There have been legends told of poker and other card games that take place on the planes and busses as professional athletes travel long distances between games. Details can often be scarce, and though there are superstars like Michael Jordan who have built prolific reputations around their gambling adventures most prefer to keep things closer to the vest.
In the age of podcasts, however, more stories tend to come to the surface. Such was the case this week when Jayson Worth and Shawn Kelley hosted their former Washington Nationals teammate Max Scherzer on their brand new show, Off the Rail.
Worth and Kelley are former major leaguers who have stepped into the horse racing space, and earlier this month they launched their new show Off the Rail centered around horse racing, baseball and gambling of most any kind.
A living baseball legend antes up
Scherzer, 40, a three-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, an eight-time All-Star, and a likely first-ballot Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, became one of the first guests on the show. Scherzer, Werth and Kelley spent two concurrent seasons with the Nationals in 2016 and 2017, with both Scherzer (2015-2021) and Werth (2011-2017) spending considerably longer stretches with the club.
About 20 minutes into their 30-minute chat, after talk of a variety of gambling wins and losses among other topics, Kelley broached the topic of a serious poker game that took place on the Nationals' team plane.
"Speaking of the plane, Max, what's the most you ever lost on the bird?" Kelley asked.
"Those 2015 games were big," Scherzer recalled with a bit of a wince. "That was a real game. I lost enough that I called up [Scott] Boras and I was like, 'I gotta do some signings,' I lost so much."
Balancing the books by any means necessary
Boras is an MLB super-agent who has helped earn his clients billions of dollars on the free agent market - most recently shepherding Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets this offseason. Scherzer has been represented by Boras since the start of his professional career in 2007.
Whether said somewhat tongue in cheek or recalling some painful losses, Scherzer went into further detail.
"I was like, 'Hey, I've gotta make this back,'" Scherzer said. "You gotta send me some stickers and cards, like I gotta sign 1,000 or 2,000 cards to break even — I gotta get a side hustle to cover the bird. Trying to chase a flush against you guys was dangerous."
"You can't get Jason off anything," added Kelley.
A gentleman always settles his debts
Settling up at the end of the season was another adventure. They kept track of wins and losses in each game and made sure that everyone was responsible for whatever they owed.
"We were playing with chips, and those IOUs are as good as gold," said Scherzer.
According to Spotrac, Scherzer has earned over $345 million across all of his major league contracts, so he wasn't hurting for a bankroll. But by the time all was said and done, there may well have been a serious exchange of cash at the end of the year.
"We may or may not have had a guy send in a guy on a private jet to bring a bag of cash to settle up," said Werth.
