Fernando Who?

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando!

Is it finally time to debate if ABBA was low-key the greatest band ever? No. This episode Steven argues that Fernando Valenzuela is the most influential athlete of the 1980s. Brandi as is now customary, believes the answer is always Michael Jordan. Cue the crying Jordan memes!

Joining the podcast to decide who is right is cultural strategist Karlos Gauna Schmieder (@anotherpundit). This episode covers the rise and fall of the Black baseball player from the Negro Leagues to integration to modern day.

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Follow Karlos' work:
Website: https://www.arribanm.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arribanm
Twitter: @arribanm

Let us know who you think won via Social Media:
Twitter: @bring_receipts
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Follow BR Hosts on Twitter:
Brandi Collins-Dexter (@BrandingBrandi)
Steven Renderos (@stevenrenderos)

Artwork & Logo by:
Andrés Guzmán (IG: andresitoguzman)

Beats by:
DJ Ren

Song featured in this episode:
El Jarabe Tapatio as performed by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bringreceipts)

Transcript

Brandi [00:00:00] Really, you've really. OK. OK, I see you. 

Steven [00:00:05] I'm bringing different energy for this one, Brandi. 

Brandi [00:00:07] I see that. I see your energy. 

Steven [00:00:09] So here's the spoiler, Karlos, just so you know, I've lost the last two episodes, you know, and I've had multiple people text me like,"hey," you know, doing that thing of like, "you know, Brandi, Brandi is a bit of a lawyer. You just it's a lot to manage. You're up against - you're going up against her.

[00:00:25] Who texted you? 

[00:00:26] I'm telling you multiple people have texted me, more than one. 

Brandi [00:00:28] My mom would appreciate that since I never really use my law degree. And it's always a shame of the family. 

Steven [00:00:35] Well you're putting it to good use here on this podcast, 

Brandi [00:00:43] I'm Brandi 

Steven [00:00:43] and I'm Steven. 

Brandi [00:00:45] And welcome to bring receipt's on this podcast, Steven and I argue our unpopular opinions about pop culture. 

Steven [00:00:51] In today's episode, Brandi finally learns the answer to: who is Fernando Valenzuela? We're debating the most influential athlete of the 1980s. I believe it's iconic L.A. Dodgers pitcher, the Mexican Sandy Koufax, El Toro de Etchohaquila Sonora Mexico, Fernando Valenzuela. 

Brandi [00:01:11] I don't even know who that was. So I disagree. 

Steven [00:01:14] Joining us to decide who is right is special guest judge Karlos Gauna Schmieder. So get into your windup. Look up at the sky. Here comes the pitch. It's time to bring receipts. 

Vin Scully [00:01:30] That it really is too good to be true. A full housecame to see him and he has not disappointed us all. The one one wants screwball. And swung on and missed. One and two. And now you can hear it, the English cheers and the Spanish "surdo, surdo" and the applause and there hasn't been anything like it anywhere, any time. Two and two. And the Spanish phrase they tell me is "Se quita la gorra" a tip of the cap and that's what this crowd wants to give Valenzuela now. What a memorable night, just one game, April the 27. But what a game to remember. Valenzuela's two two pitch, fastball got him swinging! It is incredible. It is fantastic. It is Fernando Valenzuela. He has done something I can't believe anybody has ever done or ever will do. Twenty years old. He makes five big league star. He has four shut outs, five complete games. He's allowed one run. Unbelievable. 

Brandi [00:02:37] So, as you know, Steven, I am on a winning streak. I am shootin hot fire, flames, pyrotechnics in this bitch. But you have me at a slight disadvantage on this one. So you tell me tell me why you picked this topic. Tell me about Fernando. I want to hear everything. 

Steven [00:03:01] Yeah. I mean, for the record, I was robbed in the last episode. I really feel like I made the winning argument. But whatever that's - I demand a recount. So I decided to go a different route for this episode. I'm like, I got to I got to I got to take some home field advantage here. Like, that's the only way I'm going to come back on the series and even it out. I'm one and two at this point. So I figured let me go back to my winning traditions because I you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. I grew up in a tradition of of winning sports culture. Yeah. I've got the fandom of the Lakers. I grew up loving the Lakers and I grew up loving the Los Angeles Dodgers. Let me make an argument that is about the Dodgers, a team that I love. And yeah, that's why I chose this topic on the most influential athlete of the 1980s. And I'm going to make the argument that it's it's Fernando Valenzuela. My first Dodgers memory was getting picked up by my brother's father who took me to a day game. Lo and behold, the person pitching on the mound that day was Fernando Valenzuela. This was in 1990 and he was pitching against the Montreal Expos and the Dodgers won. And it was the most exciting, fun memory for me. 

Brandi [00:04:17] Does Montreal exist anymore? I mean, not the city city the 

Steven [00:04:17] the Montreal 

Brandi [00:04:18] baseball team? 

Steven [00:04:22] Yeah, is Montreal around anymore? The Montreal Expos no longer exist as a team. They actually moved to Washington. And now, like the the Washington Nationals is that team that I love to hate. 

Brandi [00:04:38] Oh, no, David's sworn enemy. Of course they're French. Sacrebleu! 

Steven [00:04:048] So the other thing I want to do with this episode, Brandi, is actually tug at the heartstrings a bit because because you tug at the heartstrings in the last episode. So I'm going to do that in this episode. I'm going to say that I'm going to dedicate this episode to my brother's dad, who was probably the among the earliest father figures I had in my life, because if folks don't know that about me, I didn't grow up with my father. My mom was a single mom and my brother's dad was the person who introduced me to sports and in particular introduced me to baseball and taught me how to play baseball and introduced me to basketball. Both the fandoms, the teams that I love are in large part an extension of kind of his attention to me, which I really appreciated at the age that I was, because I had never really received that kind of attention from a male figure in my life. So shout out to my brothers, Dad. There you go, see, this is my winning strategy for today, 

Brandi [00:05:41] That's sweet see see I was all like I was like, "oh", and then you went got cynical with it. 

Steven [00:05:49] I'm trying to win a podcast, Brandi. That's what I'm here to do. I'm tired of these L's. So let's answer the question for you real quick of who Fernando Valenzuela is, because that was your that was your very initial reaction when I first pitched this idea to you, you were like, "who?". You thought I was talking about the ABBA song, 

Brandi [00:06:07] It's a good song, is the song about him? The song might be about him. Have you looked into that? 

Steven [00:06:13] I feel like, I have not, but I'm pretty sure, Fernando, the song came out before Fernando Valenzuela entered the league. I could be wrong, but I feel like that was probably clearly 70. 

Brandi [00:06:24] But they could have been. Yeah, they could have seen him wherever he is from. He's from Mexico, right? 

Steven [00:06:30] Yeah. You're about to find out. 

Brandi [00:06:31] So Fernando Valenzuela is from Mexico? 

Steven [00:06:35] Yes, he is. But you only knew that after I told you because you were you were straight up thinking he was Dominican. 

Brandi [00:06:42] Please don't get me into - please do not get me in trouble. Ok I'm going to shut up. You talk about Fernando. 

Steven [00:06:47] You were guessing. You guessed. You guessed the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Venezuela. You didn't you didn't even have Mexico in, like the top 20 places that Fernando Valenzuela could potentially be from. 

Brandi [00:07:02] Honestly, given the fact that we were talking about baseball, I thought those were very educated guesses but. 

Steven [00:07:08] Today they would be. But this is this what I'm going talk about. All right so, Fernando, Venezuela, born in 1960, was discovered by this kind of famous Dodger scout, Mike Brito, who a lot of folks who are fans of the Dodgers will remember him as being this like, kind of gregarious character who used to walk around with like a sombrero and not a sombrero, like a kind of a hat and like a cigar, like an always unlit cigar, like hanging from his pocket. But he discovered Fernando Venezuela when he was about 17. He was actually going as most of these like I feel like baseball stories are always like this and scouting where like they're going to see some other player and then they find this player. So my Brito was going to check out this shortstop in Mexico and ended up like in love with the pitcher who was pitching against the shortstop in this game. And it turned out that that pitcher was Fernando Valenzuela. He was like a young 17 year old lefty pitcher and immediately wanted to sign him to the Dodgers. And there was like a short kind of bidding war between the Dodgers and the Yankees to sign Fernando Valenzuela. So he actually almost ended up with the Yankees, but the Dodgers offered just a slightly bit more money. And he had like a pretty quick ascendent rise into the major leagues. He actually broke into the majors in 1980 pitched for the Dodgers in the postseason and then was actually their opening day starter in 1981, which is unheard of for a 19 year old to do that and unheard of in general for a young baseball player to to pitch in an opening day. It's generally reserved for like your best pitcher is the pitcher who opens the season for you and for your team. But because of injuries, famous Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was kind of compelled to to start Fernando. And, you know, n1981 became kind of the the year of what would come to be known as Fernandomania as he went on a tear that particular season, he won the National Rookie of the Year, which is awarded to the best first year player in baseball. And he also won the National League Cy Young Award, which is awarded to the best pitcher of the season. And that was a first of its kind of recognition, as no other baseball player has actually held both awards in the same season before then and ever since then. So, you know, Fernandomania kind of kicked off from opening day in April of 1981 throughout the rest of that season, but really kind of hit its peak after his fifth start. And he actually pitched against the San Francisco Giants in his fifth start, which was his first game pitching at home after opening the season, and he just blew it out the park like it was the first time that the stadium had been completely sold out and was just populated with all these like Mexican-American fans, which had never really come to watch a Dodger game prior to that. And I'll go into a little bit about why later. And within that season also in 1981, he hit the cover of Sports Illustrated. He was known to fill stadiums as he went on the road. It was documented that you could expect ten to fifteen thousand more fans to come out to his games when he was on the road, including in places like Montreal and in Chicago and and on the East Coast as well. So he went on to pitch in the postseason that year and beat the mighty New York Yankees who had beaten the Dodgers in the World Series just a few seasons back. So got us some revenge as well. So that is Fernando Valenzuela, an epic baseball player. His career started in 1980. Went all the way to 1997 where he closed out his career. I think his last Major League appearance was for the Baltimore Orioles. So shout out to David, who's a big O's fan. Shout out to David and Dan two very loyal listeners in Baltimore. So shout out to you all. 

Brandi [00:11:33] Yes, David has to because he's my husband. So he's held hostage,. 

Steven [00:11:37] But he's very insightful in his commentary. 

Brandi [00:11:40] Shout out to Dan

Steven [00:11:40] Yeah, shout out to Dan. 

Brandi [00:11:41] Dan's the real MVP. 

Steven [00:11:46] So. So, yeah, that's for Venezuela. I'll go more into the impact his impact on the on the game of baseball and my arguments for why I think he was the most influential baseball player. But, you know, the 1980s were also a very interesting time for sports. So I'm curious, Brandi, for you. You and I have talked about how baseball isn't really the thing that like you ever got into. So I'm curious to learn a little bit more about why and then we can talk about some of the more kind of iconic things that were also happening in the 1980s around sports. 

Brandi [00:12:20] Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's interesting because my husband David is a huge baseball fan. He grew up as an Orioles fan and he's the reason why I pay attention to baseball at all. And it's weird because growing up in Illinois and having family from Chicago and having two Chicago teams, the Cubs and the White Sox, one would think that I would be more into baseball. And there are some members of my family that are into baseball. Actually, one of my little cousins had a baseball scholarship to college, but I always associated it with a white ethnic racism, to be honest, particularly when you look at the history around the arena. So the Chicago Cubs are on the north side of Chicago and anybody that knows Chicago knows that it's very segregated. And you can pretty much immediately tell race, ethnicity of someone based on where they live. In the north side is a very white area. And when you go up to that stadium, for me, actually, it's like a terrifying experience to see a lot of, like, drunk, belligerent people. There's been some situations that I've gone up there like some some racially charged racist situations. Let me just say it plainly, like Black people getting their asses beat up there. So that was kind of my association with the Cubs. Plus, they were losing all the time, so I didn't really care anyway. And you would always hear these stories of Black baseball players that would come to both the Cubs and the White Sox. And we're just being yelled that the N-word and all sorts of racial epithets being yelled at them. Same thing the White Sox, the White Sox arena is actually in the south side. And it's in an area by Bridgeport, which was a white ethnic area where two of our Chicago mayors, Mayor Daleys both came from. And that was also an area that was fraught with a lot of tension and hostility. A lot of people may know the disco demolition night went down at the White Sox stadium and for first hand people that were there. So the disco demolition night was the kind of, quote unquote, challenge to rock and roll in the disco sucks movement where people bought a bunch of records and set them on fire in the middle of the field. And the kind of back story on that from people that were there was that actually a lot of those records weren't necessarily disco records. They were Black artists. They were local Black artists, people like Curtis Mayfield, albums like all sorts of that. And for the people that were actually working in the arena, for Black people, they were getting yelled at racial epithets. So this was not just about disco. This wasn't just this also had obviously homophobia and anti LGBTQ elements, but really it was very anti Black. The positive note is that one of the people that was there that was working in the arena that night, he went and picked out some of the records and he ended up being one of the pioneers of Chicago house music. But I always associated baseball with a lot of racism. And I want to say too a little bit about the decline of the Black American baseball player and the MLB, because that is, I think, a topic that a lot of people talk about and they talk about it at a really shallow level. Oftentimes the framing around why Black American and I'm saying American specifically because there's a lot of Afro Latino players in the in the league. So I don't want to just say Black blanketedly, but a lot of the conversation around it has been like, oh, hip hop and football were so flashy and razzle dazzle and you know that that's why all the Black players started going there. But there's there's actually a lot of more systemic reasons for that. So in the early part of the 20th century, baseball was the sport of Black Americans. You have the Negro Leagues which were thriving all around the country. And because they traveled around a lot, it was like you could - your hero came to you. So a lot of kids would see these like Black baseball players, and they would be their heroes. And a lot of kids played baseball. Part of what happened when the MLB integrated is that a lot of the top tier Black players in the Negro Leagues got moved into the MLB, the Negro Leagues, eventually die out. And you see this kind of like new era of integrated baseball. But what's also happening in the communities is that you see a lot of high rises and buildings going up and a lot of urban areas, a lot of disappearance of green space, a lot of disappearance of the type of fields that you would play baseball on and a lot of the communities where Black people were residing. So if you notice to this day, a lot of the baseball players tend to come from the south and the west west coast. That's not an accident. It's where there still maintains a certain amount of green space. But like in cities like Chicago and Detroit and other areas, you didn't have those green spaces. You had paved concrete, which is kind of where basketball also emerges from. There's no funding for maintenance of these fields and maintenance of these sports in the city. And so it really becomes more of a suburban sport, which also makes it increasingly whiter. And so the other thing you'll notice about Black American baseball players in the league, they tend to either be the children of baseball players or come from like the suburbs. That's part of the reason why. So those are there's like a lot of different reasons why, even though it's like a low cost to entry to baseball, it just didn't - it kind of died out as part of a Black American tradition 

Steven [00:17:48] It's so interesting. And I do think that even in the history of the Dodgers in Los Angeles, a lot of that history of urban planning, urban development, it factors into why the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. What was happening prior to the Dodgers arriving in Los Angeles was a lot of like just the way that cities were planned. And even to this day, when you look at those players that are coming from the West Coast, they're not coming from the city itself. They're coming from like Rancho Cucamonga and like Temecula or something like way out somewhere or down by Oceanside and down by San Diego. So there is that kind of history. I think that relates to like white flight, white flight from urban centers out to suburbs with more space, the construction of freeways and and all that which which is all related to this history. 

Brandi [00:18:40] It's also the same thing with soccer, football, like a lot of people ask. It's weird that football is like this global sport and everywhere except in the United States. And you would think because all you need is like a ball and a makeshift goal that more kids would get into it. But it's a similar thing happening in terms of that wide green space and in terms of those type of sports getting moved out into the suburbs and becoming like suburban soccer mom instead of being the sport of the people. It's the same thing happening. 

Steven [00:19:12] Yeah, I do remember as a kid, it would actually piss me off when, people would try to play soccer on the baseball field because there weren't that many fields in my neighborhood to begin with and there only a couple. And the one that did exist like a couple blocks away from me, you would always have like these people trying to play soccer there. While me and my friends were trying to just, like, practice hitting. It's a tough...it's a it's a tough thing. It's like the barrier entry is so low and there's such a lack of availability of space that they're actually in conflict with each other. And then the one baseball field that was pretty nice in my neighborhood went through like some redevelopment as part of like an initiative that the Dodgers were doing to try to beautify and like upgrade all these baseball fields throughout Los Angeles as a way to kind of like diversify the sport. But in place like and these were all city parks and in place as soon as the redevelopment happened, they completely, like, shut it down, like it made it inaccessible to the public. My friends and I couldn't just walk up there to, like, just pitch and hit and field and do all that stuff. You had to rent the field. And they were like set aside specifically for the city leagues, which like I played in. But it meant that I couldn't access it in off hours, like I had to go off and get into other shenanigans like like play basketball. But we also in the 1980s, you know, we see the rise of a bunch of different sports. And I think, like here is a time the nineteen eighties I think is well remembered as like the kind of the beginnings of the golden age of basketball where where you found like marketable athletes that impacted the game and gave a resonance in a way that didn't exist prior to that. It's also an age where like a lot of the commercialization and the broadcast of games is starting to happen. And so you have players like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the rivalry between the Lakers and the Celtics really fueling  the growth of the sport, But I'm curious for you Brandi, what are some things that jump out to you from the 1980s and relationship to sports? 

Brandi [00:21:22] Yeah, I'll talk about that a little more in my argument. But my dad was a college basketball coach at the University of Illinois for many years as an assistant and then as a head coach at the University of Illinois-Chicago. And so I grew up fully immersed in college sports. And you really begin to see the rise of the college athlete as a superstar in a way that we hadn't seen before. And there's a couple of things that are going on there. One, as more interest in basketball, in football is picking up, you see the NCAA really respond to that and expand. The NCAA expands into about three divisions in the 70s and then let more teams into Division one. And there's a couple of things that are happening with that, which is also the other reason why I think you see the decline of the Black American baseball player is that they're offering scholarships and it becomes an access point for education for Black people, Black men in particular, through sport, into college. But the other thing that's happening there is that we are being trained to see the next superstar before they even get to the professional leagues. The NCAA is making a lot of money. They began to have the contracts with corporations like Nike and Converse. I was always...We were joking the other day that growing up I was never allowed to wear any other shoe except for Converse, because the University of Illinois at that time had an agreement with Converse. And so, like the only shoes, the only sports shoes that we really got in the house were Converse or like "white girls." I'm sorry, Keds. I think white girls is probably politically incorrect now. And then I had these gigantic like boat shoe All Stars, which make your foot look ten times bigger. But anyway, because of that relationship between corporations and college sport, then you begin to see the monetization of these kids and you see these these high profile games being aired first on NBC and then CBS got a major contract, I think either towards the end of the 80s, early 90s. And so you're seeing Magic Johnson, you're seeing Larry Bird, you're seeing Michael Jordan, you're seeing Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler on and on in college. And also in nineteen seventy six, a slam dunk got made legal in college. So that ensures that this ushers in this era of like Phi Slama JAMA, which was the Houston Cougars. And it's really bringing a lot of excitement and eyes. But also what it's doing is as consumers, we're seeing somebody before they get to the league blowup. So I think baseball is slightly different in that I actually think it's a pro that you don't have to go to college in order to get into baseball and get into the major leagues. I think the one and done and all of that is is quite bullshit. But what it does mean is that a superstar has to be made in the league in a different way. They don't necessarily come in with the same level of expectation and consumerism attached to them. And so, yeah, that was I was like fully immersed in college sports in the 80s, really loved going to the Games, loved the energy of the games. Also, before I toss it back to you, want to give a shout out to what I think is the most underrated and exciting college basketball team in the history of sport. The nineteen eighty nine Flyin Illini from the University of Illinois, they had aggressive full court defense. Scoring was abundant. They routinely scored over 100 points per game, which anybody that watches college games knows that that's not typical even now. And my dad was the assistant coach. Yeah. And recruited a lot of those guys. He also used to say that they were the first ones to wear the baggy stuff. A lot of credit goes to the Fab Four University of Michigan, which came a year or two after them. But my dad said they were like rocking those things first. But anyway, it was a really exciting time to watch sports. So fun fact. Coach Bobby Knight taught me how to shoot free throws because he was a coach at Indiana when my dad was at University of Illinois. I think he's an asshole. So I don't I don't necessarily want to say shout out to him. 

Steven [00:25:47] But they also teach you to throw chairs because I've seen you do do that. 

Brandi [00:25:49] If he did, he was like, here's it's a wrist action. It's the wrist action. So, yeah, that's a lot of what's really picking up steam in the eighties and really expanding how we engage with sports and sports fandom. So Steven, we've taken a trip down memory lane. We've heard of what brought you into baseball in sports fandom. We've learned a little bit about Fernando. We talked about. It's in the eighties and the climate that's setting the stage for this argument that you're about to make in the next segment. So just to refresh our memory, what are you actually arguing? 

Steven [00:26:24] So my argument is going to be that Fernando Valenzuela was the most influential athlete of the 1980s. And just to put a finer point on it, I'm not talking about who was the most commercially successful athlete. I'm not talking about who was the most recognizable athlete. I'm not even talking about who is the most talented athlete of the 1980s. I am going to argue, however, that Fernando Valenzuela changed the trajectory of the sport, changed the trajectory of baseball. And because of that, he is the most influential athlete in the 1980s and did so more than any other athlete during that decade. 

Brandi [00:27:05] You're like already like, first of all, you're supposed to like, say your sentence argument, you already added a bunch of quantifiers and qualifiers before we even get there. OK, that's cool. 

Steven [00:27:17] You can disagree with me. You can disagree with how I'm framing. 

Brandi [00:27:22] Good luck to you sir. 

Steven [00:27:23] Whatever I don't need luck, I don't need luck when I've got the receipts, OK? I've got my dossier of stats. And people have been telling me Brandi is a lawyer. You need you need to come prepped with the arguments, with the stats, with the receipts. And that's what I'm going to do in this next segment. 

Steven [00:27:39] And we're back and joining us here in the virtual studio, we've got our former colleague at the Center for Media Justice, Karlos Guana Schmeider, who is one just a long time friend of ours, but also a brilliant communications strategist, someone that I learned a lot from in my early days entering the media justice field and learning how to how to decode media, how to deconstruct messaging and how to shape new narratives that carry impact. And he's been doing that work first, doing it as part of his role formerly several years ago at the Center for Media Justice. But I know since then has gone on to work with a bunch of different kinds of movement building institutions across multiple sectors, kind of bringing that that experience, that perspective. And so we're so grateful to have you on here. Karlos, I should say that part of the reason why I picked Karlos to be a judge is I wanted to lean into...I wanted to kind of veer away from my strategy the past few episodes where I've been trying to to bring in people who I think like I can I can convince. And for this episode, I was like, OK, I'm going to make an argument about the Dodgers. If my instinct is to zig, I need to zag. So I brought on what would be the unlikeliest person that could agree with me on an argument dealing with the Dodgers, which is like bring in a rival. Karlos is the San Francisco Giants fan. And so I was like, I'm going to bring in a Giants fan to judge this particular episode because I'm on a losing streak and I feel like I need to rethink the formula, rethink the methodology. And so that's why I picked Karlos and also because Fernando Valenzuela was Mexican. And I feel like I feel like that has to count for something here. That has to count for something with Karlos Gauna Schmeider. Welcome to the show Karlos. 

Brandi [00:29:47] Karlos is Mexican? Karlos, are you Mexican? 

Steven [00:29:50] New Mexican. 

Karlos [00:29:50] New Mexican. 

Steven [00:29:53] And Fernando Valenzuela...One of the arguments I'm going to make is that he created New Mexicans in the sport of baseball. 

Karlos [00:30:04] That's very, very true. Everywhere. Well thank you for that intro Steven. You're thinking is close, you know, I mean. We could talk about my fandom and how it's switched over the years, but I grew up a Dodgers fan, interestingly, because the triple-A baseball team was here in Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Dukes. 

Steven [00:30:25] The Albuquerque Dukes and the Isotopes at different times have had an affiliation with...a minor league affiliation with the Dodgers. So I was curious about that. I was so curious, like how you could switch sides like that. 

Karlos [00:30:37] But it was a you know, so we're going to it's all heartstrings today. And I think that's the way you're going to win these arguments with you guys. At the time I was living in San Francisco...when...what year? You know, I'm not good at years, but the Giants won the World Series for the first time with that kind of ragtag team. And my, my girlfriend at the time's nephew Ishmael, me and him just watched every game of the World Series and like the party out in the streets, it kind of just made me you know...it was pretty bandwagony I guess. 

Steven [00:31:24] Alright...so in addition to being in addition to being a Giants fan, you also picked up fandom with the Warriors. And I have to ask you, like, how much how much leg room is there currently in the in the Warriors bandwagon? There must be a lot right now 

Karlos [00:31:43] Leg room in the fandom? What?

Brandi [00:31:47] He's saying there's a lot of space, Karlos, because the fans are leaving. 

Karlos [00:31:51] You know, I come from New Mexico. Yes. Yes, there is. But, you know, I mean, Steph's having a great year. It's been rough. It's been rough. They left Oakland, too, so. Well, there's a lot of room...

Steven [00:32:08] So what do you attribute... so growing up in New Mexico. What was it about kind of rooting for for those two teams in particular? Was it just like the winning you just happened to be in the area when they started winning, or is there anything more that attracts you to them? 

Karlos [00:32:25] Yeah, I mean, I think New Mexico doesn't have any, like, pro... You know, the the highest level pro sports teams, very, very honestly, mostly from the West Coast, folks are like...it's a Dodgers type of town. In Albuquerque, it's the Lakers. And then, you know, some of us fell in love with the Bulls in the nineties. As a family thing, my grandmother would always root...on my dad's side. My grandmother, she loves sports, but she would always root for the favorite... 

Steven [00:33:01] Because she was like tired of losing. 

Steven [00:33:04] I'm just I just I'm going to bet to win. 

Karlos [00:33:07] Well, she also loved the Cubs. So that's the.... 

Steven [00:33:11] Except for that one. Yeah, for sure. 

Karlos [00:33:12] Yeah. Yeah. But then I would always root for whoever was going to win at the end. It was great. So maybe I get a little bit of that....I don't know, you get swept up in the fun man. The Parade was right in my backyard down there for the Warriors. All those years I was in the mission for the for the Giants wins. And it was a blast man it was just a blast. 

Brandi [00:33:32] Who is like ultimate sports team? Your Ride Or Die sports team. 

Karlos [00:33:37] Yeah, the Lobos, UNM Lobos, which shout out Lobos, which, you know, your family has a New Mexico Sports Connection. Brandi.

Brandi [00:33:48] Yeah they were rivals. My parents went to New Mexico State there. 

Karlos [00:33:52] They have an amazing history in sports too. The New Mexico State team, because of their connections and UTEP and right around there, it's a different place. It's a very, very you know, I really love listening to the previous segments where ya'll were talking about just sports in that time and and the things that have happened. That southern New Mexico. It's like eastern it's like southeastern New Mexico, Texas little place. There is a crazy place for sports where all those things that we all were talking about play out. 

Brandi [00:34:24] So my dad....On a side note to my dad's coach Coach Lou Henson, who was his college coach, he started off at Hardin Simmons, which is like this Christian college in Texas, and like a little before the UTEP team, as part of his contract in coaching there, he had an assistant coach that was Latino that he wanted to bring with him. And he wanted to be allowed to have like an integrated basketball team and and the success that they had at Hardin Simmons is part of the reason why New Mexico State reach out to him in the 60s and recruited him to come on as a as a head coach. So, yeah, they had like a really diverse team. And my dad often talks about his time in New Mexico and the diversity of, like, you know, having diverse teammates. I think one of his teammates played for the national basketball team in Mexico, just like all of that in the 60s. And them coming together in this time of racial turmoil was really influential for him. 

Steven [00:35:24] What were your thoughts on Fernando Valenzuela growing up? I imagine you were probably familiar with him, right? 

Karlos [00:35:29] Yeah, I don't know. That's just one of the spots, Brandi where you lost some points. I just couldn't believe it [you hadn't heard of him]. My father was a big baseball fan. I, I fell in with, like, kind of the Brandi attitude towards baseball. I had fun playing it. I lived in a neighborhood that was like an agricultural neighborhood and we had a lot of fields so we could play baseball. We had like makeshift fields that we built and we all played all the time. It was fun. My dad really love baseball, though. He's like one of those kind of Midwesterner, white guys from from Iowa who like, knew all the stats and knew everything and he loved the Pittsburgh Pirates and Roberto Clemente. And interestingly and also like Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela. Right. And they kind of connected to each other through all the years playing baseball. They didn't no hitters on the same day. They both played for the...he should have played for the Dukes. Dave Stewart kind of... He refused to go one year from the Dodgers to play for the Dukes. And then that's how some some other player got kicked off the Dodgers. He's like, I'm not going down. I'm not going down to play. So those two guys on the mound were great. I did see Fernando Venezuela pitch once in Albuquerque, you know, I know I was there. I vaguely remember it. And I knew he didn't he just didn't play that that much in the game. And everybody was mad and the stadium was fucking packed, you know. And yeah, I mean, you know, he's had an impact in many ways that, you know, like the Bull Durham piece. There's a Bull Durham scenes where. What's her name? 

Brandi [00:37:03] Susan Sarandon. 

Karlos [00:37:05] Yeah. Where Susan Sarandon is helping the pitchers. Right. And she talks to them about Fernando Valenzuela breathing through his eyeballs and. Yeah, it's great. I watched the 30 for 30 the other day after you all asked me, which was so great. 

Steven [00:37:13] What did you think? 

Karlos [00:37:14] It was so great. One of the things that stuck out a ton was the strike that happened. Nineteen eighty one. Yeah. And how they credit Fernando with like saving baseball that year because everybody was tired of it, but they wanted to see if he could do it again the next year. And there was a piece during the strike where Johnny Carson does this joke about... 

Steven [00:37:36] I hated that part...

Karlos [00:37:46] That joke about hiring him...someone hiring him to do their lawn. A gardener or something?

Steven [00:37:48] Johnny Carson was like Reggie Jackson just hired...Hired Fernando to do his gardening, like while the baseball strike was going on. And this is white people trying to fuel like the Black and brown divide. It's fucked up. 

Brandi [00:38:16] What the hell? Oh, wow. He really tried it.

Karlos [00:38:18] Yea...you want to like Johnny Carson too, he had some funny jokes at the same time. But what an asshole.

Steven [00:38:25] Yeah, yeah, shout out...Definitely check out that 30 for 30 if folks haven't watched it. Fernando Nation, it's pretty good. Kind of gives you like it has like tidbits of history, which I found really, really cool. They didn't go in depth on what happened with with Chavez Ravine, which I can get into in my section, you know, the Mexican-American neighborhood that was kind of bulldozed to make way for for Dodger Stadium. But they did touch on like the kind of growing divide in L.A. and at a moment of like high politicization. Like the growth of the Chicano movement, the student walkouts, the Chicano moratorium and a divide between that kind of political movement in the city and the Dodger fandom, at least at that time. 

Steven [00:49:11] All right. Just as a recap for our audience, Karlos will be judging us along a set of five criteria: our receipting, viability, creativity, energy and rebuttal. It's on a score of one to five. But, Karlos, you can feel free to get creative with the points allocation however you want. And so I'll open up by making kind of my three arguments for why I think Fernando Valenzuela was the most influential baseball player of the nineteen eighties. And then we'll open it up for Brandi to try and retaught what I am going to say. Try emphasis on try. So here are my three arguments. I think first off, we started kind of going into this in the earlier segment about the decline of the Black baseball player, the African American/Black American baseball player. And we start to see that decline happen in the early 1980s. Actually, we see kind of peak growth happening right after Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in baseball in nineteen forty seven. And we see during the time period of Jackie Robinson's career, Black baseball players grew from practically obviously zero to seven percent of baseball player representation in baseball and by nineteen eighty one would peak at about nineteen percent. So close to 20 percent of the players in baseball were Black. But it's after that, that we start to see a pretty significant decline. It would take a couple of decades to get there, but today that number for African-American baseball players is six percent. So when Fernando came into the league, Latino players and it's important to kind of raise obviously, that this kind of demographic also does include Afro Latinx players like, as previously mentioned, players like Roberto Clemente. But when Fernando Valenzuela entered the league, it was about 11 percent of players in the league were, you know, Latin X. And by nineteen ninety seven, when Fernando Valenzuela retired from the major leagues, that number would be up to twenty four percent. Now, I'm not going to say and I'm not going to sit here and attribute that completely to Fernando Valenzuela. But I will say that you start to see a pretty significant increase starting at about the nineteen eighties teams start bringing on more Latin X baseball players. And I think one of the things that Fernando Valenzuela did for baseball and did for the Dodgers in particular is that they found a player that they could market to the communities that surrounded them. And in Los Angeles, the former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, when he first moved the team out to L.A., always had designs of trying to find a Mexican baseball player that he could market to the people of L.A., particularly in light of its history with the community. By today Latinx baseball players, both Afro Latinos and non Black Latino baseball players, account for about twenty seven percent of the overall kind of demographics of baseball players. So pretty significant kind of growth. And I think, Fernando, Valenzuela did a lot to diversify the game. And I think his success led to the growth in these players that we've seen. And I think in particular, the other thing he did was he actually diversified a very crucial role, which is pitchers, which is one of the most visible players on the field. When you watch the game and when you're at the baseball game live like you're staring at the pitcher, you're trying to see what the pitcher is going to do next. And a lot of the action around baseball is directly tied to the pitcher, much in the same way that a quarterback is that kind of crucial piece to football. And in in sports critique, we often talk about kind of the the underrepresentation of of Black quarterbacks in a sport like football that's like dominated by Black players. And in baseball, baseball's had very much the same problem. For decades, you saw this underrepresentation of Black pitchers, Latinx pitchers, Asian pitchers, pretty much throughout its history. But then about in 1980, you start to see a stark increase in the number of Latino pitchers. So for decades, the demographics around pitchers were steady, the same like Black representation. Latinx representation Asian were running on parallel tracks with each other. And it's in 1980 when you start to see a very sharp incline. And by the end of Fernando Valenzula's career Latinx pitchers represented about 20 percent of pitchers on the mound. Stark, stark increase. So not only did he diversify the players on the field, but he did a lot to diversify a very particular position. The other thing I'll say is in the nineteen eighties we saw an increase in attendance. So the Dodgers prior to nineteen eighty, they would average somewhere around thirty to thirty five thousand fans. In the first two years that Fernando Valenzuela was in the league, that number jumped up to on average was about forty five thousand. That's their average attendance per game in nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty two. Fernando Valenzuela's first full seasons in the sport and the, the stats that in baseball is one of these sports where, like so many stats are collected on it. But attendance stats for other teams during the same period in nineteen eighty one nineteen eighty two, which most folks consider that kind of period of Fernando mania, you see an increase when the Dodgers go on the road, an increase of ten to fifteen thousand additional fans in the stands that otherwise would not be there. And I think that to me like attributes a lot of like why the Dodgers as a team actually really travel well, any time you go to a game on the road, be it on the West Coast, on the East Coast, it doesn't matter where it is. And I've attended like Mets games when the Dodgers have played the Mets, when I used to live in New York. And the stadium is as much as orange, a predominant color for the Mets as it is like royal blue, a predominant color for for the Dodgers. So you see this on TV when you're watching, like the cutaways to the crowd, the Dodgersare a team that travel well. And we start to see this kind of increase in attention to the Dodgers happening during the period of Fernandomania and was very much reflected in attendance records for all these different teams. They are all of a sudden selling out games in the eighties that wouldn't have otherwise because of Fernando Valenzuela. And then the last thing the last argument I'll make is that Fernando Valenzuela not only diversified the field, diversified a very crucial position, brought more people to the game of baseball at a very crucial time, but also diversified a fan base. And this is where I think it's important to talk about the context of what was happening in Los Angeles prior to Fernando Valenzuela entering the league in nineteen eighty. So as folks might or might not know, Dodger Stadium is located in a very beautiful place, like on these slopes and hills in an area previously known and still to this day, actually currently known as Chavez Ravine. And Chavez Ravine actually referred to a Mexican-American neighborhood that was a pretty robust and vibrant neighborhood that had schools, that had a church, that had a play area for kids, but it was predominately Mexican-American. And part of the reason that that was true is, is Los Angeles, like most cities, had racist housing covenants. And so by design, there were only a few places that if you were Mexican-American, if you were Black, that you could live in the city. And, you know, at the time and this is like in the early nineteen, nineteen forties going into the nineteen fifties rather than address like extending housing throughout other parts of Los Angeles, progressive quote unquote progressive policy at the time was to do more social housing projects and to do more public housing projects. And there was a city official by the name of Frank Wilkinson, who was the head of the Housing Authority in Los Angeles. And he was he was a humanist who was kind of inspired by this idea of like leveraging government to produce projects that could deliver kind of an essential infrastructure to people. So he believed in public housing. He was actually responsible for the implementation of the first public housing project. And Watts, which now is is what we know as as Jordan Downs, which is a predominantly Black area of Watts. And I mean, Watts in general has always been a predominately Black neighborhood. And in the early 1950s. He sets his sights on this Mexican American neighborhood called Chavez Ravine, where he envisioned building a public housing project and would give the residents of that neighborhood vouchers to return. Which is a term, and this goes into some of my like affordable housing organizing history, but it's this term like the right of return. So it's this kind of mechanism by which you can displace someone from the neighborhood they're from. But give them the option to return back to the neighborhood once whatever project you're building is done. These are often mechanisms that are false promises because housing projects could take years to pull off. And any time that you're doing any sort of like housing projects that involve government money, like a lot of things can go sideways. But came into Chavez Ravine, Frank Wilkenson made this promise of like, we're going to build this wonderful public housing here, leave, and then you can come back. And many people did, in fact, do that, but a lot didn't. And I think that's worth lifting up. There was a lot of resistance to this sort of shift by the residents in Chavez Ravine. At the same time, this is also the era of McCarthyism named after Joseph McCarthy, who went after and investigated supposedly like infiltration of folks involved with the Communist Party. And he targeted a lot of political activists, musicians, artists and a lot of public city officials that were working on public housing. Projects like this were targeted as well. And Frank Wilkinson was one of them. And so this project, which seemed to be seemed like it was going to happen, it got completely derailed as Frank Wilkinson became the subject of investigations by the House un-American Activities Committee. So, you know, Chavez Ravine essentially ends up this kind of half vacant neighborhood now because they've... A lot of residents have been convinced to leave and the residents who stayed there were resisting. But the city ended up with, like access to deeds for a lot of property in this area and no project to fulfill, nothing to do with it. And around this time is when we see the owner of the Dodgers, Walter O'Malley, start to consider making a move from Brooklyn. He was looking to build his own stadium and the city of New York was essentially getting in his way because they had different visions about how to do it. And it's interesting that their disagreement was around whether to build what Walter O'Malley wanted to do, which is a privately funded stadium where the where the Dodgers would own the stadium and own all the concessions and everything versus doing a publicly kind of municipally owned stadium, which is what Robert Moses, who was an urban planner for the city of New York and also one of the chief architects of a lot of urban design during the nineteen fifties, which prompted a lot of white flight from urban centers to suburbs, he was kind of the main chief rival to Walter O'Malley at that time. He had a very different vision for the stadium, one that would have been municipally owned where the profits would have stayed with the city. But Walter O'Malley decided to leave and he found a very willing city in Los Angeles with a big plot of land available, not completely available, but there for him to to do what he wanted to do. And so when they agreed to to take over that land, the remaining residents that were there resisting fought back and were forcibly, quite literally, forcibly removed. And there's like images of like law enforcement coming in, like literally dragging people out of their homes. So that was the context in the relationship and how the relationship started between in Los Angeles, an area that was very heavily populated by Mexican Americans, between that community and the Dodgers. And so for decades, people didn't really go out to the games, but they did hear once Fernando Valenzuela entered the league in in the nineteen eighties. You know, for me, I think it explains for me how someone like my brother's dad, who was who's from El Salvador, came to the United States in the nineteen eighties. Baseball is not a sport that's popular in El Salvador by any stretch, but it explains to me how someone like him could get interested in a sport where El Salvador doesn't care about the sport. But here was this, this person who became enamored with the Dodgers and enough so to try to share that experience with someone like me. So and it's something that like for for me, like I take a lot of pride in extending that kind of fandom to the next generation down. I've taken my nieces and nephews to multiple Dodger games. It's one of my favorite things to do when I'm in L.A. So the sport...and that's reflected in the data around the...The fan base of of the Dodgers, they are among the highest, most diverse baseball fan bases in the sport, and I think the only teams that rival the Dodgers and they're actually on equal footing are teams like the Miami Marlins, where they're located in a neighborhood in an area that is predominantly Cuban. And you see this a little bit with the Oakland A's as well. It's a pretty diverse fan base. And, you know, the Dodgers, a third of their fan base is Latino, according to surveys that were done by morning consult. So here I am providing my receipts and overall representation of their fan base is about 50 percent, which, you know, I think, Brandi, you were mentioning earlier in the previous segment about like the, you know, kind of perceiving baseball to be this kind of white man's sport. And I think that data does prove out for most other teams. And I think the Dodgers are an exception here. And that just wasn't true for the fan base prior to Fernando Valenzuela. So so by comparison, you look at a team like the Chicago Cubs, which even to this day, you know, over sixty five percent of their fans are white, you know. So diversified the sport, diversified a very crucial role, increased attendance and brought people to the sport in a way that we hadn't seen prior to that and diversified a fan base in a city that had a very fractured relationship with the team. And for those reasons, I am saying that Fernando Valenzuela was the most influential athlete of the 1980s. And again, I'm talking about a person, an individual who changed the trajectory of the sport. And I think Fernando Valenzuela did that more so than any other athlete. And I will leave it there. 

Brandi [00:55:03] Thanks, Steven. I'm going to make three arguments about why I disagree with you. And the first place I'll start is by deconstructing what is cultural power and influence like, what does that actually mean? What are we talking about here? And so to me, I think of three kind of overlapping circles, like a venn diagram of spheres of influence where cultural power kind of lies in the middle. So one saturation and distribution platform. So like how much of the content is going out to the masses is accessible, is being seen, is really spread across whatever is the modern communications technology at the time. So today we would say the Internet, maybe in the eighties we would say television, magazines, et cetera. That's one circle, the distribution platforms. Second circle is those kind of like closed spaces where cultural conversation happens. So in the Black community, that might be like the barbershop or the beauty salon. Maybe it's a kitchen table, but like like somebody is making it from these like distribution platforms into everyday conversation that's happening with folks. And then the third circle is who is the storyteller? Who is like the the the compelling figure that is really helping to drive and shape cultural power and influence. So if I look at those three circles overlapping each other, I would say that that's like in the center of that is where influence lies. If that's the argument that I would make, and I am, I would say that part of where I think your argument falls apart is that in the eighties we are really entering into a time of like high consumerism, high saturation. What builds cultural power tends to revolve around youth and pop culture. And in that eighties, it's revolving around consumer culture. And when you really look at the subcultures that are kind of driving influence in the public conversation, it tends to be subcultures like hip hop, for example. And that's really shaping how we're engaging with with culture and with cultural power and with influence. And I would say in that landscape, a lot of that is introducing a lot of potential figures that we could sit here and we could argue are highly influential, but makes it really hard to actually pin down who that, like one major influencer of the eighties could be, because we're being confronted with a lot of different Speedy elements. So I could say here, obviously, my instinct would be to make the argument about Michael Jordan. And I do think there's a compelling argument there. But people could make that argument about Magic Johnson. People could make that argument about Larry Bird. They can make it about Bo Jackson. They could. Make it about I can't remember Deion Sanders is like 80s or 90s, but there's a number of different like sports icons that are coming to the center that are really shaping and influencing culture and how we understand culture and influence and power. So I would say that that because of that, it makes it really hard to just pin it down to like one person or to just pin it down exclusively to Fernando, because we are like moving really fast as consumers and bringing in a lot of inputs, especially in the eighties as computers are taking off and all of these other communications vehicles. So if I if I were to like, you know, sift through the rubble, whether or not I feel like he he really sits at that spot of, like, compelling storyteller, saturation distribution platform being discussed in certain barbershop or community spaces. Certainly he could he could fit in there, but so could a number of other figures. And that's part of the reason why I have trouble with the the idea that he would be the most influential person of the nineteen eighties. So that would be argument one. Argument two. I think that like a lot of what you're talking about feels very regional or local in terms of influence. So if we were talking about is Fernando the most influential sports figure in California or L.A. in the 80s, that would be a conversation that I think has teeth in it. If you were making the argument that L.A. broadly as a sports epicenter is the most influential, you know, sports base of the 80s, I would have a lot of questions and side eye and I would disagree with you, but I would find a little more merit in that, because to your point, you do at this point have the L.A. Raiders. You have and you have again, going back to this piece around like hip hop as this subculture that's wielding great influence in the 80s that the L.A. Raiders and the the iconography and the esthetic that's being like shared out through groups like NWA and others is really moving that into the pop culture sphere. Part of the reason why, even though the Raiders weren't in L.A. for very long relative to how they were in Oakland, people still remember the L.A. Raiders. And then you have the Lakers, you have Showtime, you have Magic Johnson. You have like, you know, all of these high fliers. And so even in that field of, like L.A., I could I could see the argument about Fernando. But like broadly, I would say that that the point may be that L.A. as a sports city may have been the most influential sports city in the 80s. I could I could potentially get there with you. I'm lying I could never be with you. But like, I could entertain that a little more. But I think that like to say specifically, Fernando, I have a little trouble with that.  I see everything you said about the influence for the city and the impact for the city and the impact for people and for specific communities. But broadly across the US and culture, I'm not I'm not sure I get there. And then and then the third argument that I'm going to make, which may lead to a divorce, but I'm going to make it anyway. I feel like the very idea that in the late 20th century that baseball could be a focal point for influence is a bit laughable to me. Like, I just I think at this point in time, the sport is dying out. I mean, yes, he increased, you know, attendance at a number of different arenas, but it was still very much it went from being like America's pastime, America's sport, like as American, as baseball and apple pie to like falling down the ranks in terms of what people were looking at, what people were consuming. And there's reasons why, like baseball is cheap to go to. You could bring your food is like fun to watch in person. But in terms of, like, how that translates to a beginning of an Internet culture, the beginning of like twenty four hour television and all of these things are happening. It just doesn't translate well, like when we were in Oakland, I used to go watch the A's and that was fun. Now we're back in Baltimore and David goes to watch the Orioles by himself,,, 

Steven [01:02:42] Almost entirely by himself...

Brandi [01:02:48] Almost entirely by himself because there's like ten people there. But like it it's just it's not a sport that necessarily translates well outside of the arena in some ways. And to the extent it does, it translates well to radio, which again, adds to why it feels a little bit more dated than other sports, like it's the only sport that builds in... They know that you're sitting there. So in the seventh inning, you have to get up and stretch, like, what other sport do you have to get up and stretch. In the middle of the sport. Even when Karlos and I went there to see the Oakland A's, to see Cespedes, like we went there and sat outside and had to go walk around, I had a farmer's tan for a month. And I'm like, I'm I'm Black on both sides. My family DNA fully melanated. It is outrageous that I had to sit outside for three, four hours and then have a farmer's tan for a month. And that that's the type of reasons. That's one of the many reasons why I think as picking somebody, anybody, from baseball as a most iconic, influential figure in the last 20 years of the 20th century and the twenty first century, I think doesn't work. 

Steven [01:04:01] Wow. Yeah, very... Disrespectful is the word that comes to mind. So I'm just I'm going to rebut a couple of things you said, because I think that your definition of cultural power is so intrinsically tied to consumerism that I have to divorce the two. To me, I think there's something you said in the last episode, the Marvin Gaye episode, about the importance of having something that makes you feel like you belong. And Marvin Gaye's rendition of the national anthem, making you feel connected to a country that in every other iteration of that song like made you made you feel disconnected completely and that you saw yourself reflected in it. And I think that is, to me, the kind of influence that I'm talking about here with Fernando Valenzuela in the sport of baseball. He made immigrants feel like they had a place in the sport. He made Latinx people across the various different ethnicities feel like they had a place and they belong at the stadiums. and When I look at the demographic data for some of the various different teams like the Marlins, the athletics, the Giants, the Toronto Blue Jays, the New York Mets, the Houston Astros, the San Diego Padres, I see teams where part of the reason that their fan base is as diverse that supersedes the league average is because those immigrant communities have embraced the sport, have embraced the team and go to those games and feel like they actually belong. And I think that that counts for a lot for me. And that's why I like when I go to Dodger Stadium, I do feel at home like I feel like I'm among my people and that just like everybody looks like either a cousin of mine, an uncle, my niece, like they it just looks like where you're from. And in a sport that has, as you've noted, like, has come tinged with so much like racialized history. And it's a sport that's been largely populated by white people to feel that in this kind of a sport, you know, in this kind of a sport that resisted integration, that still to this day does become flashpoints of political conversation and still has pretty significant racist racist fan bases all over the sport, that that is a site where we can claim space and claim to feel a part of it. That is significant. And and I don't think that that would be true without the presence of Fernando Valenzuela. And then the only other thing I'll say is that...The sport of baseball being kind of a cultural piece being laughable, I guess what I would say is, yes, the sport is often still accessible to people via radio. And and I think one of the unique things about that, which I think speaks to my core argument, is that to this day, you know, Latinx people still listen to radio in significant numbers. And that is like my mom listens to radio. That's all she did when she worked was just listen to radio. There's a culture around listening to this sport, particularly in a narrative way that I think still carries forward to this day. And we have, it just so happens that the voice of the Dodgers today, the Spanish language voice of the Dodgers today is Fernando Valenzuela. And it used to be Jaime Jarrin who was the voice of the Dodgers for decades since like the nineteen fifties or the nineteen sixties, when they started broadcasting Dodger games in Spanish. It's still a way that the sport becomes accessible to a community that wouldn't otherwise have access to professional sports. And I'll tell you, to this day, I have not been to a Laker game, an actual Laker game like in person in Los Angeles. I've been I've been to see the Lakers on the road when I used to live in Minnesota because it was somewhat more affordable. I can't afford to go to a Laker game in L.A., but I can definitely afford to go myself to a Dodger game and bring my cousins, my nieces, my nephews. That is affordable to me, that is accessible to me. And I think that that kind of connection, that kind of ability to access professional sports, I think is is something that we can't undervalue here. And I think is speaking to my core argument of influence, I think it influenced people to come to a sport, to engage with it and to feel like they belong. And FernandoValenzuela did that. 

Brandi [01:08:42] I think what I appreciate about what you're saying is that I do think that that baseball fandom does have a certain amount of feeling of belonging to it, like baseball fans are really into being baseball fans and are really into their team and have like a love for it and for the sort of sacred traditions of the sport that I think are very valuable. But again, speak to it's datedness because it is a very traditional sport. Everything about it, like even the Yankees have to. I feel like they have to still wear their hair a certain way and wear their jersey a certain way. Maybe they change that more recently, but for many years there's something about it that doesn't always feel welcoming to people that are trying to like, move forward in the course of history. And I do think I do definitely take your point about it being accessible on radio. And I think that's very important. But what good is it to be accessible on radio if it's not accessible in your backyard because you don't have a backyard? Because, you know, a lot of infrastructure failures have made it not possible for you to have a backyard to go play baseball. So even if you hear someone on the radio and you get really excited about it, you go out on your street, you can't really take a swing at the ball because you're going to knock out a window. And once you knock out a window, you know, the city's not going to come prepare it, come repair it anyway or, you know, all of those things again, that make it feel like a bit of a time capsule as a sport. And then the figures within it, it almost feels like a secret society to me: baseball fans. Which I think is kind of the opposite of what broader cultural influences are supposed to feel like. It's for everyone, no matter who you are, no matter where you live it, it's supposed to feel like something for your youth culture and subcultures. And to me, it just it has not for a long time. I would say it did in the early part of the 20th century. But that is very much a time gone by. And that's part of the reason why it's like still bleeding fans to this day. 

Steven [01:10:57] Yeah, that's those are fair points, I mean, I hear that, and I also think that there is a way that Fernando Venezuela was, I think, unique in the sense that he came from a ridiculously small, small, small town in Sonora, Mexico. And when he came into the league, he was, I think, fandom... Fandom kind of emerged around him. He didn't actively seek it, but there were unique things about him. Like he just he looked like my uncle. He still looks like my uncle to this day. He just looks like someone that wasn't shaped to be... Isn't supposed to be as good or as effective as he  was, especially during a time in the nineteen eighties where there was so much like anti immigrant fervor, like it's scurried up by like Reagan as a response to like some some of the economic downturn and high unemployment rates, like the scapegoats were immigrants. And I think to see an immigrant that looks like you, hurl a baseball at another white person and strike them out like that's a powerful, powerful image and highly influential. And I think while he wasn't the most bombastic, the most outspoken, you know, the most flamboyant baseball player, I do think he created the pathways for those kinds of play baseball players that have come later and that are now kind of currently pushing the sport to be a different way. And I think you see that with the introduction of foreign born baseball players coming into the league who bring a different kind of swagger. You're Fernando Tatis juniors, your your show Heyo Tannis. You're Yasiel Puig leagues like players who came in like with energy and are bucking the trends that the convention in baseball. And I think it's pushing it in a different direction. But I take your points there are not bad. They're cool.

Brandi [01:12:49] I also just want to name that, like how how we did this show. It's supposed to be that you make an argument. I make an argument. You make a rebuttal, I make a rebuttal, and then we stop. I don't know if we're subtracting points for that, but I don't want to point that out. 

Steven [01:13:03] Well, speaking of which, why don't we turn it over to you, Karlos? You could free to do...you could feel free to do whatever you want, Karlos. I'm not I'm not going to counter I was actually trying to agree and say, like, you made some good points, Brandi. I was just trying to accentuate a previous point that I had made but fair enough. Turning it over to you, Karlos. You've heard us debate now for a little bit. What do you think? 

Karlos [01:13:26] Oh, man, I love you guys. A lot of heart, a lot of heart in this story, a lot of heart in this debate and a lot of distance and time, you know. So sometimes, like, I think you guys both have tough jobs debating each other. You have a professional receipts bringer with Brandi. And that's like a constant. And I know this because I've argued with her and I don't know if I've ever won one, I wouldn't say I've lost one either. 

Brandi [01:14:03] You've won a lot. 

Karlos [01:14:05] And we have Steven. I mean, so I think this is a tough one. Right. This is a really tough thing. And the framing of it makes makes you have to think about some pieces. Right. Let me try to think what I heard. So say his distance in time when his influence was really peaking is early 80s. Right. Which is longer time frame in this world. That goes really fast, as Brandi's been talking about. And we kind of just turn things up and out. And what we... What can be influential at one point may feel not influential at another without its context. Right. So like this idea, like, did he have cultural impact? You know, I don't know. So like, is it...what was the real debate "he is the most influential athlete of the eighties?" It's a tough argument to make. I mean...did you bring up Jordan? You did bring up Jordan. Was it the 80s for real, though? I mean, he was but... 

Steven [01:15:11] His peak was in the 90s, though, 

Karlos [01:15:11] His peak was 90s... 

Brandi [01:15:14] Like Jordan I (the shoes) drop in like eighty five. 

Karlos [01:15:18] Really? Yeah, that's important cultural and influence. 

Steven [01:15:23] Fernando would have had a shoe deal if he had wanted it. He just didn't want it. 

Karlos [01:15:28] No, no. I mean so there's some things in here that like the mania is so real and what his story created, he's like from like... And this is where he really resonates with me. Right. And with with all of us is that he's from like Etchohuaquila, Mexico, you know. Which is like a tiny thing in an Sonora municipality. So for him to sell the most posters then. And I mean more posters than like Superman, like he did then. Like his impact in that eighty one to eighty five is huge. So I like I got a lot love for that. And I don't know if it's... What I would like to hear like "is it fair to say just because baseball has like lost its place here, that he wasn't an influential to other sporting folks in the 80s? Similarly, I think, a lot about like Selena. I'm watching Selena documentary, have you seen it?

Steven [01:16:29] The series or the documentary?

Brandi [01:16:31] Oh no, I just saw that series. 

Steven [01:16:34] Yeah. Yeah. We would not have a Beyonce without Selena. 

Brandi [01:16:37] You should have made that argument. 

Karlos [01:16:38] Oh, yeah. So, Selena, the new series that's been on and like also in similar ways to  Fernandomania, I think Selena was like influential beyond her little time. And even though Tejano music might not be quite as bumpin as like, it might not be as commercially successful as whatever, her reach around and the way she impacted other mostly people of color and artists to, like, take control of their own narrative and stuff was cool. I don't think Fernando Valenzuela quite meets that. But this was about the arguments and the passion and the creativity and the receipts. I had Brandi winning in receipts. I had Steven up in creativity. But Brandi pretty close in that because, you know, really working to my cultural thinking. It was very smart and creative and also just creative arguments. Viability had Brandi ahead. Energy with Steven. Rebuttals were pretty on the marks. I had Steven just winning it by energy. 

Steven [01:17:50] YES that's right. 

Brandi [01:17:55] Wow. Damn you, Karlos. I'm not going to disinvite people because the list of people willing to make time for this may not be that big yet, so I have to keep the 

Karlos [01:18:14] Racism!

Brandi [01:18:17] I can't cut everybody out. I can't cancel everybody. So it's..It is what it is, man. 

Steven [01:18:29] I think I think Karlos made the right choice. I think he's one hundred percent right. I mean, Valenzuela was like influential in a way that I think is really hard for us to really measure now because of everything that we have to compare it to. But when you like, I think Selena was a great comparison. 

Brandi [01:18:44] I think that like a hundred percent right is I don't know. But I will say that I do think, you know, the stuff around community and belonging and then the like, long term implications for the role of the pictcher and visibility and the times, you know, it's it's fine. 

Karlos [01:19:07] It's fine. Yeah. You know, I think it's all about the way you frame it at the start of those things. 

Brandi [01:19:19] Yeah. I mean, if you're going to like next time when I'm setting up my question, I'm going to use like a paragraph of, like, caveats before we even get to the argument section just to, like, help with the framing. But, Karlos, I tell you, I mean, you you are the framing guy. You're like the first person that I think I really had an in-depth conversation with about the importance of framing. And you might be the first judge that made your decision, like, strictly based off of that. So tell us more about like what? Why why do you think framing is so important? And and what do you think about as you're doing your communications work about this piece around framing. 

Karlos [01:20:00] Mmm framing, went right into it? 

Brandi [01:20:04] I'm trying to keep I'm trying to like whatever wrap this wrap this shit up because, you know, I'm not happy, so. 

Karlos [01:20:09] You're still the greatest Brandi. You still brought receipt's, but, you know, it's hard to vote against Fernando Venezuela. So framing communications and stuff, I kind of get like put in that spot from my work over a long time. I don't know. I think it's changing rapidly. I mean, not not necessarily the fundamentals of the ways in which we as consumers of media and other things kind of take it in. But it's definitely like the world's moving very fast now. I think I spoke to that a little bit earlier on in the show. Institutions are being shaped and reshaped and transformed, you know, by the minute. Big ones, big institutions, big systems are being looked at differently now, you know, and they're being reshaped. It's not like the institutions are doing it. It's because there's like networks both like organized and not that are really making a big impact, like on an institution itself and changing it very rapidly. So within that context, this has me thinking of things that are just a little like like fundamental things around the ways in which we view our world. So things like common sense, what is common sense right now? Right. With all these fighting networks, with people like the partisanship. What is public opinion? So I've been thinking a lot about the ways that cultural power and political power and economic power are needed for communities to transform themselves. Right. You know, there's that like making the revolution irressitible, and I think people kind of think that means like pretty it up, make it look good. But I mean, what's irresistable right now for people in other ways in which they want to get involved has to do much more with engagement. So like engaging people with your art, not showing like, you know, not just kind of putting it out there. To me, it's super exciting. And I've been working like the last four or five years on a project called Arriba New Mexico (Up wWth New Mexico), where we gather designers and artists and organizers to create like either immersive spaces, installments, mobile tools that go out and actually engage people on what they want. Because of that thing about common sense that I keep seeing right now is that like even the best of us have a manufactured consent around all this stuff that's going on, right? 

Steven [01:22:46] But I get what you're saying. They're like it's such a weird moment to be doing this cultural work because it's it's what's understood. Like who you're trying to influence is very different today. It's a much more fragmented like space. And the technology communications channels like make it so that you can shape public discourse in an accelerated way, more so than you used to be able to right? Like you would track changes in and kind of public communications and public messaging over the course of like years to see if your work could really influence, like the conversation. And nowadays it feels like you're like one viral Tic-Tok video away from, like, completely shifting the center of conversation. 

Karlos [01:23:28] I mean, totally. And I think that that kind of reality still exists besides these realities where our conditions are still similar. That tension right there where we're trying to like you could put out dope stuff and it'll piss off equally as many people it feels like. So and then, you know, the when when the conditions are the same and the foot is still on the throats of our communities, whether it's the cops, all the different things that are messing with us, we really have less opportunity to imagine and actually think of the world working differently and better. So I think a lot of our cultural work has to be about listening to what's going on out there, about creating spaces that can kind of strip down some of that, both hyper partisanship, but just that our cultural identities and our political spectrums are so far apart to break down some of that so that we can try to think about what we would really want. So, like even here in New Mexico recently, I've been chilling in New Mexico a lot. They just legalized cannabis. It's easy to take that as a win. Right. But this is like a billion dollar industry. If you don't believe that you deserve like good things it's hard to even think of policies that would allow you to get it no? so this thing about like deserving, like how do we, how we create conditions that allow people to think they deserve good so that they can fight for it because the other side is going to say we don't deserve any good. Right? So if we also say that is a it's a tough space to be in I think a lot of our cultural space right now is about imagination. It's about being able to think up new agreements to for how we deal with each other. I've been doing that with Arriba New Mexico. Like I said, I've been trying to do some other stuff around community stewardship, like thinking of the ways in which that philanthropy is transforming as an institution and figure out how we can set up our communities to be able - because one of the things is like you don't deserve money in your communities. Right? And it's really easy for everybody to give tons of money to other communities. But if we don't deserve we don't think we deserve it. And we can imagine a new agreement around our lives. I really think that the policy disagreements that we have right now really aren't going to make that much difference. It's really about us kind of getting involved in our own liberation. And the cultural strategies that exist aren't about giving away our platforms to like famous people and and even like policy makers themselves, but like really creating platforms that that allow people to talk like this one. 

Brandi [01:25:57] I think that's interesting. I know we have to wrap up, but I've actually been writing quite a bit about these things. And to me, it's part of why I think antitrust and cultural work go together in a way that they're not normally thought of. Because what I what I actually think is that we've always had these different ideologies or divergent ideologies, like there's something 21st century around certain like sort of narratives and tropes and beliefs. But it's like we had physical spaces offline, like churches, like businesses, like like our own newspapers where those ideologies were worked out in service of empowerment for like our individual communities. And now as those things, as we lose those places and spaces offline in our force to. Try to organize on an Internet grid that is not conducive to crest ideological organizing and doesn't and is not conducive to like black organizing or Latino organizing because it's just pushing like people within those nations into like conservative leftists, whatever. I think that's a part of why differences that maybe we've had in the past feel more insurmountable than they once did.

Steven [01:27:20] And bringing it full circle to like the topic of the show. It actually makes me what you just said. Brandi makes me think about what you said about the Negro Leagues and how they, as baseball integrated that institution, which had long held like a very significant cultural place in black communities across, you know, across different regions of the US once that institution died as a result, you know, and and that was lost. And then decades later, we have a major problem with, like representation of black baseball players in in the league. It's almost like once you do kind of indoctrinate yourself into those institutions, you get cannibalized within them 

Brandi [01:28:01] Segregation now, segregation forever! 

Karlos [01:28:06] And on our next podcast!

Steven [01:28:13] Can't wait for us to get to like 1950s Bring Receipts. 

Brandi [01:28:16] Oh, man. Yeah. Yo, I could argue this. 

Steven [01:28:25] How can folks stay in touch with you? Stay connected to your work 

Karlos [01:28:29] A couple of of places. ArribaNM dot com is one place just to stay in contact with us. We're on Instagram and Facebook. You can see some of like our art installations and our some of the immersive environments we created and just fun kind of happy engagement, right. Person to person, but with a computer so that we can record it, that we can put it on the Internet. So we're trying to bridge some of that offline, online spaces, check it out it's fun. You can always also do - also worth it to get in touch with me, if you're in youth organizing or you're organizing work is about building power. I've been kind of put in a situation to be a steward of some community resources. And you can find me at Southwest Community Resources Inc. And I just like, yeah, I'm just trying to, like, get money to communities so that they can do what they need to do with it and build their own stuff. That's been my my mission for the last while. 

Steven [01:29:31] That's dope, we really appreciate having you on. And it's been it's been a fun it's been a fun episode. So thank you so much, Karlos. 

Karlos [01:29:37] Thank you, guys. I miss you so much. Can't wait to see you in person. And hang out and all of those great things. 

Brandi [01:29:46] Yeah. Every time you call it and you sound like you're calling from a Mini Ripperton song with like birds in the background. 

Steven [01:29:55] Loving you! That wraps it up for this episode of Bring Receipts. Thank you to our special guests, Karlos Gauna Schmieder, if you love the podcast and want more than consider becoming a patriot and supporter, where you will get exclusive content, shout outs and Bring Receipts merch. Your support will help us keep the show going. A link to our Patreon page is in the show notes. 

Brandi [01:30:20] And tune in next time for part one of the season finale of Bring Receipts. Where Steven and I put our musical taste on the line and face off in the ultimate 1980s mixtape battle. So rewind those cassettes and don't forget to bring receipts.