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I know I'm not wearing green, but when

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your name is Sullivan, every day

1:02

is St. Patrick's Day. You

1:07

are Lockdown MLB. Your

1:11

daily MLB podcast. Part of

1:13

the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your

1:15

team every

1:18

day. Hello

1:28

baseball fans. Welcome to Lockdown MLB. Part

1:30

of the Lockdown podcast network. Where's your

1:32

team every day? This is the daily

1:34

podcast. We talk about all the major

1:36

league baseball. I am yours. Paul Francis

1:38

Sullivan. Please. I'm begging you call me

1:41

Sully. You're gonna be calling a lot of people

1:43

Sully as it is St. Patrick's

1:45

Day that I'm dropping this particular episode.

1:47

I'm seeing there's already some people on

1:50

the live stream right now. I've been

1:52

a baseball podcast for well over a decade in

1:55

just a couple of days. We're

1:57

going to be starting the regular season.

2:00

And we'll get into that a little bit at

2:02

the end of the show about starting the season

2:04

in places other than the United States or Canada

2:08

I've been doing it for Over

2:10

a decade, but this could be my sixth season here at

2:12

the lockdown podcast network You could follow us on Twitter or

2:14

whatever the hell it's called now on locked

2:17

on MLB pods That's

2:20

on Twitter and then Instagram. I'm your pal. Sorry.

2:22

I'm at Sully baseball on Twitter so I baseball

2:24

podcast on Instagram and if you are Following

2:27

us on all those social media sites. You

2:29

want to leave a comment? Why not put

2:31

down that hashtag every day Sully so I

2:33

have an idea who's listening every single

2:37

day and This

2:39

episode is brought to you in

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part by our friends at fan duel Make

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join today and you'll get $200 in bonus bets

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If your first bet of $5 or more

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wins visit fan duel comm slash Locked

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on to get started. Let's

2:57

get started with this show and first things first

3:00

Hey, if someone's there on the live stream

3:02

watching me Could you post something in the

3:05

comment section to make sure the sound isn't

3:07

crackly because I've had a couple people say

3:09

Sometimes when we do the sound they can't

3:11

quite a hundred percent hear me and let

3:13

me know if the sound is going Well,

3:15

that's a little message a little tip for

3:17

your people out there who are listening to

3:19

the show for other people Comment

3:22

on the show. I have to make an amendment

3:25

to the last trivia question I did because

3:27

here I am here I am your

3:30

pal Sully is thing Oh pass himself on

3:32

the back because I come up with the

3:34

trivia questions and It

3:37

turns out that while

3:39

my Answer

3:41

is correct. There was

3:44

another answer and this

3:47

comes about when My

3:50

question was about

3:52

expansion teams which

3:55

expansion team had

3:57

to future Hall of Famers in

3:59

the opening day lineup of their first game.

4:02

Normally when you have an expansion team

4:04

they're picking up the dregs, they're picking

4:07

up spare parts or minor leaguers weren't

4:09

quite ready, but two

4:11

apparently two teams. I thought one team

4:14

had two future Hall of Famers in the

4:17

starting lineup of their first ever game. Now

4:21

Jared729 gave

4:24

the answer that I thought

4:27

of which was the Tampa

4:29

Bay Devil Rays in 1998

4:33

played their first ever game and

4:36

it was Fred McGriff

4:39

and Wade Boggs were in the starting

4:41

lineup. Not too

4:43

shabby for a team that is

4:46

you know that is not supposed

4:48

to be contending, but stop

4:51

the presses. I got

4:53

a couple other people wrote to me who

4:55

pointed something out or at least they gave their

4:58

answer and I thought no, no and

5:00

then I realized I did a little homework myself and

5:03

it turns out that I was wrong.

5:06

By what Roger Molina said the first thing

5:08

I thought of was the 1962 Mets. I

5:10

had to do a

5:12

little research to confirm that and found

5:14

they had Gil Hodges at first and

5:16

Richie Ashburn at center field and

5:19

the truth be told I was looking

5:21

at their opening day home that their opening

5:24

game the home opener easy for

5:26

you to say when they played their first

5:28

home game and I realized

5:30

the first game they actually played was

5:33

a road game there

5:35

where they started Gil Hodges and Richie

5:37

Ashburn. Gil Hodges was in the opening

5:39

lineup of the home opener

5:42

so I sat back and I realized well you're

5:44

both right so apparently

5:47

there have been two teams that

5:49

on their first ever game had

5:51

two future Hall of Famers in

5:53

their lineup. Now the 1962 Mets who

5:56

had Gil Hodges and Richie Ashburn who were both

5:58

on the the the Sun sets

6:00

of their career became

6:03

the worst team in the history of baseball. The

6:06

Devil Rays weren't that far behind. Now,

6:08

of course, there's a certain lovable

6:10

quality to those Mets teams who

6:13

actually had tremendous

6:15

attendance despite being the worst

6:17

team in baseball and

6:19

for the first few years playing right across the

6:21

river from the New York Yankees who won the

6:23

World Series in their first year, in the Mets

6:25

first year of 1962. The

6:29

Devil Rays, they may not quite have been

6:31

as lovable, but the movie

6:34

The Rookie focused around

6:37

the 1999 Tampa

6:39

Bay Devil Rays where Dennis Quaid's

6:41

character, a high school gym teacher

6:44

and high school baseball coach and

6:47

math teacher wound up making the

6:49

Major League roster. The Rookie is

6:52

a fantastic movie. It's

6:54

a fantastic movie. And if you don't

6:56

cry during The Rookie, then that

7:00

should be the test they use in Blade

7:02

Runner to see whether or not you're a

7:04

replicant or not because no human being could

7:06

watch the ending of that film and not

7:08

burst into tears. And

7:12

in that, I remember in that film when

7:14

he went into the locker room for the

7:16

first time, you see Fred McGriff and

7:18

Wade Boggs and Jose Conseco's

7:21

jerseys hanging. So there you

7:23

go. So there you go. My

7:25

carefully researched trivia

7:28

question was wrong. By

7:30

the way, I do have some good news

7:32

from John Lavelle who says, sounds

7:34

good to me. Good. Good

7:37

to hear that. I've been

7:39

looking at the churches

7:41

all around town because I

7:43

understand it's black smoke if

7:47

Blake Snell signs and white smoke if

7:50

he doesn't sign. Is that the

7:52

code we have right now? As we're

7:54

getting here, it's St. Patrick's Day. Dylan

7:58

Cease was just acquired from... Chicago

8:00

by San Diego and didn't get

8:02

on a plane to Seoul because

8:04

they're playing games they're gonna

8:06

count in the regular season in just a couple of

8:09

days and I'm reading articles

8:11

saying like well the Astros are

8:13

ramping up their talks with Blake

8:15

Snell well take your time it

8:19

is now it's it's

8:21

we're closer to March 20th

8:23

than we are to March 10th

8:27

we are less than a month away from

8:29

filing our freaking taxes you

8:31

may want to sign a picture here and I

8:34

had a lot of people writing to me regarding

8:37

the final episode idea of the one I

8:39

did the other day about the Boris clients

8:42

I do think some of that's overrated I think

8:44

teams want to put the

8:46

best product in the field and not break the

8:48

bank I do think a lot of it has

8:50

to do with they don't want to have egg

8:53

on their face they would rather avoid embarrassment than

8:55

have then

8:58

put together a team that wins

9:00

with a tons of tons

9:03

of risks but from what it

9:05

looks like right now Blake Snell

9:09

according to the rumors is

9:11

willing to sign a 66 million

9:14

dollar contract with Houston

9:16

for two years now

9:18

66 million tomatoes is a lot of

9:20

money is it I

9:22

don't care where I mean

9:24

I'm a public school teacher okay

9:26

that's a little that's that's at least ten

9:29

times the amount I make a year I

9:32

obviously am NOT a public school math teacher

9:35

however there

9:37

is an astonishing level of affordability

9:39

about that all

9:42

these teams that have massive massive

9:44

problems with their pitching staffs

9:47

all these teams have huge holes with

9:49

visions of winning a World Series dancing

9:51

in their head the Yankees have to

9:53

go all in they have

9:55

to go all in because they this

9:57

is might be their only season with

10:00

one Soto. And

10:02

then you take a look at, you know, there's

10:05

the defending World Series champion Rangers.

10:07

The San Francisco Giants have been

10:09

in the playoffs a grand total

10:11

of one time since

10:13

losing to the Cubs in 2016.

10:16

Only one time since Bochi

10:18

has scrambled. And

10:21

they've won, and that

10:23

one they lost to the Dodgers and

10:25

had a one great fluke year in

10:27

2021. But I know a lot

10:29

of Giants fans. I'm related to some Giants

10:31

fans. They're getting a little anxious, especially when

10:33

they look up and say, hey, wait a

10:36

minute. The Diamondbacks are in

10:38

the World Series the other year?

10:40

Why can't we get that? When

10:43

you start seeing 80-some-on-win teams

10:45

in the World Series, sure,

10:47

you start thinking, hey, why

10:49

not us? Why can't

10:51

that be us exactly? And you say,

10:54

hey, we got this manager who managed

10:56

into a Cy Young season. Sign him.

10:58

Here's why this this new revelation is

11:01

so gigantic for me. Yeah,

11:03

it's not exactly, he was hoping

11:05

for a 10-year contract worth the

11:07

entire gross national product of

11:09

Brazil. It's not gonna happen now.

11:11

I want to at least walk away with 66

11:13

million tomatoes and a chance to be a free

11:16

agent a couple years. It's the two years, the

11:20

two years, okay, of which

11:22

one of them is gonna be a contract year.

11:24

We saw how he pitched his last contract year.

11:27

A two-year deal is not a gigantic risk

11:29

for any amount of money. You have to

11:31

pay the lecture tax. Pay it! The

11:35

thing everyone keeps talking about is you don't want

11:37

to be saddled with a contract for five, six,

11:39

and five, six, seven years from now. You'll be,

11:42

wait, no! If

11:44

he comes in this year and he stinks

11:47

or he gets hurt, which is more likely, you

11:50

then only have to worry about the contract for

11:52

one more year. So come

11:54

on all you teams. If this

11:57

is the answer, at this point there's no excuse for him to

11:59

not sign the contract. with Houston. Houston is

12:01

the perfect place for them

12:03

because they're already good. You

12:06

know they're already going to be contenders and

12:09

you know they want to win another World Series. They

12:12

want to put a giant middle finger in

12:14

the face of everyone. Not that that excuses

12:16

2017 and yes, 2019, but to say, hey,

12:18

look at all the titles we won this

12:20

decade. How do you like us now? Put

12:23

Sneller there and Schtonk, you've got it.

12:27

So I can't, if he is not signed by the

12:29

end of today, you know what? For

12:33

no other reason, I'm tired of talking about not

12:35

being signed. So

12:37

let's get on it folks. Two years, even

12:39

for a ton of money. It's

12:42

not that bad. Let's

12:48

talk a little bit about our friends from

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14:01

let's talk a little bit about what's coming up

14:03

in Locked on because

14:05

there's going to be a great thing going on

14:07

this week for all you baseball fans As

14:09

you know locked on has launched the first ever

14:11

natural sports 24-7 streaming

14:13

channel will locked on sports today

14:15

is there in baseball fans mark

14:18

your calendar March 20th at

14:20

7 p.m. Eastern Daylight

14:22

Time for the best baseball

14:25

season preview coming exclusively

14:27

on Locked

14:29

on sports today that mark it

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down March 20th at 7 p.m. Eastern

14:34

Daylight Time be the first to

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get local insight from MLB local experts

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on the locked on pockets Network Find

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it March 20th 7 p.m.

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Eastern Daylight Time on

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locked on sports today 24-7 stream channel

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on YouTube on the free Amazon

14:51

fire TV channels app Flawless

14:55

Flawless ad reading. Hey,

14:58

um There's the other the other

15:00

big player that is I mean Who's

15:03

concentrated the fact that Jordan Montgomery can

15:05

help every team that Blake Snell

15:07

could help every team I think Michael Lorenz and you're

15:09

not asking him to be he was an all-star last

15:11

year and through a no hitter But you're

15:14

not asking to be anything but a three or four at

15:16

this point or just give you some depth I

15:18

can help most teams. Come on. Let's let's go.

15:20

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go sign him The

15:22

other was JD Martinez which absolutely no sense to

15:25

me that he's not signed because there's no way

15:27

at this point You couldn't get him

15:29

for a one-year deal. I think it was Keith

15:31

law I don't agree with everything Keith law says but they're

15:33

gonna I don't agree with everything I say But

15:36

he had that line in that he had on

15:38

his old podcast and he used to say it

15:40

on ESPN Which is there's no such thing as

15:42

a bad one-year deal. That's true If

15:45

you sign someone a one-year and it and it bombs out.

15:47

It's gonna be done at the end of the year scram

15:49

and JD Martinez

15:51

is sitting out there and

15:54

he's look it. There's

15:56

my first looking for my good folks in Australia Is

15:58

he a Hall of Fame? No,

16:02

but he is a legitimate all-star. He

16:05

is a legitimate all-star and

16:07

he was an all-star just last year with

16:10

Los Angeles. And when you

16:12

take a look at the fact that he was a

16:14

the last bunch of years we've had an all-star game.

16:16

18, 19, we didn't

16:19

have one in 20, 21, 22,

16:22

23. Being all-star is not exactly the perfect

16:24

metric, but he is a he's

16:27

put up terrific hitting numbers. He

16:29

gets on base, has a good slugging

16:32

percentage, has terrific power, hit 33 home runs

16:35

for Los Angeles last year, gets a ton

16:37

of doubles, led the league in doubles in

16:39

2021, and he also has

16:42

a baseball IQ off the charts.

16:45

It's like having another coach. I've

16:47

made this point before. Now where

16:49

is J.D. Martinez from? He

16:52

is from Miami. He

16:56

went to Pembroke Pines,

16:58

Florida high school, Charles Flanagan High School. Yeah,

17:00

I'm looking that up right now. He

17:02

was born in Miami. He

17:04

went to college in Fort Lauderdale. He is

17:08

a child of Miami. What

17:11

team could use a

17:14

baseball brain like that in the middle of

17:16

their lineup? Miami!

17:20

Go back to Miami! He would fit

17:22

perfectly in that lineup in so many

17:25

ways. In fact, you take a look at

17:27

that team. They have, you know, they

17:29

have Luis Arrais on that team who

17:32

is a tremendous hitter. You've got

17:34

Bell on that team who's got good

17:36

power as does Jake Berger.

17:38

You've got Tim Anderson who you're hoping

17:41

that will turn some things around. You're

17:43

hoping that Jaz Chisholm has a

17:45

really good year where he could have things

17:48

take off. Right now, Abizael Garcia is

17:50

projected to be their designated hitter. They have

17:52

Brian De La Cruz who has

17:55

talent, but if you put

17:58

J.D. Martinez the

18:00

middle of that lineup you put

18:02

them in the middle of that lineup and then suddenly

18:06

Okay, I'm not saying it's a great lineup, but

18:08

this was a good team last year This

18:10

was it was it was a solid

18:12

team. Remember less we forget they made

18:14

the postseason You put

18:17

him in there and suddenly that

18:19

team has I it He's the

18:21

type of hitter that makes all the hitters around just

18:23

a tiny bit better If

18:25

you're trying to get a boost out of something like Tim Anderson,

18:27

you got to turn around seize for them Then

18:30

why not? Of course, the other thing

18:32

that could really use them is Tampa

18:36

Put him in Tampa. I Mean,

18:38

that's a team that can pet we all know they can

18:40

pitch we all know that it's kind of like It's

18:43

like remember in the episode of the

18:45

Mandalorian the one where Luke Skywalker came

18:47

in spoiler alert and kicked everyone's butt

18:50

but there were all those those those Super

18:53

droids that were pounding at the door that Luke

18:55

had to destroy That's the

18:57

Tampa Bay pitching staff in their

18:59

minor league Yeah, I went a

19:01

long way for that analogy But it

19:03

made sense in my head that the minute one

19:06

goes down in comes another one Oh that pictures

19:08

down here comes another one You

19:10

know they could pitch so put JD Martinez

19:13

a native Floridian in the middle of that lineup and

19:15

do you what you got a shot? I

19:19

Tampa is all right Tampa and

19:21

ache for 90 wins every year

19:23

and maybe the way he

19:25

affects that lineup It'll work out for

19:27

the best and again, you can get it

19:29

for one year You

19:31

can get that kind of player a guy

19:34

who's gonna be and you know, he's gonna be a

19:36

great hitting coach someday He may even

19:38

be a manager someday, but certainly he's gonna be a

19:40

hitting coach. I'd hire him to be a dh

19:44

hitting coach now But

19:46

you know, he's gonna produce you know, he's gonna hit

19:48

a ton of doubles in the gap You know, he's

19:50

gonna hit 25 to 30 home

19:52

runs and have a slugging percentage up the

19:54

yin-yang You know, he's got an OPS

19:57

that he's gonna have that's gonna be at least hovering around

19:59

900 that you could just put in

20:01

your lineup for one year for nothing

20:04

and he gets to be a millionaire in Florida

20:07

and You know what?

20:10

There are worse places to be a millionaire So

20:13

let's get on it, Florida. What

20:16

are we waiting for? It's

20:18

not long-term deals anymore Hey,

20:24

let's talk a little bit about your car Let's

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talk a little bit about what some people

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Which means we're gonna be talking a little bit about

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e Bay motors

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Motors Reese's

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me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So

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no, that's a good thing Definitely

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not a problem Races

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you did it you stumped this

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today now available on the Free

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Fire TV's channels app. I

22:25

was thinking about this. It is St.

22:28

Patrick's Day. And there

22:30

are some years where they start the

22:32

season overseas. I've never been a fan

22:34

of that. I don't mind them

22:36

playing regular season games overseas. I really don't. I

22:38

kind of, the London series I thought was pretty

22:40

cool. Or they've done some

22:42

series during the regular season when they go down to Mexico.

22:45

I think that's pretty cool. I just

22:47

object to starting the season like that. It

22:50

messes up the whole, you know,

22:52

when does the regular season start? Which affects me

22:54

because I have to drop the in memoriam video

22:56

before the first game. And now it cut a

22:58

week off from production time. By the way, it's

23:00

coming together and we're gonna release it before the

23:03

Souls series. Don't worry about that. But

23:06

it always kind of throws a monkey wrench. Like,

23:08

well the regular season kind of started, but then

23:10

they go back to spring training games and then

23:12

it starts again. That's

23:15

why I like starting the ideal starting season

23:17

with the All Star game. That way you

23:19

have an event, a baseball event celebrating baseball.

23:22

And maybe at the mid season point, then you

23:24

go to, maybe that's what you do. I just

23:26

thought of this. Maybe at the mid season point,

23:29

almost everyone gets a break, but two

23:31

teams wind up going to a vacation

23:34

on a, go to Seoul or go

23:36

to Tokyo or go to London or wherever. And,

23:38

but if you're gonna do it where you start it

23:40

kind of in the middle of March, how

23:43

about this? It's

23:45

St. Patrick's Day. Have

23:47

a game in Dublin. Why

23:50

not? Why not? They

23:52

go crazy for sports in Ireland. Ireland

23:55

is a great sports, is

23:57

a fantastic sports city. It

24:00

is. And there are

24:02

a lot of expats in

24:05

Ireland, of course. And

24:07

why not? You could have a

24:09

St. Patrick's Day game in

24:12

Dublin, Ireland. Tell

24:14

me, I mean, if you're going to, again, if you're going

24:16

to do this, if you're going to do this,

24:18

and I'm not the biggest fan of it, but you have,

24:22

you know, you have Aviva Stadium, you got

24:24

some of these other stadiums that, what's

24:27

the biggest stadium in Dublin? Croke Park. There

24:30

you go. Croke Park seats like 80,000

24:32

people there. If

24:35

they could configure the stadium

24:37

in the, what was it? The Wembley? Did they

24:39

play in Wembley? In London? They could configure that

24:41

to baseball. They could configure this. And

24:44

there's enough people in Ireland

24:47

who have some connection to America

24:49

and vice versa. And it

24:52

would be a great vacation. You got Americans

24:54

could come over there and it,

24:56

and it fits right in. You have St. Patrick's Day and

24:59

you haven't been doing like the Red Sox and the Cubs.

25:02

You know, he has a huge Irish

25:04

population in Boston, huge Irish population

25:06

in Chicago, or maybe

25:08

have it be, you know, Red Sox Yankees,

25:10

like they did in London, or maybe you

25:12

have it be, you know, obviously it's a

25:14

giant Irish population in Philadelphia and, and, and,

25:16

and also New York, you have the Mets

25:18

and you could play the White Sox. Well,

25:21

there's a lot of us Irish people everywhere. We're

25:25

everywhere. We're tough to shake. And

25:28

then off they go. You have a big game in

25:30

Dublin. Why not? Again, I'm

25:32

not a fan of starting the season with

25:35

these games, but we're going to do one in the middle

25:37

of March. Heck, let's, let's

25:39

meet them together. Let's

25:42

meet them together. And while we're at it,

25:44

maybe that will spark some of the love

25:46

and the excitement of baseball in

25:48

Ireland. There is an Irish national team.

25:50

There is. There are Irish leagues that

25:52

are played, that play, you know, are

25:56

they as great as like the Red Sox? some

26:00

of the Caribbean leagues, the Mexican leagues, or the

26:02

Japanese league, or the Korean leagues. Not

26:04

yet, but let's

26:06

build that up. Build

26:08

up this. If we're going to have

26:11

these series, have us be the Johnny

26:13

Appleseed and plant some of these, the

26:16

love of the game, and hopefully build

26:18

up some of the excitement to have

26:20

great players from that country make

26:23

it to Major League

26:25

Baseball. Are you, and I've said

26:27

this before, there should, the Red

26:29

Sox should be putting tons

26:32

of money into Irish

26:34

academies. In the 1980s, the

26:37

Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue

26:40

Jays invested big time

26:42

in academies in the Dominican Republic.

26:45

The result was a huge

26:47

influx of Dominican players

26:49

coming into those two

26:51

teams specifically. Other

26:53

teams saw, oh my god, this is a

26:56

tremendous pipeline and great players are coming into

26:58

the Dodgers and the Blue Jays, and other

27:00

teams followed suit. Well, imagine

27:02

if you do that in Ireland, and

27:05

the Red Sox should be the one doing it, because

27:07

if you had an Irish-born player, and

27:09

we haven't had an Irish-born player since

27:12

Joe Cleary way back in the 1930s,

27:15

I'm not talking about someone of Irish

27:17

descent. We've had the Sean Doolittle's and

27:20

all the other ones out there, but I'm talking

27:22

about a dude from Ireland showing

27:24

up, born in County Cork

27:26

or something like that, coming to play in the

27:28

Red Sox. The

27:32

Jersey sales alone would pay for the

27:34

contract, or amongst

27:36

the South Side of Chicago with

27:39

the White Sox. Are you kidding me? Or

27:42

with Philadelphia? And all,

27:44

you know, there's a lot of them, all of them.

27:46

I talk about Irish people. I could say that because

27:48

I'm a Sullivan. But yeah, let's

27:50

go for it. Let's build that up. Let's have

27:53

a big Irish superstar and

27:55

have the big St. Patrick's

27:57

Day game in Ireland.

28:00

in Dublin, Red Sox

28:02

Cubs, come on. That'd

28:04

be a moneymaker. That'd be worth raising

28:06

a glass to. And it

28:09

goes tangentially to today's

28:11

trivia question. Are you

28:13

ready for today's trivia question? And I've done

28:15

my homework on this one, so I don't think I've messed this one

28:17

up. Alessandro

28:19

Alidi. Alessandro

28:22

Alidi is the third baseman

28:24

for this for the

28:26

Seattle Mariners of in 2012 and

28:28

2013. What

28:33

is his claim to fame in

28:36

Major League Baseball as of right now?

28:39

Write down your answer of the significance

28:41

of Alessandro Alidi in the comments here

28:43

and like us at LockdownMLBPods on Twitter

28:45

and Instagram. I'm your pal Soly, it's

28:48

SolyBaseball on Twitter, SolyBaseballPodcast on Instagram. Let's

28:50

sign Snell. Let's sign Montgomery. Let's sign

28:52

Martinez and let's raise a pint tonight.

28:55

Don't go to the bars. It's amateur

28:57

hour tonight in the bars. This

28:59

has been LockdownMLB for St. Patrick's Day

29:02

2024. I am your

29:04

host, Paul Francis Sullivan. Please call me Soly.

29:24

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me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So, no,

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that's a good thing. That's

29:33

definitely not a problem. Reese's,

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