 He joins us now on the show Alex Michael Don and Peter. How are you? What's up guys? How are you guys are busy today? Very very busy. Let me ask you this I'm with the astro stuff. I'm sure you know about it. You you love baseball Alex, how prevalent is this in baseball? Did it happen when you played does this surprise you? I've never heard of this type of stuff Michael and then just in fairness I just don't have enough information right to go really deep, but look we are in 2019 going to 2020 There's so much technology cameras. I think just you always have to hedge and play defense I would always encourage our catchers to have multiple signs whether there's a man on second or nobody on You have to pretend that somebody is always trying big brothers always watching and you have to be careful about so if You were a team that was victimized by the astros cheating a rod Would you look at it and say that's a bad job? They cheated or would you look at and say we have to do a better job picking up on that? We should have educated ourselves and not allowed ourselves to be taken advantage of Well, that's a great question. First of all, it's Undefendable if you're using cameras, right? And again, I'm not sure what Mike's position is and I'm not sure the astros So I'm just speaking broadly speaking If you're there's some things that are undefendable if you have if you're wiring tap somebody's locker room or the other Managers stuff that you just cannot defend against and if there's a centerfield camera that can pick up and slow down What signs are being given any of that stuff? To me that's a no, you know, not close your side. Do you ever remember hearing of anything like, you know We heard yesterday. I mean that people are like clanking trash cans together to make a noise Do you recall ever hear anything like that during your career people doing something that egregious? You hear everything. I mean, I played almost gone for 25 years, but you hear people with binoculars You hear people with towels up in the bullpen towels down But but when you bring in technology, I know we heard the Apple watch a few years ago But when you have a centerfield camera that's kind of zoomed in And you can slow down and you can repeat and then you're and that's just a whole different level of Crossing the line if somebody did that that's that's obviously a big time Issue not only for the game but for the credibility of the game I'm curious what you feel about this because I used to talk to Bobby Mercer about it and Paul O'Neill as well Let's say the legal stealing of signs where a guy at second is giving you this they didn't want a sign Did you want to sign as a player if they picked up what was going to be thrown? Anything human is fair game, right? I mean as a human being look into a catcher a hundred and sixty seventy feet away He's doing really fast signs at the old stadiums You could not see the signs because of the dimensions and the darkness in this stadium obviously the lights were a lot more clear It depends Michael if it was you giving me the signs a second probably not But if it was a guy like John O'Leary or somebody that I really trusted I mean remember John O'Leary comes from the Blue Jays and the Blue Jays going back to Molotow and Roberto Alamore and D Valway they were outstanding So it depends on who was out there. Could you steal signs? Were you good at it? I was because I was I was a shortstop coming up So I was trained to you know look at signs and and let the third baseman know what was coming And you know Jeter would do it for me at third base from a defensive is important to really know What's coming so you can actually predict the outcome of where the ball is going to be hit But but those are nuances that are so inside the game again anything human It's fair game. I think anything that you bring in technology or stuff like that That's that's a whole nother level was boon Disrespected by the riders not getting the American League manager of the year. I mean, it's a no win situation I think Aaron Boone Deserved definitely to to win the award but then again, so did Rocco Bodelli look we're New York We're I think there is a negative bias that works against markets like New York because we are the best franchise We have the best resources and you're supposed to win a hundred games You know in a league, but you had over 35 players going to IL and they never missed the beat I think Aaron Boone deserves if not to be manager of the year definitely, you know Some obviously he lost so what can I say now we we had on Brian earlier Brian Caspin Then he's talking about how he's investigated Cole and and Strasburg he's talked to Boris's people all that you were there You were there every single game Do they need a big time starting pitcher because I look at it and say they lost because they didn't hit Michael if you don't have dominant started pitching you're not gonna win you can dress code as much as you want and But it all starts with pitching it ends with pitching the New York Yankees at 27 the world championship They are the epitome the gold standard of starting pitching and there's no way around it the only thing that's won without dominant pitching over the last 20 years is The Royals City Royals, yeah, and that's it But if I'm gonna be in the postseason Alex and my philosophy is gonna be I don't want my pitcher Going a third time through the order they took to knock out after 68 pitches in one of the playoff games Why am I spending all this money given seven eight years to a pitcher that I'm basically gonna treat is like any other Starting pitcher does the philosophy take them out of going after big-time pitchers and giving big-time money when they rely so reliant on the bullpen So Don here's where That doesn't work when you have a regular season You have the luxury of the 10-day IL you have the luxury of playing with a 40 man roster When you lock in on October 1st, you're locked into 25 players Generally speaking starters starters because they're better than bullpen I think is nonsense that a starter can't face a Line-up for the third time But what happens in a short series and you saw it with Houston you have these secondary and tertiary pitchers that are bullpen That you're facing them for the third and fourth time in a short series to me That's worse and you saw what they did with Harris. They abused them late He was dominant early But you're facing the guy for a third time in the lineup not in one game But in the course of seven games, that's even a bigger liability than having Paxton and Tanaka Face him over the third time. All right now Alex is gonna be on the tonight show tomorrow with Jimmy Fallon. Oh, wow He's got the meet and greet. We're giving away for the sneakers and I gotta tell you Alex I've worn them. I've gotten compliments on him and Don and Peter are furious that they don't have a pair It's not right out. I'm not furious. It's not the word. I would use I'm a ten and a half Don. What are you ten and a half eleven? Oh, yeah, but they look fantastic They will be there this week Wow their handcrafted in Portugal for God's sake And if you want to get them Alma mater footwear.com you can get them on pre-sale right now We will give away another pair of sneakers and tickets to meet a rod tomorrow because all the tickets to that are gone It's amazing. Also the sneakers are sold out. I'm told oh the secrets are gone. Yeah. Oh got another printing Alex Michael I need you to be my agent. I think you have enough work CNBC back in the game these are emotional stories Alex You're a guy who took care of your money from the very beginning when when you deal with a holy field tonight with a Lockdee is there is there a pity factor to it that wow? How could you let this all get away? So Michael, let me start again. So I didn't make I learned by mistake I had the great fortune to play for almost 25 years And I was one of the luckiest human beings. I got paid for such a long time to degree overpaid for most of my career I When you think average career is five and a half years and an athlete makes 90% of their lifetime income from age 20 to 30 we have 250 players 750 less than 5% have a college degree. So with that information alone I'm not an investor in Bank of but I was short that stock that players Athletes and entertainers will run into trouble when you see the case of Evander holyfield a true icon someone that I looked up to My brother looked up to he doesn't have one enemy in the street This guy's one of the most likable genuine guys came from Alabama single mother, you know nine siblings and He makes $260 million and is in this position a is because they're not surrounding themselves with the right people They don't have the right representation and they don't have An alignment that's aligned to help them in the long run. It's really really sad well tonight 10 p.m. On CNBC A Rod's TV show back in the game Alex. Thanks so much. Good luck with the good luck and everything that's going on Thank you guys, and I'll be sending those sneakers over as soon as I can all right. You don't have Take it easy Alex