It’s a rare confluence of Baseball and bingeworthy TV. Let’s explore!
For the first time in my life, I have something in common with Farhan Zaidi. Yesterday, in his postmortem press conference about the failed season of the San Francisco Giants, the team’s President of Baseball Operations referenced a television show in a professional setting so that he could clearly communicate an idea.
The show in question? Hulu’s hit series The Bear.
What’s the show about? From Hulu’s site: Carmy, a young fine-dining chef, comes home to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop. As he fights to transform the shop and himself, he works alongside a rough-around-the-edges crew that ultimately reveal themselves as his chosen family.
It’s funny and interesting with great and clever casting. The “chosen family” angle obscures the larger message about learning how to be a better person. We all have shared struggle amidst internal struggles and bonding isn’t just about acknowledging everyone’s pain, it’s about lifting people up.
Now, for Zaidi to mention it? Unprofessional? Cringe? Trite? All fair accusations to level at the exec. At least, that’s how it’s gone whenever I’ve done it in settings where it does not logically follow (I have worked in TV and film off and on for the last 20 years).
My go-to comp is almost always Star Trek (check out my Star Trek podcast!), but I’m never above referencing the most recent thing I saw if it left a lasting impression and has any sort of connection to current events. Still, I’m a blogger. It was charming when bloggers did it a decade ago. Then it was kinda pro forma. Now it just reflects a blogger’s age — akin to using GIFs in social media replies. But a President of Baseball Operations?
Baseball execs say stupid things all the time. Maybe not as often as bloggers or fans, but enough to demonstrate that they’re just people. And, in this case, it could’ve been worse:
Jerry Dipoto says he operates with a 10-year plan to win 54% of the time.
“We’re actually doing the fanbase a favor in asking for their patience to win the World Series while we continue to build a sustainably good roster.” pic.twitter.com/EUfd04TsTo
— Jake García (@Jake_M_Garcia) October 3, 2023
This was in response to the question, “Sir, is this your handwriting?” (joking)
I don’t want to imagine being a Mariners’ fan and being told that I’m being done a favor by watching a team not trying to win as many games as possible every year. Aiming for a 10-year average really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when we’re dealing with sports. As a lowly blogger and even lower podcaster — basically, a content sludge guy — I can say that existing in the present but always having an eye on the future (what’s my next post? What’s my next episode?) erodes the quality of both.
It’s like Captain Picard said, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”
But Picard wasn’t talking about this in a team sports entertainment setting. Dipoto was. Farhan Zaidi was. On the one hand, you have a guy who did everything “right” (followed his self-made process to the letter) and still lost and on the other guy who seemed aware that he had made mistakes and so no wonder he lost. Even though the two franchises are like sister cities with a nearly identical player development and acquisition process, I’m a lot more comfortable with the future of one over the other.
Zaidi was asked if he thought the team was searching for a new identity going forward: “… is your brand in flux in the future?” His response:
Farhan uses an anecdote from “The Bear” to describe his desired brand of baseball for the Giants pic.twitter.com/XzYbvsdaH2
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) October 3, 2023
I’m an avid TV watcher, I don’t know if you knew that… so, one of the shows I’ve been watching, kinda therapeutically, over the last couple of months is The Bear. I don’t know how many people here watch that show. And there’s an episode in the second season about one of the characters in the show who goes and works as a [stagiaire
in this three-star Michelin restaurant […] the episode “Forks” — so anyway, I promise I’m going somewhere with this […] this guy’s a little annoyed — he works as a stodge the first week. All he’s doing is cleaning forks and then the next week he’s cleaning spoons and it’s, like, really mundane; but, the episode really revolves around the story and narrative behind the sign that’s up in the restaurant kitchen that says, “Every second counts.”
[…]
When I was watching that, I really identified with it, because to be a part of excellence anywhere, you know, no detail can be too small. And for us, I think, you know, that’s what we want our brand to be: that every second counts, every detail matters, whether it’s holding runners on, whether it’s bunting at the right time, whether it’s hitting the cutoff man, whether it’s, you know, pinch hitting in the right spot to get a matchup that helps you win the game; whether it’s a pitching move that, you know, might help you win the game. All of that stuff helps you work together. […] That’s what we want our brand to be. We don’t want to be a team that plays sloppy baseball and then pinch hits in the 9th inning and then people are wondering, “Why are you even bothering?” You know, we want it all to work together.
The kinder view of Zaidi referencing a TV show to explain his thinking is that it simply reflects the times. It could’ve been worse: it could’ve been a meme. In 15 years, a GM will drop a TikTok reference. TV — and it’s why I love it — is there for the escape. If he watched something and got a moment’s respite from everything going on and took the story to heart, that’s great. I mean, we’re talking about a show that’s usually 30 minutes, and if he was willing to reference it in an end of the season presser then we can be sure it’s pretty fresh in his mind. Wasn’t like he watched that instead of figuring out the trade deadline.
As an avid TV watcher myself, the show’s larger theme seems to be about how we can overcome our own struggles to become better people by acknowledging other people’s struggles and helping them be the best they can be. Is that a little hippie-dippy for baseball fans? Sure, but when you watch the show it makes sense. It’s funny! The restaurant is a metaphor! Now here’s where my TV watcher brain steps in:
Zaidi, you’d better be thinking about the entire episode. That sign is less a catalyst and more a crystallization for the character’s evolution where after realizing he must respect himself before he can respect others he must also be of service to others. Baseball is an entertainment. People pay with time or money or both to watch his product.
If you haven’t seen the show, just watch this scene from “Forks” (which is one of the best TV episodes made in recent years):
It’s not just about the details. The story behind “Every second counts” is bittersweet. The person who preached it learned it from somebody who noticed the details but had no relationships. And as the clip above demonstrates, the characters swirling around the episode’s main character (not the series lead, but the loud-mouthed, screwed up cousin) aren’t frustrated geniuses, they’re worried about everyone but themselves. You don’t do a lot of little things thinking they’ll make something great — something great is made in the details. You have to want to be great. And as the show suggests, the way to be great (as a person) is by putting others first.