This story appears in the July 30, 2018, issue of Sports Illustrated. For more great storytelling and in-depth analysis, subscribe to the magazine—and get up to 94% off the cover price. Click here for more.
Jerry Dipoto sits behind his desk in an office high above Safeco Field. Behind him are shelves lined with books on human behavior like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F--- and The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis’s tome on behavioral economics. A few hundred feet below, a vivid example of human behavior: a large, bearded man is standing on a street corner screaming into a bullhorn about the apocalypse.