two pictures that were up. There were a lot of pictures that were up around the
30:25
track, but there were two specific ones. One was of Lolo Joe, not Lolo Jones, Marion Jones, Marion
30:30
Jones. Okay, she won the 100 meter dash in the Olympics. And she won by like 10 meters. She
30:35
obliterated the competition. And then there was another one with Lance Armstrong, right?
30:39
And then it came out that Lance Armstrong had been lying for years and years and years that he
30:43
was a drug cheat and that Marion Jones that came out later that she was a drug cheat as well.
30:47
And I wondered, you know, gosh, they have these big beautiful pictures like, what are you going to
30:52
do? But you know, this could have been a budgetary reason that they did this. I doesn't really matter.
30:57
They put a little plaque next to the pictures that basically explained, hey, this person cheated
31:04
in order to accomplish what you're seeing in this picture. The picture of Marion Jones was up her
31:08
going across the finish line with this big smile on her face. And it was basically a little plaque
31:13
that makes you think about like, Hey, was it worth it? And to some smart elect students in my
31:18
be like, well, yeah, sure, man, it was worth it. They're an Olympian and blah, blah, they might say
31:22
something like that. But to a thinking person, they'd be like, gosh, it clearly wasn't worth it.
31:26
But that's the thing is if you start going down that rabbit hole as well, guys, you're going to
31:31
get so frustrated at the amount of money that Marion Jones Lance Armstrong made off of cheating.
31:36
And that's why we can always lean on the fact that we're not the final judge and jury that God's
31:41
got our back. God's going to take care of it. All right, guys, before we let you go,
31:45
we are going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and
31:48
our mission is cultivating mainly resilience. Specifically, we do that by providing content
31:52
that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today I just have one little article
31:56
for you. Jeff Passen is one of the best guys in all baseball, one of the best journalists in all
32:00
baseball. He had a thing that he wrote for ESPN dot com. It's called why angers boiling behind the
32:05
scenes about Houston Astros sign stealing punishment. All right, guys, so check that out.
32:09
Thank you guys as always for listening to the podcast. We really do appreciate it. If you would,
32:13
please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify or Google Play and refer your friends to listen
32:18
and share this on social media. Guys, if we deserve a five star review, please leave us one. That is
32:22
how this podcast is going to continue to grow. I'm currently booking speaking engagements for
32:26
the entirety of 2020. So just hit me up at info at undaunted dot life. If you want me to come speak
32:31
to your team at your men's event on your podcast, again, the email is info at undaunted dot life.
32:36
The website is www dot undaunted dot life. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted
32:41
life or facebook.com backslash undaunted life. Check out our free devotionals on the U version
32:45
Bible app just search undaunted life under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August
32:50
earns red for allowing us to use their entire music library for our content. The intro outro
32:55
track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom
32:58
Anthem. The links to all of this are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
33:03
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience. Keep forging spiritual mental and physical toughness.
33:10
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.