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Baseball has never been synonymous with change. But in recent years, Major League Baseball has transformed radically, and this season it has embraced technology via the ABS pitch-tracking system (also known as “robot umpires”). Has the experiment worked? Can baseball evolve in the 21st century without losing a piece of itself? Does the tech make the game less human? On this week’s Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel brings on Jimmy O’Brien, founder of Jomboy Media, to talk about baseball’s overhaul, how to become a lip-reading legend on YouTube, and why Americans love slow sports.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
Jimmy O’Brien: I don’t think the fan nor Major League Baseball—and Rob Manfred has said this—realized how much of an entertainment spectacle it was going to be in stadium to have the big board show up, and the animation. And I think that’s a huge part of it.
[Music]
Charlie Warzel: I’m Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we are going to counterprogram the World Cup fever by talking about baseball. We’re talking balls and strikes, robot umpires, and how the national pastime has learned to embrace technology and stay relevant in the 21st century.
But first, I am here to ask for a quick favor. We’re doing an audience survey: How did you learn about this podcast? What do you think of the show? We put together this quick little questionnaire, and it would be so helpful if you could answer it. The first 100 respondents will get a $20 gift card. You can go to TheAtlantic.com/Survey, and we’ll have the link in the show notes as well. That’s TheAtlantic.com/Survey. Now, back to baseball.
If you’ve watched any major-league games this year, you’ve probably noticed a new wrinkle. Occasionally, after a particularly close pitch, a player—usually the batter or the catcher—will challenge the umpire’s call, like this [taps head].
This funny little gesture will initiate a review by ABS. And that stands for the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System: aka, robot umpires. Basically, ABS uses tracking cameras—a lot like they do in tennis—to map the ball’s precise movement and to figure out whether the ump made the right call. Teams get two challenges to start, and if they challenge successfully, they can keep going.
At the beginning of the season, nobody knew how things were going to shake out. Would the challenges be boring, or would they mess up the flow of the game? Would they reveal that major-league umpires were secretly awful, or way better than expected? Even before the first strike was called, ABS represented this broader debate over how much a beloved sport should evolve from its roots, or whether relying on hyperaccurate technology makes the storied game just less human.
And in that way, baseball is going through what all of us are going through in this era of extreme technological change: It’s trying to figure out how to evolve without losing a fundamental piece of itself.
So, how has ABS changed baseball? Has the MLB been able to walk the line between tradition and evolution? To answer these questions, we’ve enlisted none other than Jimmy O’Brien, who you might know by his nickname Jomboy. Jimmy is the founder of Jomboy Media, a company with a mission to showcase all the glorious weirdness of sports, but especially baseball. He’s the co-host of the popular New York Yankees podcast Talkin’ Yanks, and more importantly, the viral star of countless YouTube video breakdowns. O’Brien is famous for his lip-reading skills and the way that he helps reveal the narratives that make all the sports we love worth watching.
O’Brien and I talk robot umps, baseball’s identity—but we also get deeper into how he built his media empire. We talk about how he finds all those iconic moments throughout the 162-game seasons, how players react to his videos, and why Americans actually love slow sports. O’Brien joins me now to talk through it all.
[Music]
Warzel: Jimmy, welcome to Galaxy Brain.
O’Brien: Thank you very much for having me. I feel not smart enough, but I appreciate it.
Warzel: I think you’re smart enough. You’re definitely smarter than me on this subject, and I’m sure a lot of other stuff. So this is very good. Today, I wanna talk about ABS: Automated Balls and Strikes. We’re a technology podcast, but we use that as an excuse to talk about things we love. We love baseball. We wanna talk about baseball. Talk to me about ABS broadly. Just for someone who’s not been watching baseball this year—what is it? How does it work?
O’Brien: Yeah. The very quick answer, because this will ring truer to a lot of people: robot umps. Robot umpires. That’s what for a decade, people have been saying. Like, We need to go to robot umpires and robot umps. And this is basically it. They just didn’t brand it as “robot umps.” So instead of the human calling balls and strikes in a baseball game, [players] now have the capacity to challenge the human. And then the secondary system is the Automated Balls and Strikes, which uses, you know, the technology to check to see if it was actually a strike or not a strike.
Warzel: Missed opportunity, not calling it “robot umps,” in your opinion?
O’Brien: I think that is such a big talking point that they just wanted to get away from that.
Warzel: So this is something that has been, as you said, people have been calling for it for a while. It’s obviously divisive. What have people’s initial reactions been through this saga as it’s been coming to the majors?
O’Brien: In the last five years, Major League Baseball has made an incredible amount of rule changes. Unprecedented amount of rule changes. They went from maybe the sport that had the fewest, and it was just stuck in its past, to one of the quickest-adapting sports. And a big one was robot umpires and you know, using the advancement in technology to call balls and strikes, which is what everyone wants the most.
But then there’s a whole generation of people that don’t want it, because they grew up being told you have to accept the human element and the fate of it. I personally think that they’re a product of their time. And the baseball-viewing audience that is my age, Millennial or younger, is a product of our time, where we’re like, No, we can just use the technology. We’re all: We all know it exists. So there’s that divide of, is it good or is it bad? And they did a ton of testing to get it to where it is now.
Warzel: Why do you think Major League Baseball decided to go ahead with the implementation? What did the testing show?
O’Brien: Major League Baseball has one big thing they want to do: They want to get more balls in play. Baseball, when the sport was invented, it was an action-based sport. It was dynamic and kinetic. 2017 through 2020, it was very stale. Like they called it “three true outcomes”: It was home run, walk, or a strikeout. So not a lot of base running, not a lot of singles, not a lot of stolen bases. So a lot of the [new] rules they’ve made are to make it more dynamic, to make the game feel alive and strategic within it. The way sports go is: The league sets the rules, and the teams try to skirt them in whatever legal ways. Sometimes illegal, but for now, legal ways strategically to do it. And then the league counters and says, Okay, good job. You did that. But it’s not as entertaining. So now we need to make a new—you know, and people get upset about it. But that is the best way an entertainment product should be treated.
You know, every umpire has a different zone. It became: Do veteran players get this pitch, and they don’t get this pitch. Game situations dictate the strike zone. And you’ve got players that are making their living on their personal stats. So because it’s a 10-0 game, and I got subbed into this game as a bench player because it’s a blowout, but now this umpire wants the game to go quicker because it’s a blowout, so I have a different strike zone. How am I supposed to hit my home runs and my doubles, which gets me paid as a player in the future?
Warzel: Right. That’s so interesting.
O’Brien: So I think there’s just so many elements where like—maybe this should be a little standardized. And then also the technology allows it to be. So I always said, I’m in favor of this whenever we have the technology that reflects the game.
Warzel: Now that it’s implemented, I mean, I found it really amazing just how quickly it got in there. I can’t remember. I was watching a Mariners game. I think it was against the Yankees. And the Yankees had like six challenges in like one half inning, and they just kept winning and winning.
[Clip from Yankees vs. Mariners game on April 30, 2026]
Warzel: And it was just like: Oh, wow, this is just fundamentally a piece of the game, so quickly. But how are people reacting and feeling about it? I think umpires are a little at sea, right? You’ve got the fans, the players. What’s been the scope of the reaction to it as it’s been implemented?
O’Brien: I think overall, if you just go positive/negative, it’s positive. And then there’s a lot of intricacies within there. I don’t think the fan nor Major League Baseball—and [MLB Commissioner] Rob Manfred has said this—realized how much of a entertainment spectacle it was going to be in stadium to have the big board show up, and the animation. And I think that’s a huge part of it. Like, if [the ABS result] just showed up, and it was a static image and showed you where the ball crossed. But to see the movement of the pitch, or that it was going, and it turned like—and then the whole stadium is reacting to it.
And then, you know, as humans, we love people either being vindicated or being ridiculed on the spot, you know? So if an umpire says “Strike,” and the batter challenges it, and then it’s a ball, it’s like, Haha, we got you. Or the batter challenged it, and then it’s like the batter’s way wrong, it’s like, My god, you’re such a fool. So there’s just so many elements of drama that it’s given us that I don’t think people realized. And then within “okay, this is good,” there’s people that are upset how their team is using it; upset that their team is bad at it. Happy, thrilled, that their team is good at it. I think a third-party viewer that doesn’t have any stake in the game or the team would have to just sit there and say, This is entertaining and good. We got the call right.
Warzel: Yeah, I saw an article about the Red Sox just like not being good at this, right?
O’Brien: They’re awful at it. Yeah.
Warzel: But what’s fascinating is they’re like, the strategy that we had, right, was like: We don’t want to make a lot of these challenges. We want to sort of wait on that. And that now, you know, a couple months into the season, that’s not playing out for them. So now they have to rethink their strategy. Like, I think there’s that level too, right? Which is like, organizationally, are we good or are we bad at this? And that’s so fascinating.
O’Brien: It’s a interesting thing. On our show Talkin’ Yanks, we interview the manager of the Yankees. And I’ve been asking him a lot about that, of strategy. And they had a lot of meetings about it—about leverage of the situation, when’s a good time to challenge it, when’s a not-good time to challenge it.
The rule is they have two [ABS challenges per game]. And if they get both wrong, they lose them. So if you get it right, you maintain your two—so you can keep going as long as you are correct. The catchers can challenge to help their pitchers out, and the batters can challenge. So the way it’s played out: Catchers are way more accurate, which makes sense. They are a still target. They’re watching the ball come the entire way. Batters have movement, and they have a view at an angle. And the pitchers can also challenge, but they’re moving so much, and they’re wobbly, and they have the most bias. Most teams have said, “You’re not allowed to challenge as a pitcher. You just have a bad viewpoint.” And a lot of starting pitchers, a lot of pitchers, have come out and said, “Yeah; we shouldn’t.”
But I asked Aaron Boone, the manager of the Yankees. I said, “Hey, has this actually helped you have just more baseball conversations with your players, about the stakes of the moment?” About, hey—you may think this is a big-leverage pitch, but no, this is the bigger-leverage pitch. Like, this changes the at-bat more. And, you know, he said, “Yeah, a little.” Like he said, “We always have those convos.” Which, I think, he doesn’t want to feel the backlash of saying “yes” and be like, “You should have had those convos anyway,” since he deals with the New York media.
But I think it’s fun. I think a lot of teams are figuring that out, because a lot of teams are saying, Save them to the late innings. Well, a lot of games are won in the third and the second inning, fourth. You know, you never know what inning is going to win you the game, and you’re going to score the three, four runs you need. It’s not just the seven, eight, nine [innings]. The game could be out of hand at that point.
So some teams are only allowing the catchers. The Miami Marlins, basically—the hitters, I don’t know if they’re not allowed to, they might have stricter rules, but just the catchers are challenging. And then you have another team like the Baltimore Orioles; their catchers are challenging way less, their hitters are challenging way more. And I don’t know if that’s, you know, just the way it’s going. But it seems like those are kind of strategies within.
Warzel: What about umpires? Because I feel like really, it’s got to be a confusing year to be an umpire in Major League Baseball right now.
O’Brien: Yeah. The biggest thing that they had control over is gone. I will say: The strike zone has changed throughout baseball. Way back in the day, there were two leagues, and the leagues were known for different things. One league, the umpire would wear the chest protector under his shirt. And then in the other league, he would hold it like a sword. That changed the position they would set themselves up, and change where their head is, where they’re viewing the ball.
The other thing is: Some umpires, older umpires, were taught if this, my microphone is the catcher’s head, to put their head on the side of it. And like the batter’s here, and he’s here. Now it’s a lefty batter, and I’m here to protect themselves from getting hit with foul balls. And then newer umpires have come in, and they put their head right behind the middle. They mirror the catcher. And those guys are way more accurate, but it’s a little more dangerous.
So it’s nothing new that they’re changing the zone, in a way. But this is more mandated. And I think umpires are going to feel like they’ve lost some control, and embarrassed at times. They’ve also been vindicated. It’s like 54 percent of the time [a call has] been overturned, which means, you know, 46 percent of the time they’re vindicated. So it’s a little coin flip where they’re right. And even the ones that get overturned that are so margin, as a viewer, you’re not blaming the umpire. You’re like, Damn, that’s tough to do.
So I think that it’s not as bad as it feels for the umpire. And, over time, I think the audience is going to learn how hard this is. People are throwing faster than ever. The ball’s moving more than ever. So really, I don’t think it’s that “they can’t do it.” I think it’s impossible to do this. So if we have the technology that can …
Warzel: So I can see how ABS could be liberating for players and fans who have watched the likes of umps like Ángel Hernández or Joe West, these kind famously bad umpires. Is ABS a rejection to umps who are just really bad?
O’Brien: I don’t think it was, ’cause the players actually don’t want it. The players were really not in favor of ABS. I love the players, but they don’t always know what’s best for the game. They want what’s best for their careers. So pitchers really didn’t want it. I think there’s an understanding from the league that we just have to adapt. Getting calls wrong when we don’t have to get calls wrong is not a good product anymore. You know, I met with the MLB rules committee. And I gave them my point of view that, my age group and younger, we’re like: Just fix it. You have the right call. I don’t need to live in the obscurity and just trust the situation.
But my dad, he grew up like, Hey, umps don’t win and lose you the game. They’re going to make mistakes. And then they take it as a knock against the abilities of the ump. But my age group is like, No; it’s too hard for them to do. And you have a computer. I think the league went more that way.
Warzel: To that last point, has it turned off older generations to some degree, do you think?
O’Brien: I bet they complain about it on their couch, and watch it.
Warzel: That’s the real national pastime. Complain about it on the couch and consume it, baby.
O’Brien: You know, like how many people—National League fans—said they would stop watching when the DH [designated hitter] came? And now, you know, you have [Juan] Soto on your team, on the Mets, for 15 years. Are you complaining that you had the ability to sign Soto now? No.
Warzel: Do we need umps anymore? Are we moving toward more robot? Or just, I know they’re not replacing them yet, but do we need them?
O’Brien: Well, you would still need them for tempo, and for other rules, and just speeding the game. Getting the guy in the box, maintaining pace of play. And there’s a lot of other protocols that they keep in mind to make sure the game runs smoothly.
In the minor leagues, a team plays a series against another team—six games in a row. They play three games during the week, and three games on the weekend. So they tested out that the first three games would be: Every single pitch used the ABS system. So the umpires didn’t make a single call. They had it in their ear, and there’s strike, and then they would say, “Strike.” Ball, and they would say, “Ball.” Every pitch was called in this way. Then the weekend series, and it’d be the same umps—there’s three umpires [per crew], so each umpire would do one where they had every pitch in their ear being told what it is, while they’re watching it. So: instant feedback, instant training. Then on the weekend they would do it, and it was a challenge system. You only get one, two, or three, they tested out.
And what happened was the fans voted that the challenge system was better. The players voted the challenge system was better. It was faster. It was quicker. We don’t need [ABS] all the time. It’s fun as a spectacle, and the strategy of when to challenge—rather than constant. And what also happened was the umpires drastically improved the more they did this. So I would guess what MLB is saying, is banking on, is that this first year, there’s always going to be weird side effects. But we actually think our umpires, the major-league umpires, they didn’t have this last couple of years. They weren’t in the minors. So some that got called up might be great at it. But the older umps doing [major-league games] for 20 years, 15 years—this is their first year getting the constant feedback. I think we’re going to see them improve now that they know the strike zone and they’re getting instant results. Hey, you got that one wrong. Hey, you got that one right. And they’re getting that over the course of the game, whether the batter challenges it, or the catcher challenges it, or not.
So I think over time, umpires are going to get better, and it’s going to be better for them. And the audience is going to realize, This is really hard. I don’t think they should be asked to do this.
Warzel: So we talked a little bit earlier about Major League Baseball making a ton of changes, right? Banning the shift, pitch clocks, size of the bases. And it feels like the goal is obviously to adapt the game, make it more interesting to audiences—but also recruit maybe newer audiences by making the game more exciting. How much of it is, like, “Baseball got boring,” or how much of it is like, “We just demand more from all of our sports”?
O’Brien: Well, the truth about Americans is: We like slow sports. We like second-screen sports. And if you go into Europe, or a lot of other countries, they like what I would call ping-pong sports—where you sit in a seat and your eyes go like this. Hockey, soccer, rugby. Field hockey is very popular in Scandinavian countries. And there’s no breaks in action, it’s just go. In the U.S., baseball, football are stop-and-start. And in the Ken Burns documentary [Baseball], Bob Costas opens it with a line that “Baseball breathes conversation.” You go to a ballpark, and you’re not sitting there glued and have ping-pong eyes just watching. You’re talking, conversing. And that is the screen time now, for kids and people on the couch. So I think they’re in a great spot there.
And the games got really long, and really late into the night. Which was hurting crowds and youth and getting people to go and stay there four hours. Three, three-and-a-half hours. So they slowed the game down. But it’s not really about run time. It’s about pace—like how much happens in between. And with the shift—which, the defensive players would move to where the analytics told them “This is where this guy’s most likely going to hit the ball”—you’re taking away all the athleticism. Basically, it became a computer model. The guy would take a piece of paper out of his back pocket, and you’d see him count 10 steps, and the ball would get hit right to him. And you’re like, Well, that’s boring. Like, what am I here watching? The coaches move their chess pieces, or watching athletes do athletic things?
It was kind of like—when the ball is put in play, it should be a good product and not boring. And they’ve changed that a lot. I really, really am happy with the changes they’ve made. And I think, you know, it took a lot of courage to do that … especially a sport that’s so old and stuck in its times. And, you know, basketball: You’re seeing all the conversations happen now about this. Like, did the three-point line really kill it? Is the foul-baiting killing it? And they’re saying, like, We got to think about this. And I wonder what they’re going to do. Because baseball just had those conversations, and they acted on them.
Warzel: You know, this change—to make the game more accessible, more exciting, bringing new audiences in. You are part of that, I think, for a large audience of people. Jomboy, the ability to go online and break these things down. Learn new things about the game, experience it in a different way. How do you see your role in making the game more accessible, alongside this?
O’Brien: It’s really cool to hear that, when I do get told, like: “You got me back into baseball,” or “You got me into baseball in general; you helped me understand, like, some nuance to it.” Because it’s a sport full of nuance and full of drama. And I really like the stats and the analytics. I get deep into them. But I know that that isn’t what draws people in, and it wouldn’t draw me into a sport. So I do my best to make content and make videos that are for someone who does not watch baseball—but the baseball die-hard viewer also finds value or interest in it.
So all my videos, especially like the breakdowns: I really try to keep in mind, like, I want someone to watch this who does not know the rules. They don’t know why this is happening. But I’m not trying to make Baseball 101. You know, you’re going to have to figure it out a little bit, but I’ll make it more accessible. So if that’s helping grow or get more people into it, then, yeah; it’s rewarding. It’s cool. But I don’t know how much; it’s not quantifiable. I don’t want to take credit for anything I’m not doing.
Warzel: Well, one of the reasons I ask is: Major League Baseball has taken a minority stake in the company [Jomboy Media]. There is, in some ways, that relationship. How does that change how you do any of what you do, with that relationship there?
O’Brien: Yeah, it was really cool. It took a while. It took us to get big enough and strong enough and trusted enough for them to come in and partner and help us out. And a lot of people made that happen, so that was fun. But it did take a while. I think for a while, they just wanted to shut us down. Or, you know, hope we didn’t succeed. But we broke through.
Warzel: Wait, why is that? Just because of the copyright issues?
O’Brien: Yeah, that. Voice, not knowing. You know, I just think some people can sometimes be, I don’t want to say scared, but like—what’s the word I’m looking for? You know, nervous about something new that they don’t have … not control, because they don’t have control over a lot of media outlets that write everything. But, you know, just like: What are these guys doing? This is new. Huh? Let’s keep an eye on them.
I perceived it. When it happened, I thought it was only going to help the back end, because I said, “Hey, nothing’s changing on the front end of what we’re doing. You know, you don’t have a say in my voice or what we’re doing. You have to trust that we’re going to continue operating as we have been in the past.” And we have laid the groundwork that we’re not out here doing hot takes. We’re not doing take downs. I’m not trying to ruin or sabotage … like, we are not really trying to ever post anything that’s ultra-negative for the sake of negativity. But if I dislike something, you know, I will dislike it. And they said, “Yeah, we know it. Like, your voice is different than our voice, and we want you to have your voice.”
So I thought a lot of it was going to be just opening up sponsorships and sales, which has … the back end has been great. We’ve also gotten access to the archives. I get angles now that the fans don’t always see, and I’m able to share that. So it has helped, you know, tell the story a lot more, which has been so fun.
Warzel: One of the hallmarks of your online-content game is the breakdowns. And a lot of times that can be confrontations, right? Fights between managers and umpires.
[Clip from a Jomboy breakdown]
Warzel: Do people get mad at you for that? Does Major League Baseball say, like, “Hey, can we not maybe constantly just show how much the managers are cursing?” Or what have you. Like, what’s the reaction?
O’Brien: No, I really haven’t. And that’s been rewarding. Like, not rewarding, but in a way I’m nervous about that a lot. And then I’ll go meet managers, or Chris Rose—who does this show with us where he interviews them, will show them clips and ask about it. And a lot of times they’re laughing. You know, like, “Yeah, I was mad.” Because I think that’s how they handle it. Like, they yell at the umpire—and then the next day, they joke with the umpire on the field. And it’s just part of the culture of the sport. It’s really odd.
Hockey has fistfighting in the middle of a hockey game. Which, if you came from another country, you’d be like, “Why are they … that doesn’t add up. Why are they boxing?” And like, how did that become? And baseball has just tirades and just screaming at each other in the middle. And you’re just like, “It’s part of the culture; it’s what they do.” And it doesn’t really carry over all the time.
So, yeah; a lot of managers laugh at it. And I’m trying to present it—you know, I really don’t try to beat my audience over the head, with like, Hey, it’s the heat of the moment. Don’t give these guys too much flack here. You know, we all get flustered. But I try to deliver it in that way. Like, you know, Hey, he’s hot. He’s mad. You say dumb things when you’re mad.
So yeah—I haven’t had anyone come out and being crazy upset with me. And I also view it as that’s in between the lines of the field. Like, if I catch someone in the dugout just talking to a teammate, that feels like I’m spying and, like, giving secrets. If it’s not game related, or they’re trash-talking someone, I don’t really want that. But if it’s in the middle of the field, or I see them talking strategy, I’ll share that. Because I think it’s very interesting.
Warzel: You’ve been described to be by numerous people as a generational lip-reader. How did you develop this skill? Because it doesn’t seem like you’re making it up. It seems like this is a genuine skill. You are really freaking good at that. How did you learn how to do that?
O’Brien: So I don’t consider myself able to read lips, even though obviously I can. Within the context of a baseball game or a sports game, I can do it. People will send me videos of strangers, or like, you know, political things, like: “What are they saying?” I’m like, “I have no idea. I don’t know the context.” So it’s more so I can understand what they’re … I can guess they’re probably talking about this. And then it’s like, you know, pulling a thread where I get one word, and then it unravels.
Some people are so hard that I can’t do it. Some managers I can do so easily. Luckily, Aaron Boone; like, I don’t know if it’s because I’ve read his lips so much, because I do a lot of Yankees content. But I did one of him the other day, and it was just, first try. I just went through it. Other times what I’ll do is: I’ll watch it, and I will be able to get more than the average person just watching it and reading their lips. And then sometimes it’s a real study—of, like, zooming in, slowing down. What could he be saying? What could that word be?
That’s one part of it. I do think the other part that I’ve had some actors reach out and tell me, is my ability to voice it like ADR [automated dialogue replacement]? Like, in their cadence and the intonations and hit the … you know, I don’t really do accents, but the inflections brings it to life. And that’s where in the post-edit, you know, I’ll be like, If it’s off, it looks like I’m making things up. So in the edit, I gotta be able to say this, and sync it to their lips perfectly—so people really understand this is what they said, and it looks very natural.
Warzel: Who’s the actor fan that’s reaching out? Who’s part of this?
O’Brien: There’s a couple. Bill Hader has reached out. There’s like random people that, you know, we’ve been texting for a while about stuff. He’s awesome.
Warzel: So when you are doing these breakdowns—there’s a lot of baseball happening all the time. There’s a lot of games. There’s a lot of moments.
O’Brien: Oh, yeah, 15 games a day. People don’t realize that.
Warzel: How do you figure out what to clip, what to choose to do, in all of that morass?
O’Brien: There’s big ones that are just, you know, they hit you over the head. Like, Okay, got to do that. That happened. You know, if Aaron Boone gets ejected, usually that’s a big one. If there’s a brawl, fight, benches clear—those are big ones. What can happen is there’s so many ejections that I could just do ejections nonstop. But not all of them are interesting. Right now we’ve had so many ejections over ABS, and the different reasons players, umpires, managers are upset about ABS. And so, at this point in the season, I think I covered all these. And unless they say something interesting, I’ve done this story.
So I try to find ones that maybe aren’t lip-reading, maybe are more storytelling. I really like to have ones that I am delivering something that no one knows about. It’s not me lip-reading a story that they’ve already seen. It’s like, This wasn’t a video until I did it. I like those. There was one where the Marlins coach got ejected; it’s a favorite one I did. And no one realized that they didn’t know who [the umpire] ejected. He just ejected someone in the dugout, and the manager was like “Who?” And [the umpire] was like, “Choose anyone.” And [the manager] was like, “Choose anyone?” Like, who did you choose? “I said, ‘Choose anyone.’ They got to go.”
[Clip from a Jomboy breakdown]
O’Brien: And that wasn’t clear in the broadcast. So when I was like looking at it, sometimes I’ll go 25 percent and be like, This doesn’t have anything that’s interesting to me. And then I’ll see that, and I’ll be like, Whoa, okay, hold on. Let’s get this out fast. This is fun. This is new. So yeah. I mean, for my own interest, I don’t want to do the same story over and over again.
Warzel: I think something that you do so well—that baseball does so well—is allow this room for narratives to develop, right? And I think there’s this tension with all of this stuff that we’re talking about, with the innovations in Major League Baseball, that it is speeding up so much. The pitch clock really has changed how fast games happen. There’s not that much time for those narratives, maybe, to develop as there used to be. Do you worry that we’re just flying too close to the sun here with all of this? That baseball is at risk of losing something very core to itself?
O’Brien: Not entirely. I understand what you’re saying. Directors of games have less time to tell their story now. So now, a guy will hit a home run, and you won’t see the replay until maybe a batter later because the game’s going. They used to have more time in between pitches to show these replays, to show the manager’s face and other people’s faces, and build up that story. And now it’s a little quicker. And especially when you see a national [game], like the World Baseball Classic—those were crews that maybe hadn’t done baseball in a while since pitch clock and all that. And they were late to pitches, because they just didn’t realize the time crunch they’re on. So that’s been fun for me to watch that happen.
I think that baseball narratives come in weeks, not games. It’s: This guy’s hot right now. This guy just has hit three home runs in his last three games. Tune into this moment. I also think the easiest narrative they have is starting pitchers. Starting pitchers are their boxers. They’re their marquee names. And we went away from starting pitchers dominating. The young core of starting pitchers that are entering the game now are pitching seven innings. Because the narrative of baseball is, “Okay, Paul Skenes is facing Aaron Judge. Here’s their first-inning at-bat. Okay, well now he got him out with fastballs. Now he comes up again. Okay, now Judge walked. Okay, now he comes up a third time. Does he give him breaking balls now?” And that’s where the broadcast and the broadcasters have to tell that story.
Warzel: You are consuming weapons-grades amounts of baseball. You’re clipping these things; you’ve been doing this for a while now. Do you have a Mount Rushmore of absurd, ridiculous incidents? Clips, moments?
O’Brien: It’s always hard, because it’s just like, sometimes the bizarre ones … that Marlins one, I think, always that’s my one I tell people to watch. It’s so funny. There was one where the both managers got ejected in the same moment, which cracks me up. Any Ángel Hernández one gets ridiculous.
[Clip from a Jomboy breakdown]
O’Brien: There was one: The umpire C. B. Bucknor called a guy, this year … he just wasn’t looking at first base, and called him out. And he was safe by a lot.
[Clip from a Jomboy breakdown]
O’Brien: It’s so bizarre. It’s like one of the worst missed calls. I rarely will send my videos out to other people. But since I already name-dropped him once, I texted Bill Hader, and I was like, If you haven’t seen this one, you got to watch it. Now, I don’t really promote my own videos to people in my life like that. But like, you got to see what just happened. It’s crazy. He just wasn’t … it’s his one job.
Warzel: Oh, man. That’s phenomenal. Well, Jimmy, thank you so much for coming on Galaxy Brain—talking about this, demystifying all of this. But also finding the ways that a sport can evolve alongside the culture and produce something that, I think, is generative for a lot of people, including the content gods. So thank you for coming on.
O’Brien: Well, I appreciate it very much; yeah. Thank you for having me.
[Music]
Warzel: That’s it for us here. Thank you again to my guest, Jimmy O’Brien, Jomboy Media. If you liked what you saw here, new episodes of Galaxy Brain drop every Friday, and you can subscribe on The Atlantic’s YouTube channel, or on Apple or Spotify or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want to support this work and the work of my fellow colleagues, you can subscribe to the publication at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. That is TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Thanks so much, and I’ll see you on the internet.
This episode of Galaxy Brain was produced by Renee Klahr and engineered by Miguel Carrascal. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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