Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1886: Vin’s Vignettes

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a possible solution to the quandary of not enough slashes in “triple slash stats,” discuss the increasing excitement surrounding Aaron Judge’s home run record chase, and (20:00) share a Past Blast from 1886. Then (24:47) they welcome back singer-songwriter, baseball balladeer, and converted Dodgers fan Dan Bern to […]

🎵 What they want to hear, let them decide not to believe. Let them decide not to believe. Hello and welcome to episode 1886 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing all right. How are you today? How's your fatigue level today? Well, you know, when it's an accumulation of being tired, it takes a couple days to come out of it, but I'm a little less punchy than I was yesterday. We officially wrapped our deadline coverage.

Our last piece related to the deadline went live today. Thanks. Yeah. You know, I get to work with some pretty cool, smart folks at Fangraphs. And I think that these are, you know, these are the times when you really see that shine. So good job all. Well, I enjoy Punchy Meg on the podcast. So I think it works out well either way. And our discussion last time has already prompted some response, at least one of our discussions, which was the pedantic point about the triple slash line and the fact that there are actually only two slashes

when we cite batting average on base and slugging percentage separated by only two slash marks. So a few suggestions we've gotten for dealing with this dilemma, this huge dilemma that is plaguing everyone, not just us, I assure you. So one suggestion we've got from listener Drew is that we could call it a triple rate line instead of a triple slash line. So that's one way we could deal with it because they're rate stats as well. I like that. I do kind of like that. We also had listener Nate who suggested that if we want it to be

accurate and have it truly be three slashes, we could include the OPS at the end, which you see sometimes. So it'll be like 300, 400, 500, 900 and that way we get three slashes in there. It's still redundant because

we can add 400 and 500 and get 900 without having to see it. Although if it's not a round number, I guess it saves you having to do some addition in your head. But that's one way to do it. I don't know that I love tacking on OPS just to be precise, but maybe we don't have to because my friend and colleague at The Ringer, Zach Cram, pointed out slash stat is a noun phrase. Oh.

So average, batting average is a slash stat. On base percentage is a slash stat. Slugging percentage is a slash stat. So triple slash stats come when there are three slash stats. Yeah. Not three slashes. That's Zach. He sure is a smarty.

He is. And I think that makes sense to me because we do say slash stat, right? As a thing, as its own entity. Yes. Even when there is no slash at all. It's just one of the stats. So that's a way to neatly resolve this problem, I think.

And that allows me to square saying triple slash stats with only two slashes. So yeah, our not even a day long national nightmare is over, I think, thanks to Zach. Yeah, but I will say for that 24 hours, my brain was legitimately broken. I mean, it was in shambles already. And then this laid it low for the rest of the day. Yep. So I teased last time that we'd be doing a little bit more Vin Scully tribute this time, and we will, and we will be joined later in the episode by Dan Byrne, the great musician, singer, songwriter, who joined me.

And Bern, the great musician, singer, songwriter who joined me. You were on vacation at the time, but he joined me last December, episode 1789, One Dan Band. And he's a great baseball songwriter. And so he talked a little bit about his baseball background and played a bunch of songs that time. But he's a Dodgers fan. And so he is also a Vince Gulley fan and he wrote a song a great song about Vince Gulley called the golden voice of Vince Gulley which I actually played on the outro to our episode earlier this week but now we have the man himself playing the song for us so he is going to give us

a combination conversation slash concert and I believe he is perhaps our only guest who has serenaded us in this way on the podcast, but really enjoyed it last time and just enjoy his music in general. So happy to have him back on to talk about Vin. So I did want to mention, because I was just speaking about Zach Cram, Zach just wrote about Aaron Judge, as did Jay Jaffe for Fangraphs on Friday. So each of our websites has some Aaron Judge home run record chase content today. And I got to tell you, I'm getting into it now because it's getting real. It's like it's not silly to project and to do the on pace for this or that. Like we probably talked about that months ago for the first time. But back then, you assume, well, he's going to fall off the pace at some point.

And he has not. So he's unpaced for 66 home runs. Yep. And we're into August now. Yep. So this is worth discussing. Yep. Like, yeah, maybe the odds are still against him, but it's a real chance. Like,

I remember early last year, like when we were talking about Jacob deGrom and can he beat Bob Gibson's record ERA. And I remember Dan Siborski running the numbers on it at the time. And it was a pretty infinitesimal chance that he had. And obviously, deGrom ended up getting hurt anyway. But it's just so hard. You allow a couple of runs and suddenly you're off that pace because it's just so hard to maintain a tiny ERA like that. But now the odds are getting up there. So Dan ran the numbers for Jay in this piece. And what did Zips have him at something like a 20 chance or something like that to actually do it to get to 62 i think somewhere in that range it may be yes so here's the piece which i had open this entire time that you were talking so zips has his odds of hitting 62 at 21.32%. Yeah.

And Zach ran through and showed that like the thing is like obviously he's on pace for 66. Like he just needs to keep doing what he has been doing. Right. where he has failed to hit the requisite number of home runs that he needs to get there, which maybe is kind of obvious because otherwise maybe he wouldn't be on pace. But it's not like he has had slumps and then sudden stretches where he's hit a ton. I mean, he has hit a ton recently. He's been the player of the week in the AL, I think, back-to-back weeks, and the player of the month as well.

So he's been on a tear. But basically, like you look at any sample of games that he has had this year, and he has basically done enough where now if he can just coast, just coast at this pace that he's been on, it's hardly coasting when you're in that stratosphere. But really, like it's totally realistic that he could do this. Maybe not likely, not probable, but more than possible. Like, really worth actually thinking about and getting somewhat excited about. Yeah, I think that we talked about how it is good for the sport, and my impression of that has not changed.

And to have it remain like a reasonable potentiality at this point in the calendar is really pretty remarkable i mean he's just doing this thing that you know uh we we haven't seen anyone kind of approach in a couple of years and it's very exciting but i know he's just so tall you know yeah you sit there and and you're like, who's a tall person who's doing incredible stuff? And increasingly the answer to that is Aaron Judge. Yeah, it would be appropriate if he held a significant home run record just as a giant. Right. If you were to ask someone, who do you think would be the person who would hit that many home runs?

Right. Your mental portrait would probably be painted of someone who looks a lot like Aaron Judge. How are you feeling, Ben, in your heart? Because right now, if you look at the combined war leaderboard at Fangraphs, Aaron Judge, we have having accumulated 6.7 war at this point. And Otani, when you combine his Herculean efforts, is at 5.8. And i'm here to tell you that's

enough separation where i think that aaron judge is just the al mvp i think as of today he probably is yeah i mean stuff can change right like there's still we're in august as we've noted and there's still two months to go here but i think he's probably just going to be the AL MVP. It's certainly looking like it. And it wasn't that long ago. It was only like a couple of weeks ago, I feel like, that we talked about Otani being on top of the war leaderboard and by a decent margin at the time. So Judge has made up a ton of ground. He's just been on a heater lately.

Yeah, quite the tear. Whether he still has an almost full win separation by the end of the season, I don't know. Yeah, quite the tear. tiebreaker partly just because two-way player maybe that trumps everything but also uh he won last year i don't know that that should matter but yeah i think between the fact that the angels are super depressing right now such a bad baseball team at the moment so bad and yeah just embarrassing in the way that they are losing but also yeah in the way that they are operating really and just trading rice l glacius who they just signed to a four-year deal. It's like, nope, he's gone. It's not great.

So I think the Angels are just tough to contemplate right now other than Otani. I just, I don't, I have to look in their direction because I want to see Shohei, but I want to, like, keep tunnel vision on him because elsewhere on the roster, it's just not so great. So meanwhile, the Yankees, even though they have slumped a little lately, they're still just running roughshod over the league and seemingly walking away with this division. So I don't know whether playoff status really is that big of a boost in MVP voting or award voting in general these days. If it were, then Trout and Ohtani would not have the hardware that they do. But if you want a tiebreaker there, and Judge has been pretty clutch, too. Right.

It's not just that he's hit really well. And it's not just that he's hit a ton of dingers, too. He's just hit well. Right. Yeah. He's probably the best hitter in baseball. Maybe Jordan Alvarez is right there. we should judge has played more so yeah we should we should be sure at the end of the year to like give jordan a moment because he is not gonna win

almvp in all likelihood it would take a pretty interesting and weird turn of events for him to rocket above both Judge and Otani. But he has had quite a nice season for Houston, and he is just really fun to watch hit. So I'm reminding us, I'm saying it out loud so that we have a better chance of remembering that we need to be sure to give Alvarez his due when the season comes to a close because he's at risk of having a very good year forgotten

and a really impressive one considering how many of his games he plays at DH. So to accumulate the work he has is pretty cool. So having said that, man, Aaron Judge sure is a good hitter and he's like moonlighting credibly in center field. I know that once Harrison Bader is a good hitter and he's like moonlight incredibly in center field I know that once Harrison Bader is back from the injured list like they won't probably need him to do that quite so much but it's just a you know it's quite a campaign I think that I wonder I'm not fully settled on this notion Ben but I I think I maybe think that being on the Yankees is a bigger tiebreaker boost than just being on a generic playoff team, regardless of what's going on with the Yankees. I think that there are people who might think that way amongst the voters.

Like, oh, you know, because he's like he's a titan of the game, both literally and figuratively. But like he doesn't need he doesn't need a boost. I mean, he's quite tall. We've established we've established that. But the guy, he has a 194 WRC plus. I know. Come on. It's not just that he's hit a lot of homers, but they've been meaningful home runs.

He's been clutch. He's hit a lot of walk-offs. He has kind of carried that team to the extent that any baseball player can at times. Well, if anyone can, again, I'm not trying because he's so big. Win probability added-wise, he's leading the majors too. So it's not just that he has been racking up dingers in garbage time or padding his stats or piling them up or whatever, piling on. Not that that would make what he's doing much less impressive, but just to give him extra value, extra points for clutchness if you want to factor that into your MVP consideration. So yeah, as of today, I would say he has to be the choice. And I was kind of curious. I knew that he

was hitting a ton of homers, but I did not know why he was hitting a ton of homers necessarily. I mean, a ton even relative to how many he has hit in the past. He has always crushed the ball, of course, and he set the rookie home run record since broken by Pete Alonso. But when he came up his first full season, he was cranking dingers out there, but he still has never hit this many. And so why, I wondered, is he doing it this year? And it seems like he is making some changes or has made some changes. First of all, he strikes out less than he did when he first came up. And so putting more balls in play, some he puts over the wall, so fewer strikeouts, that helps a little

bit. But also he is hitting more balls in the air. It seems like career-high fly ball percentage. Zach got into this in his piece, and just more of his batted balls in the air have been flies relative to line drives. And also, he is pulling the ball more than he has in any previous season. And obviously, he doesn't have to pull the ball to get it out. He can hit the ball out to all fields. But when he hits the ball to the pull side, he just hits more home runs. And even for Aaron Judge, that helps. And so Zach said in his career, Judge has homered on 26 percent of fly balls hit straight away or to the opposite field versus 68 percent of his pull side flies. And in the stat cast era, that's the highest ratio in the sport.

So even for him, hitting more fly balls to left helps him hit more homers. So it's been pretty impressive to see. So that makes you think, well, maybe it's not just flukiness. Maybe he's actually doing some things differently that have made him hit these homers. And so maybe that makes you think that his chances are a little higher. I think both Zach and Jay slash Dan said that maybe the likeliest outcome is that he ends up at like 59 or so, like his now teammate Giancarlo Stanton did in 2017 when Stanton topped Judge, who had the second most homers that year. And he made a run, obviously, at Ruth and Maris. And then he kind of cooled down at the very end. And same thing could happen to Judge if he

ends up at a mere 59 or 60 or something. That'd still be really impressive. But I am getting pretty invested in 62 at this point because, you know, it's been a long time since we've seen 60 anything. And to have the American League record is meaningful. And to be chasing two Yankees in that category is meaningful as well. And I think for a lot of people, there will be some meaning ascribed to the fact that Judge has not had any PED associations. Right. And so I don't think we can call it like, quote unquote, the clean record or anything like that.

Technically speaking, those records still count, but there will be certainly people who look at it that way. And this is not tainted by so-called steroid era or anything we know or suspect about Bonds or McGuire or Sosa. This will just be a giant guy who hits the ball really hard. Yep. He's just a big giant human who hits the ball really hard. I mean, that's not all he does. Like you said, there's clearly thought and preparation that goes into this. thought and preparation that goes into this i don't want to discount the work that is sort of making the best of the natural hulk so i don't want to downplay that part but it's just it's pretty cool i think it's pretty cool i haven't felt invested in like a yankee doing a thing like this for a little while it's pretty cool i know or just record chases in general we've

lamented the lack of meaningful record chases in this era. We have. This is a real one. And I've mentioned this before, but it really is not even tainted by any kind of figurative asterisk related to the run environment or the ball. Yeah. Just because this is not 2019. Yeah, he didn't do is not 2017. Yeah. It's a year when the ball has unweaned, as you pointed out. Yeah. It's a bit of a deader ball. And offense was actually down in July, I think, relative to the previous couple months, which is weird for offense to go down during the heat of the summer. Yeah.

So the fact that he is doing this now, it's not even like, oh, Marist did it in an expansion year or these other guys did it in the PD era. And Zach documented in his piece, it's not even that you can say, oh, it's a product of Yankee Stadium because at least according to StatCast, it doesn't seem like Judge has actually gotten a boost from that. He doesn't have any more homers than his expected home runs, which is not based on the park. It's just based on the contact quality. And he has a ton of no-doubter homers that would be out anywhere. So yeah, every now and then you'll see one that maybe just goes into the short porch in the first row. But on the whole, he doesn't seem to be a product of the park. It doesn't seem like he's really even gotten a boost from that. So there's nothing you can say that would really

knock down how impressive this feat is. And he is lapping the league. I mean, he's like, I think, 13 homers ahead of the next closest AL guy that last time I looked and 10 homers ahead of just the runner up right now, period. So no one else is doing this either. And we just haven't seen it even in this high home run rate era. It's been more everyone hitting 20 than anyone hitting 60. So I love it. I don't know whether this is going to get to SportsCenter doing live cut-ins to Aaron Judge at bats. And that seems like a dated reference as it is because, you know, not that many people are like watching cable to get their live sports news. But, you know, it's maybe not quite given me 1998 vibes,

but it's bringing me back a little bit to that. So I'm into it. Yeah. I want it. I want it to be like a thing where we're like, he's. So I'm into it. Yeah. I want it. I want it to be like a thing where we're like, he's that bad. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah.

Zach mentioned in his piece that he's been pitched around more lately. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he's seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone. So I will be curious to see whether he starts expanding that already huge strike zone to try to go after the record. Or will he stay disciplined, which he mostly has so far, if that's costing him hacks and possibly homers? So that's something to watch. And I hope that the Yankees play him,

even if they have a playoff spot locked up and they could give him days off. Go for it. Let's see some history. And speaking of history, before we bring on Dan, let's do the Pass Blast. So this is episode 1886. Pass blast comes from 1886 and from Richard Hershberger, historian, saber researcher, and author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. So this comes from Sporting Life, February 3rd, 1886. And Richard says, an idea being floated in 1886 was to eliminate the errors column

from the score. The thinking was that recording errors discouraged fielders from going all out to get at balls. After all, you can't be given an error if you never touch the ball. But how to measure fielding performance? Sports writer O.P. Kaler has a suggestion. Do you ask what I would have instead of the error column? This. I would give every fielder credit for all he did, every assist and every putout, without recording his failures. Then every fielder would be interested in taking every chance, however desperate, without fear of loss by doing so. I would then make out the player's averages by the number of assists and putouts he had, So this O.P. Kaler guy ahead of his time, smart cat.

So Richard writes, this is almost exactly the same as range factor invented by Bill James a century later. The only difference is that James used innings played as the denominator, whereas Kaler suggests games played in the 1886 context in which the only substitutions are due to injury. These are nearly the same thing. However, he says the idea died an immediate and quiet death. thing. However, he says, the idea died an immediate and quiet death. Kaler offered the idea as an alternative to errors and fielding percentage. Discussion about eliminating the errors column died down, so no need was seen for an alternative. And so this went back into mothballs for another hundred years or so until Bill James independently, I assume, proposed the same thing. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. Every now and then, I mean, there were people who were thinking with a sabermetric mindset back in the early days of baseball and the game and the media and the public were just not ready for those things yet. But the flaws of some of those standard stats were apparent even then.

And that is the flaw that we talk about with errors now, that someone might be sure-handed, but not have a lot of range and just not get a lot of chances. And if you don't get your hand on the ball, then you can't commit an error as these things are typically scored. And that cannot be reflective in all cases of a fielder's actual talent. And I hadn't even really thought that, yeah, if you're emphasizing errors, then you are going to disincentivize defenders from even trying to make the play. Because if it's a tough play, well, don't even get involved, you know, because then you could get penalized for trying and failing as opposed to just not even getting there. So who knows how things could have been different if they had retired the error earlier

and we had just had range factor from the start. Yeah. Fascinating. All right. Well, thank you to Richard for that. We will take a quick break and then we'll be back with Dan Byrne to talk and for Dan to sing about Vin Scully. Hello, Mr. Radio. Do I disturb you?

Sometimes I forget my place. I seem to know you. All right, well, we are back and we are joined by the great singer-songwriter and baseball balladeer, Dan Byrne. Welcome back to the podcast, Dan. Well, thanks. Thanks. Good to be here. Well, I'm sorry that it's under somewhat sad circumstances, although maybe also somewhat celebratory circumstances, somewhat sad circumstances, although maybe also somewhat celebratory circumstances, because as often happens when someone of Vin Scully's stature, not that there are many people of Vin Scully's stature, pass, it turns into a celebration of their life and career and what they meant to everyone. And so it's sort of sad, but also happy and joyous in a sense. And I played

your song about Vin Scully on the podcast the other day. And then I thought, well, wait, I know him. Maybe we can just have him come background as a fan and your unusual Giants slash Dodgers fandom. So for anyone who hasn't heard that conversation, and I recommend that everyone go back and listen, but can you recap how you became a Dodgers fan and I guess got introduced to Vin? fan and I guess got introduced to Vin? Well, I moved out to LA in 86 and I was living in Chicago before that. And I could hear Harry carry out my window during the seventh inning stretch. I lived that close. I guess I had been aware of him mostly from the game of the week and that kind of stuff, the national stuff. But it wasn't until I actually moved out there, and I basically didn't know a soul when I first moved there. So Vin was like my first real good friend. At that time, he was on the radio for nine innings, which was about as good as it gets. When I went to the ballpark, I would take my little radio and press it next to my ear and hear, sort of see the game through his eyes, I guess.

Yeah. His eyes and his voice. I mean, I don't know that I could say a whole lot that hasn't been said. He was a master storyteller and his voice was the perfect instrument to convey it. You know, it's like saying, well, the Beatles, was it their sound or was it their songs? It's just this perfect alchemy of the two. Right. Yeah, I go back and forth right now between feeling a real loss, which is funny, I guess, because he hasn't been on the air for a few years,

but there's still the sense that he was around and he would show up for this or that event or special occasion, I guess, less in the last year. Yeah. You know, between that and hearing the great calls and just being grateful for such an eminent voice at the very top of the game for for so long you know i mean the it's incredible i mean branch ricky gave him his first job with the dodgers branch ricky who had three years before you know brought jackie robinson up i mean that and then he he went all the way till like five

six years ago i mean that's uh's way more than half a century. You know, it's like one of these, you hear a story of somebody who remembered slavery and then, you know, sees Obama walk into the White House, you know, these crazy spans that the whole game, really, almost the whole history of the game seemed to be coming out of his microphone. It's quite a duo there. And I guess it's true because everyone, at least who has heard Vin Scully and appreciates baseball, knows that voice instantly. And many people do impressions of it, right, which is always entertaining. And there's the great John Miller, who I'm sure you like as well as a Giants fan, too. He does a great Vin Scully. What made that voice so recognizable, so distinctive? Or was it the voice

or was it the cadence or was it what he said? I guess it's a bit of all of the above. Yeah, I think you hit it. It's all of that. It's what he was saying. It's the sort of easy, you know, he never sounded rushed, even when he was, I mean, I would have liked to hear him announce a horse race or a hockey game to just see if he could sound rushed. Right. But certainly in a baseball game, he had a way of never losing track of the count and the pitch and what's happening in the game,

but being able to, at the same time, weave these beautiful, essential sounding stories at the very same time. And maybe sneak in an ad for hot dogs at the same time too. And from everything I understand, he was the most modest and gracious of human beings. And he seemed to really care about not just the game and the ballplayers whose actions he was describing, but also the people he was talking to. And I think that sense that he had of the people he was talking to and the fact that he referred to them as friends, referred to us as his friends, the fact that he referred to them as friends referred to us as his friends and

seemed to Treat us that way and imagine us that way it just came through loud and clear And yeah, he got he got down deep, you know when he when he spoke to us. He wasn't just Telling us, you know ball to strike, one out. There was something just really magical and pure and beautiful about everything he did. You know, I don't think there's a game he, you know, just like you could say, you could go to like Springsteen shows or poems, you know, by John Donne or, you know, every broadcast was a masterpiece, masterclass of a kind. I wonder, as you were thinking about writing a song about him, if it posed a challenge that, like, when I think about Vin Scully and one of his strengths is that he would let the game breathe,

you know, he was so incredible when he was talking about baseball, but he also seemed to have an appropriate reverence for the game and letting the game kind of unfold. As a guy who was on radio, he wasn't afraid to just let the sound kind of permeate. And I imagine that confronted with silence, that can be kind of challenging as a songwriter. So as you were thinking about, you know, putting him to music and putting lyrics to the experience of listening to him, how did the pauses in the silence kind of play for you?

You mean his pauses in silence? Yeah. Well, that's an interesting question. Or maybe it didn't at all. And I just don't know how songwriting works. Well, I wrote that song probably not 25 years ago, but close to 25 years ago. Fortunately, I didn't leave it till now. If I had left it till now, this moment, trying to make a fitting tribute to the recently departed great man, that would have been a challenge I don't know that I'd want to have to deal with. At the time, he was still going strong, and it was more about, I suppose, me as a person and a listener and having this comforting voice to sort of fall back on even when things might not be going perfectly.

That's how I approached it anyway. It seems like a lot of people have been thinking about the song, playing the song. I've just seen people tweeting at you and I'm sure people have wanted you to play it for them. So it does seem to resonate I mean even though you didn't intend it to be a eulogy it seems to have functioned that way for people or brought them some comfort over the past few days well I hope so you know in some way it can serve as a as a little point of connection the one that I the version that i put to video and

have been tweeting a little bit is my favorite version which for reasons i won't go into we didn't put on the record drifter that it was recorded for but it has his his own voice in there and it's got his call of the of the ninth inning of the kofax perfect game in there which to me is what the song is is about it's about the music of of his voice you know it could be a it could have been a a saxophone solo at the end but it was it was him describing this incredible moment and it's the same thing it's just it's just great music i think do you know if he ever heard the song i would imagine it it had to come to his attention at some point i don't know if you know that for sure or not i'm told that his daughter

played it for him his typical modest reply was why would anyone want to write a song about me? That's the thing. I want to think that he would appreciate the whole outpouring of affection for him over the past few days. But he was so modest and self-effacing and just always sort of put the spotlight on others instead of himself that I imagine he might be a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. It's interesting. I imagine there were times when he felt a little embarrassed by all that because his whole method was to not point the flashlight at himself, but describe what's going on. He was like the filter. He was the conduit for the game and what he was trying to communicate. And to have such love and affection aimed at him must have,

I can only imagine, sometimes felt, yeah, a little embarrassing. I feel like this is perhaps an oversight on my part, my understanding of his biography, but do we know anything about Vin's own personal music tastes? Did he put a vinyl on when he got home after calling a game? Do we know? That's the best question I've ever heard, and I have no idea. I wonder what moved him.

I think we could probably make some guesses based on when he came of age and all of the music that he saw over his years, but I wonder what his own taste took. What's your guess? Gosh, I don't know. It feels, you know, you talk about him being a conduit, ascribing particular tastes to him feels like an intimacy I'm not entitled to. I don't know. I'd like to think that his tastes were ranging and that he was willing to give stuff a try

even if he didn't end up, you know, deciding he liked it in the end. I think you're probably right. My first thought was, well, I've always loved Dizzy Gillespie, but this Nirvana trio is really something. Yeah. Yeah. That is one thing that people appreciated about him as a baseball broadcaster is that he was receptive to new ideas and new things and new players. Like one of his great strengths was that he could tell these stories that brought you back to earlier eras. But also he was completely present in whatever era he was in. Not that he was necessarily spouting advanced stats left and right, but he wasn't hostile

to them and he would work them in when they made sense to, right? And when they added something to what he was saying. So he wasn't one of these broadcasters who gets to a certain age and starts saying, oh, things were better back then, right? No one's better than Kiner. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, he was so open to the new players, too. Like, you know, he loved Puig and gave him his nickname.

He loved Puig and gave him his nickname. And I think he was just as excited to see a new kid come up as he was to remember the golden days of Koufax and Mays. Right. And you've heard a lot of great broadcasters, I guess, because in part you've lived in a bunch of places and you've been a fan of a few teams, right? The Cubs, the Giants, the Dodgers in your day. the Cubs, the Giants, the Dodgers in your day. Well, yeah, but also, I mean, I've traveled a lot, and that's the great thing about baseball on the radio is it's everywhere, and especially at night you can get five, six, seven stations maybe from all over the place. So, yeah, that's pretty much my favorite thing to do on long drives is hear the broadcasting. Yeah.

And are there others who compare in your mind or that you enjoyed in a similar way or enjoyed very much but in a different way, a different flavor than Vin, really? Well, I mean, there's a lot of really great ones. You know, you mentioned Miller. He can weave a story into his broadcast as well as anybody. Seattle has good ones. Knee House comes to mind. Way back when I was little, we used to hear Halsey Hall from Minneapolis. Of course, Harry and Vince and Lou going back a ways and Jack Buck, you know, the guys out east off of the Boston and New York guys.

I mean, it goes on and on. And a lot of them, it seems like a profession that kind of goes with longevity. So a lot of these guys have been with their same team 20, 30, 40 years. My friend Eric Nadel, he's been with the Texas Rangers for over 40 years. He still seems like a young guy. So I don't know. It seems like this trade that you kind of grow into and there's nobody, if you're still doing a great job there's nobody

pushing you out and saying you know you can't you can't do this anymore we need someone who's 25 right or even with the Dodgers Jaime Harine the longtime Spanish-language voice of of that team who's been there since the 50s. How crazy is that? Yeah. That the two of them side by side are like the longest serving broadcasters. Yeah, that is pretty amazing. I guess the one thing that we lack, those of us on this call, is growing up with him in the sense that Dodgers fans who were Dodgers fans basically from birth did, right? Because Vin was an acquired taste. I mean, one that we adopted at various points in

our lives and you became a Dodgers fan. And so he was always present, obviously, in that he far predated all of us in our baseball fandom. So he was always around the game. But if you grew up listening to him constantly, if he was like passed down through your family, basically, and you have memories of being a kid and listening to Vince Gulley, like a lot of people have have shared those memories this week. of him in adulthood is worse necessarily, but I guess it resonates even more if he's just kind of a constant from the cradle as he was for people who are themselves at this point, you know, 70 or 80 years old, right? That's the thing is that he was around for so long that it was a multi-generational thing where, you know, grandparents and grandkids had the common experience of listening to Vince Gulley call Dodgers games and could share that with each other. So that's pretty special.

Well, my daughter, who's now 13, you know, we were living in LA her first eight years, I guess. So that's her too. It's not just the folks in Brooklyn. She had that voice from when she was too young to even talk. I know you mentioned listening to him when he was calling national games. I wonder if you have any memories of your impression of him when your Giants fandom was the most sort of emotionally resonant fandom? Because I think, you know, I have a, I have a friend who actually works in baseball now, but she grew up a Giants fan. And she said the greatest compliment that I could pay Vin was that when the Dodgers would come and play the Giants, she would make a point to listen to the Dodgers broadcast,

even though she was rooting for the Giants just because she loved listening to him so much. So do you have any recollections of your experience of him when you were maybe on the other side? much. So do you have any recollections of your experience of him when you were maybe on the other side? Well, I mean, when I was eight, nine years old, one of the first books I picked up, this is probably 10 years before I ever set foot in a major league park out there in Iowa. And most of my connection at that point was reading these books. And these books and uh in the kofax book it was the very first chapter was the perfect game and you know half of it was this guy vin scully and everybody listening on the transistor radios and and laughing and responding to

everything he said you know it it seemed like kind of the dark ages. And then when I moved to L.A., the first thing I heard when I got over those San Gabriel Mountains and could pick up the L.A. station was that same guy still sounding great. And even that 65 call that the book was describing, you know, He had started 15 years before that and made the move west with the team. It's almost difficult to put it all together. But yeah. Do you have a favorite particular call? Because a listener suggested that we do a draft sometime this week of our favorite Scully calls. And I felt almost unqualified just because I wasn't a Dodgers fan. And so we know the famous ones, of course, and the really momentous plays, but

they're probably just run-of-the-mill Dodgers games where he had an incredible call that I just wouldn't be aware of. And I wish that just everything he said had been preserved in some way that would be easily accessible. So we could just search a text database just of all of the calls and all of the stories that he shared between pitches, because that's the kind of thing where, you know, you might have heard him say something in the 80s or the 90s, and it's just, it's lost. It's like in your mind and your memory, but it's hard to actually call up the clip and hear him if it wasn't some famous game. But I don't know if there's any particular memory or anecdote of his that stands out in your mind. Well, Ben, I think that might be a project for you.

Just digitize every Ben Scully game. I mean, you know, there's the famous ones, of course, the Koufax Perfect Game, which I have in my song, which I never get tired of hearing. The Gibson, the Aaron, I mean, those kind of everybody knows. I don't really have a favorite. My favorite is just, like you were saying, kind of the run-of-the-mill game. Just any game on any night, because it's all great. And the sort of greatness is not, I think, in those huge moments, but it's just in the every day. It's in that day after day that this voice you could rely on, depend on, it was just that he was there., for those two, three hours, whatever else was going on in your life, the edges kind of softened.

Mm-hmm. That's what I remember. Yeah. And I guess it's probably a different experience for West Coasters like you at this point and Meg than it was for East Coasters like me because it was a great way to close the night to end the night. I mean, I'm sort of a nocturnal person, but it was great that he was often the one calling the last game that was going. And so it was just the perfect way to wind down and to just sort of play yourself into sleep was just to put Vince Cully on because it was so relaxing. It was not like he would wire you up, you know, that he was like shouting

and would just get you two revved up to relax. You could fall asleep to Vince Cully if you wanted to or just relax and listen. And it was just a great way to wind down. So I'm glad I got to listen to him, even if it was at one in the morning where I was. Yeah. I mean, you know, you can overstate it maybe just because there's these great broadcasters with every team and everybody has their own guy, you know.

Everybody's got someone that they're connected to and that they love and that they might think is the best. they love and that they might think is the best. You know, I think Vin's kind of head and shoulder above everybody, and a lot of people think that too. But, you know, I think the important thing is that these figures do exist and carry on and kind of keep us connected to the game, but also to each other. And, you know, if I'm not overstating this kind of to ourselves too, in some way. So in the song, The Golden Voice of Vince Gulley, are you the narrator or is this a character? What quality did you want to capture about him in this song? And when you sing and write about driving your truck up and down the coast or the speaker is stuck in a go-in-no-place desk job, is that you remembering some part of your life or is that just you putting yourself in the place of other people listening to Vin Scully?

I think both. I think that, you know, there's three kind of little separate vignettes. So to speak, no pun intended. Oh, nice. I didn't see that one. Wow. We should stop right there. Yeah, there's the truck driver up and down the coast. There's the guy in the office who's wanting to make his paintings, what he does.

who's wanting to make his paintings what he does there's the I think probably the one who's most me is the guy at the end leaning against his van listening to the game but I think there's there's plenty of me and in all of them at least it's how it feels well we'd love to hear it we'd also love to hear I don't't know, you have a few Dodgers related songs. You have Rivalry, which mentions Vin. You have If the Dodgers Had Stayed in Brooklyn, right? So I don't know if you want to lead with the Golden Boys of Inscully or build up to it, or you can take us wherever you want, but we'd be happy to hear whatever you're willing to play. All right. well, let's play that one and then see what else we can do.

All right. Yeah, all right. piano plays Tonight I feel So far away, so far away from you What did you do tonight? So far away, so far away from you. What did you do tonight? I'm driving my truck up and down the coast. From north of Seattle to the Mexico line.

Right now I'm in San Bernardino. Now I'm in San Bernardino All day long it was 95 degrees But at least tonight I get to hear The golden voice of Vince Scully I've been stuck in this going no place desk job for too many months. It's time to move on. If I quit and just try to do my paintings, I wonder if I could come up with friends. I wonder if I could come up with friends. I still root for the Yankees back east.

Never did take to these local teams. But at least tonight I get to hear the golden voice of Insta-Lady Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Is anything, is anything gonna work out? Now sometimes I'm almost out of range. head south of the valley. Pick up the game, pull off the road, jump out of my van. Lean against the hood, still hot from the drive. Trees fade out in the black of the night. Sometimes it don't hardly seem worth

the fight, but at least tonight I get to hear the golden voice of the sky. Trees fade out in the black of the night. Sometimes they don't hardly seem worth the fight. But at least tonight I get to hear the golden voice of Vince Scully. The golden voice of Vince Scully. in scully

wow Wow. Thank you. That's the first time I played it in the last few days. Oh, really? I would have expected that you would have been on call to be playing it constantly. That's great. I'm glad we got the honor. Is it different to sing it now at all?

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe a little bit. Well, I know that you have a few other songs, I guess, that are related to him, at least. I don't know if any strike your fancy right now, but we'd be happy to hear anything else. Let me see. Let me see what I've got here. we'd be happy to hear anything else.

Let me see. Let me see what I've got here. Some of them are in my memory and some are not. Yeah, you've written many, many songs, so I imagine you can't retain all of them

at any one time. I'm going to try this one. This is, this is a, this is not a, a Dodger song, but it's a, Late night in Chicago, a break in the Wrigley Field. It's early spring, the season isn't starting for a week.

It's a little after midnight, I've been playing down the street. Had an open mic at a little bar just under the L tracks. I'd noticed for a couple weeks that they'd been doing some work on the ballpark. They got scaffolding up. I climb in. Oh, check out the bat rack and I straighten out my hat I sit down on the bench where Fergie Jenkins sat Walk slowly to the mound where I stretch and then I glide

Fire a couple high and tight and then strike out the side I step to the plate, take a couple of lobes, swing with all the ballpark, tonight I got the ballpark all to myself. I run in the outfield grass like Moe, Curly and Larry announce a couple innings from the press box just me and Harry Carey I make a leaping catch against the ivy covered wall The early season ivy is a cushion to my fall Jog slowly from the morning track, my cap it tips the crowd. Coming to the infield now it's really getting loud. I race toward third, turn on a dime. Head for home, head first slide. First slide, Sandberg in his prime. Tonight I got the ballpark.

Tonight I got the ballpark. Tonight I got the ballpark all to myself I think you shared that story the last time you were on about breaking into Wrigley. Last time I talked to you, it was December, so there was no baseball season going on. Now there is. Are you enjoying anything in particular about either this Dodger season or this MLB season as a whole? Well, up until a couple of weeks ago, I mean, I still haven't been to a game in three years so and i i didn't feel that connected to it or i hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to it and then i was in la for the last couple of weeks and so i i got to i was gonna go to a giantsants-Dodgers game the first night I was there, was great it was great to to see actual games from start to finish and and kind of see the state of the of the team and

then everything and I wrote a song about? Oh, absolutely. We talk about Otani constantly, so this will be perfect. Well, I've been trying to figure out a way to sort of approach this subject. And so I was pretty happy with this one. I think they should make a movie out of this song. Turns out so, turns out so, hey Otani is actually two guys, two guys from Japan, roughly the same size. It started as a joke, just a little white lie, but now they gotta keep it up and say Otani's one guy. One is a pitcher, throws a hundred miles an hour.

One hits homers, got a lot of power. One is from Tokyo, one's from Yokohama. Different daddies, different mama.htani the pitcher eats fish and drinks martinis. Ohtani the hitter likes Coke and roasted weenies. They room together but they don't hang out a lot. The pitcher likes it cold and the hitter likes it hot. If Ohtani the pitcher ever came up to the plate He'd strike out every time, he wouldn't look great If Ohtani, the hitter, ever took to the mound

He'd throw it to the backstop or he'd bounce it on the ground Turns out, so hey Ohthtani is actually two guys. Two guys from Japan, roughly the same size. It started as a joke, just a little white lie. But now they gotta keep it up and say Ohtani's one guy. Last year they split the MVP prize Turns out O'Connie is actually too guy That's delightful.

I love it. Yeah, that's great. Wouldn't that be fun to make a movie of that? Yeah. Or even a short, you know? Yeah. These two guys, maybe you could even use the same actor and split the screen like in the parent trap or something. And like, you know, it could be like the odd couple. One guy's all neat and one guy's a slob.

So they're not twins, though. They're just lookalikes. They just happen to bear a close resemblance to each other in this scenario. Yeah, I mean, you know, you could suspend disbelief however much you wanted, you know. Yeah. One could be a, you know, a five foot four girl and, you know, six foot eight. I don't know. I'm actually, I'm surprised that we haven't discussed that scenario before. Yeah, I kind of am too. We entertain a lot of wacky questions and hypothetical scenarios here. So the idea that...

It's one of those things that once thought, you can't unthink it. Yeah. Right. Is that going to show up on an album at some point? Oh, I don't know. I don't know what the shelf life of these things are. I mean, if I'd make another baseball record, I would think so. Yes. Well, that would be great. Just don't know. Maybe if there's a second pandemic, I'll do another baseball record.

baseball album. Not sure I want the other pandemic. Not sure if Monkeypox is going to get there. Hopefully not. I guess the silver lining would be at least we get another Dan Byrne baseball album out of it. So that'd be something. That's right. Well, if you could play us out with one more, maybe I don't know whether rivalry or if the Dodgers had stayed in Brooklyn is in your repertoire right now or if something else is piquing your interest. Well, let's see. Maybe this one. I'll do this one. This one kind of ties into Finn, I think. When Jackie Robinson slapped that uniform on When Jackie Robinson pulled that jersey on His eye was clear and his voice rang true

And the number on his back was 42 Born in Georgia, played in the Negro Leagues Switched to Army Green in the big war overseas then the big leagues come a-calling said mr. Robinson pull this off and the number on his back was 42, 42, 42. The number on his back was 42. When Jackie Robinson hung the uniform up, when Jackie Robinson laid the jersey down, his eye was clear and his voice was true, And the number on his bat was 42. Born in Georgia, played in the Negro Leagues, Switched to Army Green in the big war overseas Then the big leagues come a-coming, said Mr. Robinson with his arm

And the number on his back was 42 42, 42 The number on his back was 42 42 42 42 He won't dodge or play Every color of the rainbow 42 42

Perfect. Thank you. Great to chat with you guys. I'm glad the podcast is going well. And Meg, it's great to meet you. Good to meet you too. Is there anything you'd like to promote while you're here? Any new work or tour dates or anything along those lines? Not really

at this moment, no. Well, we'll just tell everyone then to go to danburn.com check out all of Dan's work obviously we focus on the baseball songs here but that is just a small subset of his complete body of work which is

really great and you can also find him on Twitter at danBurnHQ. So always a pleasure, Dan. Thanks so much. Thanks, guys. Let's do it again. All right. Well, that will do it for today and for this week. And as Vin said, and as we could say about him, don't be sad that it's over. Smile because it happened. And to make sure this podcast keeps happening, you can support us on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, get themselves access to some perks, and help us stay ad-free.

We'll see Yo-Yo, Elizabeth Baldwin, Jeffrey Hochstein, and Chun-Yung Kuo. Thanks to all of you. Our Patreon supporters get access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. We will lower the red rope and usher you in. You can hobnob with 700 plus other Effectively Wild listeners and Patreon supporters. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes that Meg and I put out, discounts on t-shirts, access to playoff live streams, and more. You can contact

me and Meg via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back with another episode early next week. Talk to you then. compassion or be as unknown as a river that runs the wrong way. I don't know, I'm just speculating. I wasn't born yet. I wasn't even on the map.

But maybe anything would be different if the Dodgers still had a deal for their cap. The Dodgers had stayed in Brooklyn. Maybe things would be different today. Probably not. You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family. And now all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you for every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile,

for every care a promise and a blessing in each trial, for every problem life seems a faithful friend to share, for every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know in my heart that I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But you know what? There will be a new day and eventually a new year. And when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So this is Vin Scully wishing you a very pleasant good afternoon wherever you may be.