Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1936: Balls Out

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s latest former major leaguer Facebook friend recommendation and an important update (3:49) to the dictionary.com definition of “ghost runner,” then follow up (17:00) on a previous rumination on free-agent tours by touching on a Carlos Correa comment about playing in Minnesota, Eduardo Escobar’s deep-seated affection for Fogo […]

I don't hold you down, and maybe that's why I'm around. But if I'm the one you love, think about me. I believe that you really want me, but it's not easy just to give in. So let yourself go and let love begin Hello and welcome to episode 1936 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. It has been a good day for me i don't know about you hopefully for you too fine yeah it just started out great i got a great poll in my former major leaguer facebook

friend recommendation selection today i got to remember homer bush oh yeah always always happy to have a chance to remember homer. Yeah. And if it's because Facebook recommended him as a friend, great. I remembered a great guy today, Homer Bush, one of the most fun small sample seasons of my youth when he came out of nowhere to hit.380,.421,.465 in 78 plate appearances for the 1998 Yankees. Without Bush, they might have only won 113 regular season games. Right. It would have been a completely different team. Yeah. the Blue Jays. He hit 320, kind of an empty-ish average, but not bad for that era. It was not a super impressive offensive line, but he was basically a league average hitter and he played all over the infield, had a nice year

and then didn't do that much beyond that, but I got to take a little trip back in time in the time capsule back to Homer Bush. So thanks, Zuck. Appreciate it. trip back in time in the time capsule back to homer bush so thanks zuck appreciate it wait sorry we're not moving on from that fast are we are we are we really trying to just breeze on by the the use of zuck well yeah i mean i i have fond feelings for him now because uh he gave me the opportunity to get in

touch with homer bush now i did not friend him but i have many mutuals right homer bush it turns out yeah you have the option thanks zuck yeah so everything else that's wrong about facebook is a platform undone because hey i got to think about homer today. So that's nice. It balances the scales. And I got to learn about what Homer Bush has been up to. He just turned 50. So happy birthday, Homer. I learned that he actually, after he retired from baseball, he became a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch. Did not know that about Homer Bush. But then after the recession, he left the field of finance.

Was not the only one. And he got back into baseball coaching and managing. And he seems to be thriving. He wrote a book called Hitting Low in the Zone, A New Baseball Paradigm. I'll link to that on the show page. Just give that a little plug. Only $16.99. So I learned a lot about Homer Bush and got to revisit how good he was because i had not actually

looked at his stats in many years and so it could have been one of those cases where you remember someone being really good when you were a kid and then you look back years later like oh he was just some guy yeah yeah maybe not but no he did bat 380 that is still good even now yeah so so that was fun so that was the way the day started. Okay. Just kick things off in a really great way. But that's not even the best thing that has happened. Okay.

Dictionary.com has changed the definition of Ghostrunner. Oh my gosh. Mission accomplished. Ben, you triumphed. I have effected change, and change it's all possible now unlike Zuck yeah I can't get rid of the actual zombie runner but I can

make it so that the dictionary definition of ghost runner at least has changed so for those who don't recall back in early October I believe for those of you who have not been obsessing over this like minute aspect of the English language like we have. Yeah. I can't imagine there are many of you out there,

but for anyone who for some reason was not up to speed here, dictionary.com added Ghostrunner to its dictionary, to its compendium in October, and it published all the new words and bragged about the new words. And this was one of them. And I was extremely upset because in addition to the indignity of having to have the extra runner in extra innings, now the definition of ghost runner had become subsumed by this thing that is not a ghost runner that already had a definition and was a different thing. And I understand that people were using the term ghost runner to refer to this incorrectly in my view, but to have it codified by the dictionary, that was just a slap in the face. Yeah. So I decided to do something about it. I wrote my local dictionary.com representative. I emailed Heather Bonikowski, who is a lexicographer for dictionary.com,

sent her a little missive about why I thought this needed to be changed and acknowledged the pedantry and shared my sources. I cited the baseball dictionary, Dixon's baseball dictionary, when I was emailing someone from dictionary.com. And she wrote back quickly and purported to have enjoyed my email. She certainly humored me and thanked me for it and told me that she had sent my documentation on to the lexicographer who specializes in baseball words for dictionary.com. And that person had confirmed that in their copy of the Dixon Baseball Dictionary, there had been an original sense of Ghostrunner. And she concluded the email by saying, these things take some time, but the information you shared is being further researched now, and we hope to incorporate in a future update. learned from some listeners who were posting about this and the various venues where people talk about the podcast this week, that that has been done. And I am very heartened. So just to remind everyone, when Ghostrunner was added to the dictionary, it said noun baseball, a runner who is

automatically placed on second base at the beginning of each half of an extra inning before any pitch is thrown. And even worse in the etymology section, origin of Ghostrunner, it said first used in 2020 per an amendment to the rules of play. Scandal. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, scandal. It shook my faith in the entire exercise of compiling dictionaries. Can I trust any definition?

Because I knew that this one was clearly incomplete and misleading. So we knew that ghost runner had existed long before this. We grew up with this term. This is an imaginary invisible runner whom you use when you don't have enough actual runners. And they just advance station to station. And so that's not the same as what we have taken to calling the zombie runner, but is technically the automatic runner. So now if you type in ghost runner in dictionary.com, it does not even take you to a definition. It takes you to a referral page essentially that has automatic runner and imaginary runner oh yeah and so if you click on automatic runner it says noun baseball also called ghost runner okay true it is also called ghost runner i wish it weren't but people do call it that yeah you know there we can only we can only write so many injustices at once right

you know right right yes a runner who is automatically placed on second base at the beginning of each half of an extra inning before any pitch is thrown. And if you go to imaginary runner, then it says noun baseball softball, also called ghost runner and invisible runner and invisible man. And it says. Wait a minute. It's like a whole novel with that name Yes A provision of informal, usually childhood play In which a deficit of players allows a base runner to return to home plate for their at-bat

While being replaced on base by an imaginary player The advancement of whom is governed by various rules agreed to beforehand Also utilized in stickball, kickball, and other games related to baseball. And the origin on that page says first recorded in 1910 to 1915. So we have moved more than a century back in time to when this actually started to be used or put into practice. And so a real wrong has been righted here. And I'm quite pleased about it. I'm chuffed

you're chuffed yeah which you might have to look up in the dictionary yeah i know i'm briefly british delighted please satisfied i'm of two minds here ben the dominant well maybe i have three thoughts actually i have three minds you know i just have a number of minds so my first one is that i am delighted for you because i know yeah i'm chuffed i know that while the real wrong you would like to write is the existence of the zombie runner at all yes of course that no longer having to suffer the indignity of actual ghost runner erasure is important, right? And it may end up being important to the broader cause

of us getting rid of the zombie runner, right? Because if we want to solve problems, it is first important that we properly define and identify them, right? And words are important to that cause. So I'm pleased for you. I am also concerned ever so slightly that the good people of dictionary.com don't know.

They don't know what they've done here, right? Which is embolden a group known for its pedantry to be more pedantic with an expectation that they be listened to. Because, you know, you were told, first of all, that it might take a while and it didn't and that your cause would be referred. But you were not promised a resolution, right? You were not promised. I was not guaranteed. No. That you would prevail.

a resolution right you were not promised i was not guaranteed no that you would prevail and what happened here was that you not only prevailed but did so much more quickly than you anticipated you'd be able to do so i feel some trepidation for the the good people over there for what they have unleashed you know they've they've managed to it's like you know when you smack the bottom of a pickle jar and the top pops. And you're like, well, you're either going to get pickles or you're going to wait a while and get some botulism. So it's one or the other. And my third thought is I do wonder ever so slightly whether the invocation of another dictionary may have greased the wheels a little bit. dictionary may have greased the wheels a little bit lest the good people of dictionary.com feel embarrassed that another dictionary had a more precise definition of a word i could see that going either way though right yeah they might say screw them you know we know words yeah right

animus like rivalry you know we're dictionary.com we don't accept right the word of any other dictionary especially a lesser like niche specific dictionary like the baseball dictionary right or there could be respect like okay oh these other lexicographers right this other particular expertise yeah exactly yeah so i guess it worked the latter way it seems like but it ran a risk of backfiring citing a the people at dictionary.com that their instinct seemed to be to appreciate and defer to particular expertise rather than subject matter experts yeah yeah then be chafed not chuffed but chafe you know to chafe at that and say i have no you know but you never know like sometimes people get along and then sometimes people like fight about fit for two decades so you just don't know you know it can go a lot of ways right well it's funny you say that

this happened quickly like not quickly enough for me i would have updated this same day if i had my druthers but they have a process they have a there's a rigor to it for them then you don't yeah there's checks and balances right it can't just be any old crank writes in like me and they just say, sure, we'll do what you want. I'm sure there's rigorous fact checking here, although perhaps more rigorous fact checking could have avoided the problem in the first place. I'm just saying. Like, I don't want to, you know, say, but I'm just saying. Yeah. Anyway, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I guess the wheels of justice turn slowly. Whatever saying you want to use here. It took a little under two months. I will take it. Justice was done in the end. And I'm heartened and encouraged, which is not to say that I can pronounce my job done and my work complete here. Obviously, my ongoing advocacy against the zombie runner will go on, however fruitless it may be. But even as it pertains to the dictionary definition,

I do have one more note, unfortunately. Look, I can't be the first pedant who has written in about a dictionary. I'm sure they field these kind of things constantly. So they're probably used to this. Yeah. And at least I had my facts in order here. And so now, look, on the Ghostrunner page, which again, doesn't even list a definition. It just refers you to Automatic Runner or Imaginary Runner. It does say that the origin of Ghostrunner first recorded in 1975 to 80. I'll take their word for it.

I have not fact-checked that. But the only thing that dismays me here, other than the fact that zombie runner doesn't have its own definition, but I'm not going to get greedy, is that on the automatic runner page, which is otherwise faultless. I think that is the official term of this runner, and I accept that, and I think the definition is fine. Of this runner, and I accept that, and I think the definition is fine. However, the origin section on that page still says, first used in 2020 per an amendment to the MLB, parentheses, Major League Baseball rules of play applied only to the regular season. And that is, of course, not quite correct because both the term and the practice predate MLB adopting the automatic runner. I don't know exactly when the term was coined, but I know that it was in wide circulation in 2018 at least when it began to be used all across the minor leagues. And prior to that, it was in the WBC in 2017, and it was tested at some levels of the minors in 2017.

and it was tested at some levels of the minors in 2017. And I think I would date the practice in prominent leagues to 2008, which is when it began to be used in some international competitions. So I would say that the automatic runner dates back to at least 2008 as an entity, that the term dates back to at least 2018. So I would not want to give MLB credit for creating the term or the practice because, of course, it was used and tested extensively and protested and contested extensively

before it was brought to MLB. So I have written to Heather. So now I'm returning to my second mind i'm just saying heather you know if you find yourself irritated by this i i just want you to know it was you know at least easy to anticipate as a potential reaction to this yes right and i i conveyed my gratitude and my appreciation about how this was uh done and expeditiously. And I just had one more, you know, minor note. I said it was not as important as my original note,

not that my original note was at all important either. And I just, you know, sent some links along to when this practice began to be used. So Heather has not responded as of yet, but if she does, I will update everyone. And if she does not, she's everyone and if she does not she's done enough for me already yeah and i will accept that so some change has been uh has been accomplished here and i'm pleased oh boy so that's why it's been such a good day i have a few other things to discuss some follow-ups first of all to what we talked about last time, which is about free agents visiting teams and teams talking to free agents and what each side could glean from this exercise and if, in fact, it is worthwhile because Joe Kelly, the pitcher, questioned whether this still needs to happen and whether anyone is actually learning anything from these tours. And we were referred by listener Peter to a comment that Carlos Correa made after signing with the Twins. So this was prior to this past season, and this was prompted by a question.

You will hear at the beginning of this clip that I'm about to play here. This is Dan Hayes of The Athletic teeing up Carlos Correa. This all came together so quickly. You've been with Houston your whole life. What did it take to get comfortable with coming to the Twins? It was pretty easy, honestly. You know, before this entire process of free agency, you know, once the season was over, you know, my wife asked me,

like, how is it going to be if we ever leave? And I said, babe, what do we do on a daily basis when we're in the middle of the season? You know, we watch movies, we go eat to restaurants, and now we take care of the baby. Every city in the United States has that. So, wherever we go, we're going to be fine. And then when we put it into perspective and she saw it like that, she's like, oh, I guess you're right. Yeah. So, you know, whatever life takes us, we're going to be ready. So there you have it. That is sort of what I was saying. Basically, my argument is that you can kind of get whatever lifestyle you want when you're a major leaguer in any major league city at this point,

that the regional differences are muted both by this being a global society and the ease of access to everything everywhere, but also by being a big leaguer and having all of the privileges and opportunities that come with that. And so in this case, Cross Gray is basically just saying, well, when I'm not playing, we're just sort of sitting around taking care of the kid and watching TV or whatever, which I can identify with as a fairly recent parent. So he's saying we could do that everywhere. And his wife was like, yeah. And so he signed in Minnesota with no hesitation. And he went on to say that he likes Minnesota and he's been there and blah,

blah, blah, pandering to the home crowd and everything. But he's essentially saying, I could have been happy anywhere because I could have done the things that I do anywhere. And that's essentially what I'm saying. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, sure. I think that that is true, I would invite major leaguers to not have their imaginations constrained. And I think that it's easy to envision a time, maybe even perhaps in Carlos Correa's life, where his individual life circumstances might have lent themselves to him wanting a different set of things or prioritizing a different set of things or prioritizing a different set of things right i think it's different when you're you know when you're married and you have a young child and

you know you've you've kind of reached that phase of life where you're maybe you know body yeah you're not trying to wild out in quite the same way or you're not a single person trying to like potentially meet someone you you know, like, which isn't to say that there aren't nice single people in the Twin Cities, there are, but, you know, there might be particular draws to particular cities that would attract you in a way that they that are less important when you're already sort of established in a family unit. And I could imagine, you know, depending on the player, like maybe, maybe there are cities where you have a community that you can participate in that is important to you because of

the country you're from or the language you speak or, you know, some identity that isn't as prominent in other places. Who knows? You know, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff. I think that people should just go where they feel the happiest. And I think there's, lot of there's a lot of stuff i think that people should just go where they feel the happiest and i think there's i want to be clear like i don't think there's anything wrong if you're a free agent big leaguer and the thing that matters the most to you is just maximizing your earnings because you know this is your big opportunity to do that and prioritizing that over anything else like i think that's fine too. There's no wrong way to be a free agent. To my mind, you should free agent however feels best to you as a free agent.

You know what I mean? Sure. And of course, he was signing a three-year deal with some expectation that he would be there for one year. So that's different too, maybe. Yes. But I also want to make this clear. I'm not knocking the Twin Cities.

I haven't spent a ton of time in Minneapolis, but the time I spent there I enjoyed. So I think it's a lovely place. All those lakes, Ben. They got so many lakes, you know? Yeah. You're like, you brag about all these lakes and then you go there and you're like, there are indeed a lot of lakes, you know? There's a lot of lakes in this state.

So many, 10,000 I hear. So, you know, like there's a lot of lakes in this state so many ten thousand i hear so you know like it's a it's a lovely place and you don't have when you're a baseball player you don't have to be there uh unless you want to be for the time of year where you're like oh right they built tunnels under the ground in the city because of how cold it is you just don't have to be there for that part so you get to enjoy the other stuff like the lakes. And here's another data point. Are you familiar with the saga of Eduardo Escobar and the Brazilian steakhouse Fogo da Chão? No. Okay. I feel like I'm about to relate the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise here. This is not a tragedy. This is a love story, really. And it pertains to another former Minnesota twin. I don't know that we've discussed this, although it's really prime,

effectively wild content. So I don't know how it has escaped our notice. Well, maybe you have, but you just didn't discuss it with me. Maybe, but I think I would have recalled this. Anyway, one of our listeners was discussing it in the Discord group for Patreon supporters. And I read a lot about Eduardo Escobar's love for this Brazilian steakhouse chain. And I should say, I've heard this chain's name pronounced three different ways. I've heard it Fogo de Chão. I've heard Fogo de Chão. I've heard Fogo de Chão. So apologies to any native speakers here. It seems like Fogo de Chão is kind of the dominant North American pronunciation.

Maybe I can just go with Fogo. Sure. But here's an article from the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal. Ben, you could just call it Meat House. I could do that. Yeah. This is from June 2018. Okay.

And the lead is, after a two-hit, hit three RBI game on Tuesday, MLB Network asked Minnesota Twins infielder Eduardo Escobar where his hitting power was coming from. His answer, a lot of Fogo de Chao. On June 7th, it was the same story. Another hot hitting game, another Fogo shout out. A reporter after the game asked Escobar what his dinner plans were for the night. 14 million percent Fogo de Chao. Wow. And this calls back to another Effectively Wild bit where Jeff and I talked about players using arbitrarily high percentages instead of just saying 100 percent, 200, 300, 1,000, whatever.

I don't think 14 million percent has ever been topped to my knowledge. So 14 million percent is the new leader in the clubhouse in this genre but he went on and on to say how much he loves fogo he's not like a spokesperson for fogo okay loves fogo and there's been like a hashtag hashtag fogo power he like he brings his teammates to fogo he holds charity events there he brings his teammates to Fogo. He holds charity events there. He brings kids there. Here's a quote from Mary Lindahl,

manager of the Minneapolis Fogo. We love it. He loves it. It is rare that you come across someone so sincere. There's a buzz going around him mentioning Fogo and it just goes on and on. Someone else, Josh Wood, field marketing manager for the company, says, We've got nothing quite like this.

Other celebrities also frequent the restaurant chain, but they haven't vocalized for the brand this much. He said they are also frequently approached by pay-to-play people who want to get paid to publicize eating at Fogo, but not Escobar. He's doing it for free. Apparently, he proposed to his wife at Fogo, but not Escobar. He's doing it for free. Apparently, he proposed to his wife at Fogo. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And he's such a regular or was such a regular at that local Fogo that customers would ask if Escobar is coming in tonight. And this has gone on as he has gone to

different teams. He has maintained his love of Fogo. And here's the point that I wanted to make if there is one, which is that if Fogo's like a deal breaker for him, like you have to have a Fogo nearby. And there was actually, there was a not very rigorous study that was done in 2019, which I will link to headlined, how much does Fogo Power Eduardo Escobar? And the conceit was, does he play better? Do you mean to tell me that you did not find this to be a completely rigorous endeavor? Not totally, no. Not totally, okay. But it quotes him.

He was with the Diamondbacks by then, and he said, it has really great people and a really great restaurant. Every time I go to Fogo de Chao, come to the field, hit a double or homer, I say Fogo Power. The restaurant, I love it. My family enjoys it over there. It goes on and on. And so this study was basically about like, does he hit better when he is in a city with a Fogo or in a ballpark that is extremely close to a Fogo? And unsurprisingly, because this is the sort of thing where you don't publish the study if there's no result. If the null hypothesis comes out, then you probably don't publicize it. But they did this in such a way that his batting averages were higher in cities with Fogos and

especially higher when he's in cities that are very close to the Fogo, the Fogos in close proximity to the park. And it includes a quote from Diamondbacks manager, Tori Lovello. I'm telling you, we need to put a Fogo to chow in the stadium somewhere because I love these numbers when there's Fogo power. I can't believe this is not SpodCon, but,

but apparently it is not. But the point is that like, if he decided that this was a real effect and he actually played better when he was near Fogo, or he just loves Fogo so much that he's unwilling to go anywhere where there wasn't a Fogo, he would have a lot of options because I just looked at the Fogo locations, and I think they have expanded and they've got like, I think, 50 something locations just in the U.S. maybe. And the only big league cities it looks like where there is not a FOGO. So there's no FOGO in Ohio or Wisconsin. So the Reds, the Guardians and the Brewers are out of luck. There is no FOGO in St.

Louis and there's no FOGO in Toronto. So that's basically it though. So the vast majority of major league cities have a Fogo. I guess in Tampa, I think there are several Fogos in Florida, but the closest one to Tampa is Orlando, which is a bit of a haul. Yeah, that's a bit of a drive. Yeah, but it's doable. If you've just got a Fogo to chow down, then I guess that's not too far to go. Where is there a Fogo to chow? Oh, it's in Bellevue. Okay.

That makes sense. Yeah. I'm counting like suburbs. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm not saying you can't count the Mariners as having an approximate Fogo to chow. I'm just saying, yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah.

So there are like at most, I think like five Fogo-less major league teams. So he has a lot of options. And this is what I'm saying. Like you can get, even if you specify it has to be Fogo, that's the sole source of my power. And if you can't eat it Fogo, then you have Fogo FOMO, then you can get that almost anywhere. And if you are less discerning and you're just like, I want steak, then you can get that anywhere if it doesn't have to be Fogo. So I'm saying like you have a lot of options, even if you have a very specific taste like

this. And the other thing is that ironically, or I don't know if ironically is the right word, but Eduardo Escobar, he played for the Brewers, who are one of the teams without a nearby Fogo. I was going to say, how did that go for him? Well, he hit quite well in Milwaukee. And it turns out that, I'm reading here, Brazilian steakhouse Fogo do Chão hit a home run with Eduardo Escobar while he was with the twins. Now the restaurant is following him to Milwaukee for a day. Responding to fan demand on social media, Fogo will host a pop-up tailgate at the Brewers' home game against the St. Louis Cardinals on September 22nd. That's great. Yeah. So they brought complimentary Fogo to the city for a tailgate because Escobar is there. So again, like,

even if there's not a fogo, they might just follow you there if you've given them this much free marketing. This story says Escobar yells fogo power after he hits a home run. Wow. Where's the fogo to chow in? I don't know where any fogo is because i've never been i don't think what it's like is it just because like brazilian steakhouse says okay it's in scottsdale that also attracts so is it like because like brazilian steakhouses are like a thing you know it's like a it's it's a thing it's an upscale chain that's why i'm saying that like it makes sense that it's in scottsdale and then bellevue you know scottsdale is like uh bellevue washington but with sun you know sort of a similar vibe i mean yeah it's also very arizona so it's really importantly different but like there's some

you know kinship between the vibes but but like what i was gonna ask is is it possible that there are other Brazilian steakhouses that he would find have a similar effect, you know, and create like a... Gotta go to Fogo, I think. I think it's gotta be Fogo. Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's brand loyalty you can't buy, you know. No. And he has continued to maintain this relationship.

As a New York Met, we have Fogos in New York. Sure. And unsurprisingly, he is still a regular at the local Fogos here. And he apparently went out to celebrate when he reached 10 years of major league service last spring. He went to Fogo. That was in Denver. There's a Fogo in Denver. Denver. There's a Fogo in Denver. And he took the team out there. And he also, he took the Mets to Fogo prior to opening day in Washington. And the story from the Daily News says, the third baseman said he received a video which made him cry from the CEO of Fogo and various presidents of Fogo congratulating him for 10 years in the majors.

They also donated $10,000 to Escobar's charity. I'm sure they've made much more than that off of Escobar over the years. But he treated, according to Anthony DeComo, he took the entire Mets team plus dozens of staffers out for a meal at Fogo in D.C. That's nice. Around 70 people he brought to Fogo in DC. Around 70 people. Wow.

Brought to Fogo. Yeah. Wow. The Fogo de Chao in Manhattan is on West 53rd, like between 5th and 6th. It's close. I could walk there.

It's like across from MoMA. Yeah, I could go. I should. I could get my Fogo power. See how I podcast after that. I have to also tell you as I'm looking on Google Maps, no fewer than one, two, three. There are like five other steakhouses within a three block radius. Fogo to Chow.

That's great. Yeah, that's great yeah that's right it's like right down the way from well i guess up the way from uh from radio city and like yeah rockefeller center wow all right you know even if that's your your sole criteria and it has to be somewhere with a photo or whatever like even if it's hyper specific like that you can get that basically at any major league city in these great United States. Okay. But like Ben, what if the thing that was really important to you is that you could go to Dick's Drive-In and then you have to play for the Mariners. Like what if you're like, I need to raise my children within driving distance of a Dick's Drive-In? Yeah.

I'm saying Dick's Drive-In in a way that a person from Seattle would not say so so that i'm not saying well what if you want to be close to dicks ben because then you're right you can be this is good you know we were like what are we going to talk about today you found some good stuff opportunities present those yeah they were like yeah we were like hopefully somebody signs and now i'm glad no one did yeah and and we were also reminded by another listener and patreon supporter of the controversy surrounding carl crawford signing in boston and the due diligence that the red sox did at the time which uh given how crawford's tenure in boston went maybe it wasn't enough but it was a lot and that was something I mentioned

that maybe even though these free agent tours are supposedly for the benefit of the free agent, like everyone is kind of courting them and the suitors are presenting their cities as the most deserving, but maybe the teams themselves are also gleaning as much information, if not more. But one thing I said is that, I mean, I don't know how much you're gleaning from that single sit down or that day that you wouldn't get from the research you're already doing. And I was reminded of just how extensive that research can be because there was a whole flare up in 2011 because Theo Epstein gave the impression that the Red Sox had hired a private investigator

to check out Karl Crawford prior to signing him. Oh, I did not remember that. Yeah, neither did I. So on WEI, Theo said, we covered him as if we were privately investigated him. We had a scout on him literally the last three or four months of the season at the ballpark away from the ballpark. Yeah, that sounds weird. Sounds kind of creepy and stocky.

Yeah. And some people, I think, reasonably thought, wait, hold on. Or like, that's creepy. What's going on? Yeah. You had a tail on this guy for months at a time. And Theo then clarified or asserted, we did not hire a private investigator. We did not follow Carl away from the park.

We would never go that far. We simply had our scouts do a thorough job on his background and make up the way we do for all players of interest. I use a poor choice of words during a radio interview, which I regret. And unfortunately, that made a story out of a non-story. We told Carl in Houston in November that we had gotten to know him pretty well and that the more we discovered, the more we liked and respected him. We talked about it again yesterday, and I can assure you that he has no problem whatsoever with the Red Sox or with our approach during free agency. But then Epstein spoke with him again and Crawford said he was kidding, at least according to Theo. And then Johnny Damon was asked about this investigation. And he said, I'm on both sides of the fence. I know Boston had followed guys before.

What? Like Mo Vaughn, especially. They wanted to see what he was doing all the time. What? The Boston fans, they follow you around, too, to see what you're doing. It seems like they're everywhere. The Boston fans, they follow you around too to see what you're doing. It seems like they're everywhere.

But when a team's investing $142 million, they probably have a right to know every little bit of your history. Sure. Ex-girlfriend's house, his family. It's a big investment. You don't like to have that happen, but it needs to. Teams can't afford to make a risk like that for there to be any problems. Teams have to be prepared. A lot of teams signed guys in the past and they didn't know certain things. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, like this was what I was sort of saying, right? That you want to have some assurance that you know what you're getting when you're committing a lot of payroll space to a guy in much the same way that when you're committing to live a place and be part of an organization for a long time, you want to know what you're getting. I mean, I do think that like i understand the instinct i think it's probably important for big league clubs to recognize that they should do a lot of due diligence and they might end up

being surprised to the downside anyway unfortunately because like baseball players are human beings and sometimes human beings like treat other human beings really badly or you know they scam or they do all kinds of naughty terrible things so like there's there's a limit to how much you can know but i think the instinct to know as much as you possibly can going in is understandable i just wish that we could describe it in a way that didn't sound like minority report right yeah yeah and if anything crawford maybe should have researched boston more because describe it in a way that didn't sound like minority report. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And if anything, Crawford maybe should have researched Boston more because he hated being there. Yeah, he sure did. And I guess the Red Sox weren't thrilled with how that deal worked out either. But he said in 2017, I carried hate for that city for a long time, but now I'm over that. I feel much

better because I learned that you can't hate something or you never get over it it definitely was a learning experience definitely that that i got that out of it if nothing else because uh during his tenure he had talked about it being a toxic environment etc and again though like i don't know that that's the kind of thing you could really pick up on on a short visit, right? Like if you embedded in Boston and lived there or I guess maybe research the history of black athletes in Boston and even baseball specifically and how that has historically gone. That might have been a tip off too. But you can only learn so much about a city from just stopping by on your whistle stop tour of various cities, right?

out of city from just stopping by on your whistle-stop tour of various cities, right? Well, and maybe that is in its own way a counter-argument to what I've been saying, where it's like you can say and think, hey, there are things that I really want to prioritize in living in a place, but you're only going to really be able to get to know a place well once you've lived there. And when you have, it might present you with all kinds of delightful things that you're surprised by and able to say oh i never knew that living here would you know introduce me to a new brazilian steakhouse that i love even more right yes you just don't know until you've lived lived in a place it's like when you move into a new apartment or a new house and you like think you know exactly how you apartment or a new house and you think you

know exactly how you're going to decorate it. And then you sit on the couch one day and you're like, you know, that piece of art doesn't really go there. I got to move it. Right. Yeah. What are the other big Brazilian steakhouse chains in the US? I don't know. Surely there are some, right? Sure. Texas de Brazil, apparently. Texas de Brazil. Yeah. Wow. Can I ask an ignorant question?

Sure. What's special about the preparation at a Brazilian steakhouse versus other steakhouses? Am I asking the wrong person this question? You are absolutely asking the wrong person, having never been to Fogo. But it's like a long, involved process, I think. When you go, you settle in for a while just because of the way the meat is prepared. Well, and they bring stuff table side, right? I think so. They're a place where you get stuff, or at least I think Fogo de Chão is.

I don't know if that is a feature of all Brazilian steakhouses. It might not be. We have a lot to learn. We should have Eduardo Escobar on to tell us about this. We should. To tell us about his love of Fogo de Chão. I had no idea. No, me neither.

Anyway, Karl Crawford, by the way, a checkered post-playing career. I don't know whether people have checked out the personal life section of the Carl Crawford wiki page. It's long. But yeah, it's not the greatest. No, it's not. There's an arrest and an assault charge. And then there was an incident. Didn't he rip off Megan Thee Stallion?

Yeah, that was the other. There was an incident where a kid and a woman drowned in the swimming pool at a party at his house. And he was sued. And then, right, he runs an independent record label that signed Megan Thee Stallion before she was big. Right. before she was big right and then there was uh she sued him and the label because she said that they were like blocking her from releasing music and that the the terms were terrible and he denied wrongdoing so yeah that's it's a whole second act that is probably worthy of further investigation but maybe that's that's a whole separate podcast. Yeah. I remember that when Jay was writing up his 2022 Hall of Fame ballot entry, he was like,

what in the world? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So there's that. I had another epiphany that was related to the World Cup, which I have not been watching a ton of. I know you've been watching some. And I've not caught World Cup fever, but I was reading an article about the number of balls, soccer balls that are used in a World Cup match. Tell me. So apparently it's like 20-ish

or at least like 20 game balls have to be prepared and ready to be used. It's not exactly clear how many actually are used in the course of a given game. And this is just in the World Cup. It varies a little if you're talking about MLS or EPL or other leagues. But it seems like, and there are some leagues where they might only use one ball and others where it's just a multi-ball. And as soon as one goes out of play, another comes into play. But it seems like in soccer, it is when it comes to use of equipment and just the disposability of the core piece of equipment, the ball.

There are so many balls used in the course of a given game. And I don't know whether any sport can compare to this. And I think this should be in the pantheon of ways that baseball is unique. I guess there are many, many ways that baseball is unique and there are many ways in which every sport is unique from every other sport. But if I had to come up with a top five maybe ways in which baseball is different from all or most other sports, I guess the most commonly cited would probably be the lack of a clock, which we're kind of encroaching on now, now that we have the zombie runner and also the pitch clock coming in. But we don't have a regulation time.

Exactly. Right. Yes. So it's still differentiated from other sports in that respect. And then I think another commonly cited one is that the defense has the ball and kind of initiates the play. That is certainly unusual, if not unique. And then I think one we've mentioned is the irregular playing dimensions. Also very strange.

Very strange. And I think a great thing about baseball, but just really weird. There are some minimum lengths or distances that you have to adhere to, but you have a whole lot of freedom within those light constraints to just shape your park the way you want it. And then I would say probably another one is just the ease of analysis and the granularity of the analysis and the extent of the data that is available for baseball relative to other sports and really like most other fields of human endeavor. So those are four, I think. But I think a fifth should be how many balls are used in the course of a given game because

it's so many more. So according to MLB's estimate, and this is from an athletic piece that was published last year, MLB says that they estimate between eight and ten dozen baseballs used in every major league game. So that's like 96 to 120 balls. And Jason Lloyd of The Athletic put that to the test and monitored the baseball usage in a Guardians Tigers game last May. And he came up with 115, which is toward the upper range of MLB's estimate. And I would guess that this is going up over time. There've been more and more foul balls, et cetera. So that's a lot. And I just tried to do a little survey of how many balls are used per game or per match in every

other major sport I could think of and quickly research. So we covered soccer. It's like maybe a dozen-ish or perhaps a tad more at most. On the low end, I think you have rugby, which in the Super League, it sounds like balls are switched out every two or three games. So they're using the same ball for multiple contests. In the NBA, they have to have three available balls per game, but often only one is used per game. And each team gets 72 game balls at the start of the season. And of course, there are 82 games in the season. So it's like one per game or maybe less. So that's interesting. And then in cricket, or at least in ODI, One Day International international cricket, which you would think is a close parallel to baseball, it sounds like two new balls are used during each innings, one from each bowling end.

So it's something like four new balls in total are used in like a one-day cricket match. And that's, yeah, I mean, that's your closest sister sport. And very few balls, cricket balls are hard. So I guess that makes sense. And I'm 12, you know, is what we've learned. Yeah. The balls themselves don't really get hard. Anyway, the balls.

Not if something, you know, if something's wrong. Yeah. No, it depends. Not if something's wrong. Yeah, no, it depends. But there were some new rules introduced in 2011, which stipulated that, no, please keep laughing. It's fine. Teams use two balls during the innings, one from each end. And this was introduced in order to reduce the wear and tear on the white balls that are being used at cricket because the balls were becoming overly discolored.

You definitely want to see a doctor for that, too. Yep, because of dirt and grass stains over the full 50 over innings. If that's all that's causing discoloration, you're probably fine then. You just need to take a shower. Yeah, but that's not a lot. And then in golf, I think it's like golfers on the PGA, they use like, they carry like maybe 9 to 12-ish balls in their bags per round, something like that. But they use fewer of them. And, you know, pro golfers, they don't lose a lot of balls.

Occasionally they do, but they might just want a fresh one in the rotation. But it's not unheard of to like use the same one. Apparently in 2019, this golfer, Alex Chiarella, he used one golf ball in the entirety of a 72 hole tournament, which he won. He won the Lethbridge Paradise Canyon Open, and he just decided to stick with the same ball because it was working so well. So that was weird and unusual in modern times, but it can be done. So not that many balls used in golf. In the NHL, from what I could tell, about a dozen pucks are used per game. And that's because some will be slapped out of play and onto the bench or into the stands and also the pucks are frozen so that they will have less friction and they will be able to to

move around freely on the ice yeah and so they thaw over the course of the game and i think they have some sort of special paint that relays like when they have thawed and they need to be changed out. Like a mood ring, like a mood puck. Exactly. That's delightful. I had no idea. Yeah. So like a dozen pucks or so. And the NFL, it's sort of squishy.

It's kind of tough to tell. Like each NFL team provides 12 primary footballs and 12 backup footballs from what I could tell except maybe it varies depending on whether it's an indoor game or an outdoor game. If it's an outdoor game you might have to have 36 instead of 24 and this became an issue with deflate gate and everything but and then I think you have to have

like 12 new balls maybe just for kicking. They're marked with the letter K and that's for kicking but each team has with the letter K and that's for kicking, but each team has 12 balls they use on offense and the home team has 12 more for backup. So you could say like at most, maybe a couple or a few dozen, but I would guess that not nearly all of the ones that they have on hand are actually used in the course of a game. So maybe sort of a soccer-ish total. So the closest comp I could maybe come up with is tennis. So from what I can tell, according to ATP and WTA rules, so a new set

of six balls is put into the game after the first seven games of any given match. And then every next nine games, they're replaced with another six balls so if you had a like a six love six love sweep in a woman's match then only 16 tennis balls will be used if it's a men's tournament and you go to five sets and there are 12 games on average then you might use up to 36 balls and i guess there are also some maybe that are hit into play, right? And you lose them. So you might have as many as like a few dozen tennis balls that are used during the course of a given match. But baseball is like, it breaks the scale. Like maybe people are thinking of other major sports that replace

their core piece of equipment as often, but nothing immediately comes to mind, not at least like major mainstream American type sports. So baseball is just like on an island in terms of how often the baseballs are replaced. And I think that sets the sport apart. And I think it's a cool thing about baseball because a lot of those balls go into the stands, which is good unless they hurt people. So it's good to have nets. And now that we have more netting and there's more protection, I think it is a really nice thing because you get to keep a lot of souvenirs more so than in any other sport. And it's a cool souvenir. so than in any other sport. And it's a cool souvenir. And there's a sense of accomplishment because if you caught it or if you fought off other fans to retrieve it, then you have a little

story to tell. And there was maybe even some athletic acumen that was involved there. And it's just like a really cool thing. Like, hey, like seconds ago, this pitcher was holding this thing that I now have in my hand. And then it hit this guy's bat. And here it is. And maybe there's a scuff mark. And it sort of tells a story. It's a really great little piece of memorabilia. And I think baseball gives more opportunity to have that kind of thing than any other sport. And this has changed over time too because as originally designed, baseball would have been more like cricket or more like these other sports where the ball was not replaced nearly as often. And I think in earnest, starting in 1920, even before Ray Chapman was fatally beamed

by a ball, but at the start of that season, they had already decided we have to swap out the balls more often. You had spit balls and the balls were getting dirty and it was the dead ball era prior to that. And so the balls would just be these misshapen lumps and you wanted more offense. And so you needed fresh baseballs in there. And then over time, of course, I think, you know, pitchers have maybe become even more sensitive to the conditions of certain balls and they will just toss those things out left

and right. So now you're at 100 or more baseballs per game. You're swapping every few pitches, essentially. And I really think that that puts baseball in kind of a class of its own. So I don't know whether anyone else or you has suggestions for what should be the other defining features of baseball that sets it apart from other sports. But I think that's my top five because that is so weird. Obviously, if you're just playing like a casual pickup game, you wouldn't do that. It would get super expensive for one thing to swap out baseballs that often.

But the fact that that is like how it was not originally designed, but how it is designed now, that is just how it is supposed to work. That you replace the ball way, way way way more often than any other sport replaces its ball it's weird that's all i'm saying it just it did not dawned on me the extent to which it's weird yeah it is it is strange i agree it's a strange it's strange you know but i think it's more of a feature than a bug aside from the expense which which MLB has plenty of cash to spare. So if you can afford it, then I think it's kind of nice because fans get to keep some high percentage of those balls. Some of them not.

Some of them just go to the authenticator or into a bag somewhere and maybe they get sold at some point or recycled or used for practice. But a lot of those, you get to take them home. And of course, that wasn to take them home. And of course, that wasn't the case early in baseball history either. Teams didn't have that many baseballs and they didn't have big budgets. And so when a ball went into the stands, you had to give it back. Have someone go and retrieve it. And now you get to keep it, which is a nice little party favor if you happen to be standing in the right spot. Yeah. What an odd, what an odd thing.

What an odd, yeah, it's a weird thing, you know? Yep. So that's my personal top five ways that baseball is weird and unique. Lack of the clock, defense has the ball, irregular playing dimensions, the level of data and analysis that it enables, and the fact that the ball is swapped out so often. So if anyone can top one of those, say, soccer when it comes to like the range of races and creeds and colors and countries where it's played. Baseball is certainly an international sport, but not the most international sport. And like, you know, people will tell you, oh, the hardest thing in sports is to hit the round ball with the round bat and all of that. And I don't know if that's just a cliche or if it's actually true. round ball with the round bat and all of that. And I don't know if that's just a cliche or if it's actually true. I guess that is part of why the baseball is swapped out so often is that the thing is getting hammered constantly and even more so than it used to because players are throwing harder and swinging harder. So I'm not saying there's a solution here that we should like

manufacture a more durable ball. It's fine. I don't know that you could manufacture a more durable ball that retained the properties of the current baseball. Probably you could. Yeah. Put people on the moon, hopefully again sometime in the next few years. Right. Maybe we could manage that, but they've had a whole lot of issues with the baseball, as we have discussed. So I'm not suggesting that we need a synthetic ball that will not be replaced as often just to save the horses' hides out there. But really, like, I guess that is an impact sport in the sense that the ball is being impacted more so than in most sports obviously like you have tons of contact and maybe even more contact

than you do in baseball but it is the bodies being impacted more so than the ball itself whereas the force that is imparted to a baseball that is tough to top i think in sports generally aside from like driving and racing and that sort of thing. Yeah, I think that that's right. Anyway, my idle thought for the day. Man, yeah, balls. You just spent a lot of time thinking about balls today. I did. And also thought a little bit about Tony Clark because there was some news about Tony Clark.

Extended, five years, yeah. Yeah, five years. And that means he'll be around for another round of bargaining. Yeah. Can't wait to get into all that again after 2026. I can. Yes, I also can. Yeah.

But this means he will be around for that. And I was just thinking because a friend of the show, fairly frequent guest, Evan Drellick, he wrote about Clark and did a profile of him essentially. And I was reading some things that Mark Normandin wrote about Clark and just about how his reputation has really done a 180 in the past year, if anything, because you would not necessarily have thought that he would be around for even one more bargaining round, let alone at least two after his first round, which was generally seen as not a success, right? And there were a lot of complaints that there was griping and there were Ken Rosenthal reports about players being dissatisfied and there were criticisms about the union not really having the proper personnel in place in terms of experienced negotiators and lawyer types.

And Clark was kind of pressed into service because his predecessor died and there wasn't really a ready replacement. Clark was kind of maybe in line eventually, but he wasn't expected to have to serve so soon. And so as a former player without a ton of experience and not having been through bargaining in this role before, he was not as prepared as I think he has subsequently been. And so that initial round of bargaining was seen as not a strong one by the players and that they gave up concessions and they didn't have the right priorities and they lost ground, if anything. And there were a lot of votes of no confidence, essentially, in Tony Clark. And look how things have changed. confidence essentially in Tony Clark and look how things have changed. I mean, first of all,

you had the 2020 standoff about what the players were going to be paid and when the season was going to start and that got very acrimonious and the players sort of held their ground and then really tensions ratcheted up and the messaging and everything and the players have become more motivated and more solidarity than they've had in some time yeah and so he has weathered that and to some extent orchestrated that and just the whole age of ever-present social media and even if the players didn't gain nearly as much ground as they would have liked to gain in the latest round of negotiations i think it was perceived as at least more of a success than maybe the previous couple. They didn't give up as much. Maybe they clawed a bit back. They perhaps set the stage for further gains in the future and they kind of didn't break ranks.

So that was seen as something of a victory. And then there have been some major like earth shattering changes just in the past year with the union affiliating itself with the AFL-CIO and the larger landscape of labor unions. Yeah. and expertise that he was perceived to have lacked or that the union as a whole was perceived to have lacked which i think he has acknowledged to some extent like yeah they kind of rectified that and sort of got the ship in order to some extent and and now he was brought back and is seen as having presided over a period of strength and gains and accomplishments so he's really changed the narrative around himself yeah i think that you know he recognized a thing that we often will laud good general managers for which is acknowledging what he is good at which seems to be talking to players at various stages of their careers and really helping to foster solidarity amongst them and then also acknowledging what he isn't the best at, which was some of the things that you cited, right?

That he and the union were beneficiaries of bringing in additional negotiation expertise, which isn't to say that like Tony Clark was negotiating that bad CBA by himself, right? Like there were lawyers in the room that whole time, but that there was a, you know, that they needed to approach those negotiations with a similar mentality to how the owners were approaching them, right? That they needed to really come to the table, understanding

that the league and the ownership groups were trying to claw as much from them as possible and sort of meet that moment and to do that with in-house expertise and it seems like they have largely done that and i think that in the last couple of years like his ability to look to moments like the restart of play in 2020 and this cba negotiation and really communicate with and seem to win over players to the idea that this needs to be something that they approach collectively, that veteran players owe something to younger players, that they need to think about the well-being of guys who haven't even entered affiliated ball yet was important and powerful, right? And that their experience of ownership in the last couple of years was a catalyzing event for them to come together rather than something

that managed to drive them apart. And I think that when you're trying to negotiate on behalf of a group that has, you know, obviously common needs, but also different needs at different times, being able to come back to that place of solidarity is really, really important. And so I'm, you know, I think that he's done a good job course correcting, and a really good job in the last couple of years of saying, no, like, you're, you're not going to succeed in pitting us against one another. We're going to present a united front. So, yeah. Yeah, and he acknowledges he's learned a lot and he's brought people on.

And also, I don't think the beard can be discounted. It is. I mean, he just looks so cool. He just looks really cool. Yeah, I looked back at pictures of him from early in his tenure with the union, and he had like a goatee, like a graying goatee at that point. Whereas now he has this just like flowing, white, brilliant white beard. I mean, I don't know whether that is more of a cause or an effect or neither. Like, is it as he has developed expertise and confidence in himself, the beard has kept growing and he has developed the swagger to wear that kind of beard? Or does the swagger to some extent come from the beard? I don't know.

Maybe it's completely disconnected, but it is a very fetching look, I think. And he has cultivated that over the course of his tenure so i think that cannot be just ruled out as contributing cause here yeah but i i recommend uh evan's piece and we'll link to that because it provides a complete picture of his whole history and upbringing and interests and everything and And as Evan has also noted, there is a new executive player subcommittee of the MLBPA. So there are few holdovers from the previous subcommittee that was involved in negotiating the CBA.

So Francisco Lindor and Marcus Semyon are the only ones who are still serving. And so it is out with Max Scherzer, Andrew Miller, Zach Britton, Garrett Cole, James Paxton, Jason Castro, and in with Jack Flaherty, Lance McCullers, Ian Happ, Austin Slater, Lucas Giolito, and Brent Suter. And one of the criticisms of the previous subcommittee has not been addressed here, which is that there were no Latin American players on it, and there still are not. American players on it, and there still are not. Francisco Lindor is from Puerto Rico. So the fact that such a big part of the player body is from Latin America and that they don't have any direct representatives on this subcommittee kind of makes you raise an eyebrow. And also the fact that not

many players wanted to stay on it. Maybe it's normal, that kind of turnover. I don't know. I know it took a lot out of those players because they put a lot into that the way that he does everything. So he was not going to half-ass that. And he was reportedly sort of the same at the bargaining table as he is on the mound. So we can all picture that. And so just the weight of like all the Zoom calls and all the meetings and all the messaging and everything on top of like being a big leaguer and all that goes with that, that was a lot for him. And there was also some discontent, right, because that subcommittee voted against agreeing to the CBA and they kind of wanted to hold the line even was some resistance there from people on that subcommittee who felt like, well, maybe we didn't get quite as much as we wanted or could have if we had held out even longer or gone along with the owner's lockout even longer. So there's probably some lingering bitterness or reservations there. I'd be interested. some lingering bitterness or reservations there i'd be interested once all the dust settles and years pass it would be interesting to get kind of a tell-all reveal of how all of that went down and

what people thought of it at the time and think of it now there's been some reporting about that but with the passage of time i think you could get a greater perspective and people being more frank about it after they have moved on from their playing days. It doesn't strike me as, I mean, I think that having some sort of institutional memory on that committee is important because being a baseball player is one very specific skill and being a good labor organizer is another. So I think having connective tissue between different committees so that people are able to benefit from that experience is is probably useful but i don't know it doesn't strike me as remotely surprising even setting aside like the andrew miller piece of it with him having you know retired that like

after such a such a fraught and exhausting stretch that you might be ready to be done for a little while you know i don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing although i i think that exhausting stretch that you might be ready to be done for a little while. You know, I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. Although I think that you're right to say that some of the continued gaps in representation from a player demographic perspective are a little concerning and surprising. So there's still some work to be done there, clearly. But yeah, I would, you know, it's like, I bet, you know, Max Scherzer's ready to be done. And, you know, maybe they'd say, we're ready for Max to be done too.

Like it could, you know, that could be true. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. And also relevant to the union, probably there was news this week that there's another big windfall and payout for the owners because of the BAMTEC deal. Right. owners because of the BAMTEC deal, right? So this has been an ongoing incremental thing, but Disney has purchased MLB's streaming technology, essentially the BAMTEC business. And this started in 2016 when Disney invested a billion that year and then a billion and a half more the following year. That's when it got a controlling interest and then another few hundred million earlier this year for the NHL stake.

And then finally now another 900 million for the remaining 15% stake of BAMTEC, which means that each club, each owner is getting $30 million from that this winter. So keep that in mind if your owner says that they have no money to spend. They have that and the previous payouts as well and that's treated as non-baseball related revenue right and this has amounted to like 200 million dollars per team and not including whatever it took to to build it out but it's not like the owners were really playing a direct role in that like programming this stuff like it's not like the owners were really playing a direct role in that, like programming this stuff. Like it's impressive that MLB streaming technology has gone on to be the basis of so many other streaming services and technologies and everything.

And it's considered non-baseball related revenue. But it kind of is because like the initial product was developed to broadcast baseball games, right? Right. that they're suffering biblical losses and also when they're trying to carve up pieces of the revenue pie and decide what is defined as baseball revenue and non-baseball revenue. Yeah, like for instance, now this is not their luxury tax payroll. That number is higher. But like right now, right now,

and stuff might happen, you know, between now and opening day. But like for instance, the Oakland Athletics projected payroll for 2023 is $35 million. So congratulations to the Oakland Athletics for not sweating their bills for a while. That has to feel good. Their luxury tax payroll number is $54 million. So they have to sweat it some.

But yeah, Baltimore, 41 million. Pittsburgh, 54. Again, these are not their luxury tax numbers. Those numbers are 61 and 73 million respectively. But yeah, it does, you know, kind of throws in a little. I think we should keep it in. It's been a fun little show so far. You know, it puts the lie to the idea that these are overly constrained entities.

They're doing fine. I think we should look at them and say, you know what? You guys are doing okay. Yep. And I wanted to throw one more thing out there to the Effectively Wild hive mind. This is kind of a request for crowdsourced assistance. I've decided that I want to play some sports. What? And yeah, I want to play some sports and I don't know how best to do that.

So I am soliciting recommendations, either New York area specific or just general. either New York area specific or just general, how does a person in his mid-30s get into some recreational sports? That's what I want to do because I'm active. I stay in shape, but I don't do anything that like, I don't blog better or podcast better because I stay in shape. Like ultimately, if you just go to the gym and stay in shape, I mean, it pays, hopefully, health dividends and things in the long term. I mean, limited because you don't stretch, but sure. Well, we can agree to disagree about that. But, you know, hopefully. Did we talk about that on a main feed episode or just the Patreon?

Because main feed people who aren't Patreon subscribers are like, why does Meg know about Ben stretching? It was a question on a Patreon pod. I'm not being weird. Yeah. We don't want to give away what's behind the paywall for the paying supporters, but y'all are missing out on some real eyebrow-raising confessions and truth bombs that are being dropped on those Patreon pods that we do every month. So yeah, check it out if you want even more of us at a different side of us, I would say. But yes, there's only so much quality of life improvement you get from that. Ultimately, if you go to the gym and you lift weights and the end result is that you can just lift a heavier weight, what do you get out of that exactly?

Because I would be fairly sedentary in my professional life if I did not make myself be more active it's not like I have many opportunities in my daily life to like use athleticism or strength or anything and I'm feeling like I want to play some sports because I don't get a lot of chances to play sports because I only have so many friends who are still in the area and it's always hard to find free time. And when you have a kid and maybe your friends have kids and you get to a certain age and it's just, it's hard to do that sort of thing.

So I want to play some sports now, probably like beginning of December is maybe not the best time to decide this and make this resolution. But it could be baseball and softball next year. It could be other things. It could be soccer or tennis or table tennis or I don't know what, floor hockey, anything but basketball or football. Although basketball would probably be easiest. I could just show up at a court and play pickup, but those aren't my games. But I want to play some sports. I don't really know how to go about that. So I figured I have a sports podcast. This is a platform where I could put that out there and people could give me some recommendations for how to get into this. But I have a couple specifications or requests here, which is that, number one, don't want it to be too competitive.

Okay. Because I'm just not into the like getting super into sports that are just kind of like a casual recreational activity. I don't want to like be getting angry and have other people getting angry at me. So like I knew one neighbor for a while. I now know no neighbors, which is like a true New Yorker kind of thing. which is like a true New Yorker kind of thing. But I knew one neighbor for a while, this German guy who lived in the building and just like struck up a conversation

because I guess we went to the same gym and saw each other there sometimes. And I would, of course, never strike up a conversation, but he was an outgoing guy and he did. And so we played tennis sometimes. Aw, that's nice. Yeah, it was nice, except that he was so into it that he would like start throwing his racket and like doing the full John McEnroe when we're just like playing a casual game for zero stakes. Yeah.

That seems like not the best. Yeah. He would just like morph from this fairly friendly guy to like tennis monster as soon as things didn't go his way. Like his racket was like bent. We had to stop playing because he threw his racket so hard are you serious yeah and so that kind of energy is not what i'm you're not into that no okay here's the other thing though i'm not sure i'm in it to make friends either i don't want to make any enemies but i'm also not sure that i want this to be like my new social circle is the thing like okay this is look this is gonna sound a little larry david and i am a little larry david and i have a lot of love for larry david but

the whole thing that's why you're so into crypto yeah aside from that my idols larry david and shoya otani that's the one where they disappoint but i i don't want to like get into the scene necessarily you know where it's like you have like all your friends are your like zog sports friends or whatever and and like after you play you have you gotta go get drinks i realized this is like a selling point probably for a lot of people. It's like, it's hard to make friends at a certain point. And that's why they play rec league sports so they can like make some pals. Yeah. I don't know that I am in the market. You're not in the market for new friends. I'm fairly satisfied with my friend group and family and all of that. I'm not saying I want

to be unfriendly. And if I were to cultivate a new friend, that'd be nice. But I don't know that I want it to be like a full hangout. I kind of, in my ideal world, I would show up, we would play some sports. No one would take it too seriously. We would all like shake hands and say good game. And then we would all go our separate ways. We would remain mostly strangers to each other that's kind of what i'm seeking so this is very specific because i feel like you can either have the hyper competitive where everyone gets angry or you can have the hyper social where no one takes it too seriously but you all like hang out and everything right i want you want middle ground yeah where you are friendly but not necessarily friends

okay because like my wife got into climbing like i was about to suggest why don't you do rock climbing i've tried it it's it's okay like jeff tried to get me into it and my wife and i've gone with her from time to time it's okay i didn't i didn't get super into it. I guess I want something a little more, I don't know, competitive, but like with other people, not with myself. Or I just like, I want to perform baseball activities, as they say, when a player is rehabbing and they graduate to baseball activities.

That's what I want. Like my ideal- I've heard that you might have to invent a new sport, Ben. That's, yeah. See, my ideal way to experience baseball is not actually to play a game because we've talked before about like how far could you reduce baseball down to its constituent parts and still have it be baseball. What I would like, because I don't care who wins. I don't care if I win. I don't care if you win.

And I never cared really when I was like care who wins. I don't care if I win. I don't care if you win. And I never cared, really, when I was on school teams. I mean, I tried. But if we lost, I wasn't upset about it. Nothing was at stake. Right. Yeah, sure. So I just kind of wanted to play. My ideal activity is I just go to the park with a couple friends and just play catch.

And we hit each other grounders. And we throw BP to each other. I could do that all day. Sure, yeah. That would be my ideal way to experience sports essentially. So I'm just like, you know, kind of casual, kind of laid back, but it doesn't have to be like your whole new social circle. Because when my wife got into bouldering, like suddenly she had like climbing friends.

Yeah. And, you know, I guess she liked having climbing friends, but she's more sociable than I am. And suddenly, you know, she's like going to like climbing hangouts and climbing friends are coming over and they're climbing parties and all this. And it's like, you know, look, it made her happy. Yeah. But I don't know that I want to develop those deep attachments. Yeah, but I don't know that I want to develop those deep attachments.

I just kind of want to have a nice low stakes sports experience that is kind of confined to the field to some extent. Okay, so I have a couple of thoughts. Here's one thing you could do. Are you ready? One thing that you could do is you could get into Formula One and then you learn how to drive. You wouldn't have to talk to a lot of people. It might be kind of expensive. Just getting a driver's license could be my sports experience.

Yeah, there you go. But you live in New York, so you don't need to drive. It's fine. So, yeah. Ben, I don't know, buddy. It might be hard. Yeah, I'm trying to thread the needle here. I don't know that this is feasible. I'll accept some hanging out. It might be hard. Yeah, I'm trying to thread the needle here. I don't know that this is feasible.

Like, I'll accept some hanging out. I'm not saying. You're not a serial killer? No. I guess they do want to hang out. That's part of the problem. Exactly. Yeah, not a problem if they keep to themselves.

But right, because the thing is, like, I don't drink really. Like, I don't enjoy drinking. Like, if I'm in a scenario where everyone's drinking, like, I might nurse something, I guess. But getting drinks is not something I look forward to. I mean, maybe if the company is good. Right, you do not. So I'm not really looking for that, like the bar hangout after the game. I'm also looking for the game itself. So if anyone either has had this exact set of criteria, which is unlikely, or has had any sort of experience that might satisfy most of my needs. And I'm looking for a light commitment here also. I'm not looking for like lots of practices. I only have so much time. I got work obligations. I got family obligations.

You know, I'm looking for like maybe like a once a week kind of like a weekend sort of situation perhaps because whenever I'm with my friends who play like soccer, it seems like they're just so upset about it all the time. They're just like constantly complaining about the refs and how terrible they are and this player on the opposing team and like it's a real point of pride when they win and it's a real like depressing situation when they lose this is it's not gonna stay with me i'm not like a huge team spirit guy especially when it comes to like this is just kind of a casual recreational activity in my ideal world like if i play tennis with someone i don't even care if we keep score i'd rather not frankly i just you know i want to just rally and just enjoy the act of hitting the ball back and forth. I don't need to prove my supremacy or stave off your proving your supremacy. We're not professionals here.

We're just having fun. We're just getting a little exercise. It's just diversion. So that's where I stand on all of this. Well, what about pickleball? People are, Ben, people are crazy going nuts for pickleball. They are. People really seem to be into pickleball.

And all of a sudden, really into pickleball. It has very much taken off, yes. I don't know how many pickleballs are used per pickleball match. I will have to do some research. Started in Washington State pickleball. Did you know that? Yeah yeah didn't know that no invented

in 1965 as a children's backyard game on bainbridge island washington usa this is how you get reading from the book we played that a little in school when i was a kid before it became a big thing but apparently people are hurting themselves quite badly playing pickleball oh did you know that i was gonna say it's it's maybe not strenuous enough i don't know well and see i don't know if it is a like a lack of familiarity uh with the with the pickleball yeah or just a lack of movement in general and any movement right yeah yeah oh man there's all kinds of cool pickleball rackets you can get yeah so maybe it's tennis adjacent enough and table tennis adjacent enough that maybe i could get into it so it's not a bad idea but it's more about the milieu that i'm looking for than even the specific sport i could get into any number of sports well and i'm here to tell you that my sense is not that

people approach pickleball with a lot of chill you They're not coming to pickleball as like casual pickleballers. I think it depends. I think I would say that there's some casual pickleball transpiring, but it depends, again, on your group and your level of play. But my sense of self-worth is not at all tied to my athletic prowess or how my team performs. I'm fairly athletic, but I'm not trying to make a career out of it. I'm just looking for a little diversion here. If you start a new sport and it turns out that you're like a blade-blooming prodigy. That'd be nice.

Sure. But maybe I have to start my own. I feel like I'm not into that. I have to start my own league, maybe. Just a league for people who want to play low-stakes sports, but don't want to develop meaningful social relationships out of it. I mean, I know people who have met their, I mean, this wouldn't apply to you, but I know people who have met their spouses playing. No, look, I'm past that stage is the thing. I've met mine.

I'm good. This pickleball racket is $129. That seems like too much. I mean, look, it's pretty cute, though. I will say it's a pretty cool looking it's a pretty cool looking pickleball pickleball paddle not a racket excuse me right no it's like on seinfeld right when seinfeld he's like reluctant to have an orgy because he says i'm not an orgy guy that's how i feel about this like i want to maybe play some softball or something but i don't want to be like a softball guy.

You don't want that to be a core to your identity as a person. Yeah. You know, to be clear, I don't know that people who go to orgies like consider a core to their identity either. I bet there's a lot of variation in the orgy community. Well, no, it's like how you said, like you have to start wearing robes or whatever, you know, like you have to cultivate a certain kind of lifestyle.

Yeah. I like how obvious it probably is to everyone listening to this that neither of us have ever been to an orgy. Speak for yourself, Meg. Which we don't, I don't say with any judgment, to be clear. Like, you know, you know my philosophy. As long as everyone's saying yes and having a good time, it's none of my business. Exactly. So I'm just putting it out there if anyone has recommendations for how I can sort of sate this need.

Are there competitive orgy leagues? It's fine as long as I don't have to go get drinks after. I'm into it. How could we possibly end on a better note than that? You probably have to get the drinks going before the orgy. I don't know. Like people smoke cigarettes after sex sometimes. Maybe multiple forms of lubrication before the orgy.

I have no regret now. Anyway. Okay. So that will sort of end this portion of the podcast. I did have a quick little stat blast, pass blast ending combo here. Sure, sure. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to daystep last. So back to baseball, sort of.

So Shelby Miller signed. Yeah. That happened. so back to baseball sort of so shelby miller signed yeah that happened and i think a lot of people had the that's a name i've not heard in a long long time right but he's been bouncing around yeah he has he's been present and he is somewhat notable in the fact that he has continued to be present without being productive right and having gone from being a good player and a very promising player and a contender for rookie of the year and an all-star, and then to what he has become since, which is journeyman who pops up every now and then here and there, right? And he's gone through several organizations. And now he has landed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have signed him to a one-year, $1.5 million deal.

I believe it was a major league contract. Oh, yeah. I believe so. He will quite likely see major league time at some point in 2023. And he has in every year except 2020 when he opted out because of COVID. But prior to that, like 2015 was his last good year. And it was a good year, even though his win-loss record was 6-17. His actual stats were good. But then things went south quickly, right? In 2016, he had a 6.15 ERA. And again, he's been a big leaguer every season since except 2020, but total 2016 to 2022, he has pitched 202 and two thirds innings. So essentially a full season for a starter.

And he has recorded a 7.02 ERA with a 5.21 fifth. That's a 66 ERA plus. And he's been like two and a half wins below replacement level, according to Baseball Reference over that time. But he keeps getting chances. And recently, it's been even worse than that, right? So if you just look going back to 2018, let's say, then it's only 79 and two thirds innings, but it's an 8.92 ERA. Yikes.

And you might think, how does he keep getting chances? But, well, it's because he was so good early on that there's the tantalizing aspect. Could he recapture that? Could he get back to what he was or some approximation of that? But also, like, at least in a relief role, he still, it seems like, has pretty good stuff. So he was with the Giants last year and he only pitched seven innings in the majors and he had a 6.43 ERA, but he struck out 14 guys. He walked three. He still throws mid nineties. You know, Saris tweeted that according to his metric stuff plus, which is

based on your stuff, not on the results, 127 pitches, but his stuff plus was between Sir Anthony Dominguez and Ryan Helsley, who you think of as guys with great stuff at the back end of a bullpen. So the Giants gave him a shot and now the Dodgers are giving him a shot. And also he was quite good in AAA last year. He pitched for the Giants AAA affiliate and he pitched actually for the Yankees and the Giants AAA affiliates. And in total, he had a 2.87 ERA in 53rd and a third innings pitched and struck out well more than a batter per inning. And so there's some promise and some potential there. But I was kind of curious, like, is there a precedent for someone who was really good early on and then just bounced.3 in 2021, and then

negative 0.2 in 2022, though if you use FIP-based Van Grassoir, he was in positive territory because of the strikeouts and the walks and everything. So I asked frequent StatBus consultant Ryan Nelson if he could come up with any comps for a Shelby Miller-like career trajectory. So someone who followed up a four-plus-war baseball reference war season with this have had some combination of five plus seasons of 0.3 war or less and 1,209 players have ever had a single four plus war season. 119 players are on both lists but when you try to come up with a comp for this specific sequence immediately following a four plus war season with six plus point three war or under seasons, he is unprecedented. No one has ever had this before, really. So the closest comps that Ryan could come up with were two pitchers, Pete Donahue and Bill Campbell.

were two pitchers, Pete Donahue and Bill Campbell. So Pete Donahue, who pitched in the 20s and the 30s, he had negative 0.4, 0, negative 0.7, negative 0.2, negative 0.2, negative 0.2. So he tailed off very quickly. And the only difference there is that he had that two-war season in between the good season and the string of not so good seasons. So that sets him apart a little bit. And then Bill Campbell is the other closest comp. So Bill Campbell, who pitched in the 70s and 80s, he had a nice year, 1977, with the Red Sox. He actually was an all-star. He was a fifth place Cy Young finisher. He was 10th place in MVP in 76 with Minnesota. He actually finished even higher in those races, or at least in the MVP race. And so he went from 4.7 war to then 0.2, 0.2, negative 0.1, 0.2, 0.8, negative 0.2,

negative 0.3, negative 0.4, 0.2, negative 0.5. So he exceeded the 0.3 war threshold there, but didn't even get above one war. So Bill Campbell might be the closest precedent here. And no one has had this specific sequence. And if you look at the history of those guys, I was looking at their very comprehensive saber bios. So Pete Donahue, it says he lost it. He had perhaps simply thrown too many innings the last two years. So that was part of it, maybe just overwork for him. And then there was also a story about him being spiked and having serious blood poisoning, perhaps. And then when he came back, he favored his injured leg and that screwed up his mechanics.

And that led to struggles and further injuries. And he just never got back to what he was. And he just, you know, he had other maybe overwork related injuries. And then Bill Campbell, sort of a similar story, racked up over 300 innings in two seasons and then began to feel pain in his shoulder at the end of the 77 season. Arm troubles persisted and kept recurring. And then there were elbow problems and shoulder problems. And he declined to get surgery and tried to play through it. And he was a reliever, I should note. And so he was just trying to push through it and that didn't work. And then ultimately he missed time. But, you know, it was physical concerns as it has been for Miller,

right? I mean, he's had a string of injury issues and he had Tommy John surgery and then more elbow issues on top of that. So sort of a similar story. And then the last way I looked at this, I just looked at precedents for pitchers who had amassed nine or more war in their first four seasons with the last of those seasons coming before the age of 25. So at any point before the age of 25, because Miller, his first four seasons were his age 21 to 24 seasons, and he amassed 9.8 war in those seasons, which was exactly the same as what Greg Maddox and Don Sutton war in their first four seasons before turning 25 since 1900. A lot of qualifiers there. But there have been 93 of them.

And I think 14 of them are in the Hall of Fame already. And that's not counting your Clayton Kershaw's and CeCe Sabathia's and Roger Clemens's who are not in or not in yet for various reasons, or guys who were kind of knocking on the door and might get in someday like Dave Steeb or Brett Saberhagen or Felix, et cetera. I mean, most guys went on to have pretty substantial careers after starting out that well. The average amount of war produced after that nine or more in the first four seasons was 23, which is a pretty solid career on its own. The median is 18 war, and some pitchers are still active, and a lot of variability there. But as of now, Miller has had negative two and a half war since that great start to his career. And seven other pitchers have ended up being sub

replacement level after that hottest start. And the only one who has amassed less war or more negative war after that sort of start is one Clay Kirby, who recorded 11.3 war from 1969 to 1972, also his age 21 to 24 seasons, and then was just never the same after that. And he had a knee injury and various other injuries, and he just couldn't make a comeback and washed out and then ultimately had heart problems and died young, which is sort of sad. But it's the same sort of, you know, I imagine you find more of this sort of story with pitchers just because they're so prone to physical ailments that can completely change their careers overnight. So Miller still has a shot though to get himself

into positive territory following that start. You know, the other negative war guys after those starts, Jimmy Diger, Jim Nash, Dontrell Willis, Mark Pryor, Mark Fidrich, Harry Krause. And then there are others who had some similar misfortune who just didn't amass any more war after that. Jose Fernandez, of course, who died. And Paul Dean, that's Dizzy Dean's brother, Daffy Dean, who had arm issues as well. But Dontrell, Pryor, Fidrich, I mean, those are famous examples of guys who just were phenoms early on and then had injuries and overwork and everything else and were never the same. So Miller is kind of in that category as of now, less of a phenom perhaps, but had a very strong and promising start to his career that has not panned out since then.

But he's going to get another shot with the Dodgers. And who would be surprised if Shelby Miller rehabilitated himself as a Los Angeles Dodger and turned into a late inning weapon for the Dodgers? That would not be without precedent for that sort of thing to happen. So I am rooting for him to get himself off the bottom of these various lists that Ryan and I were looking up here. Yeah, I agree. I think that if it's likely, it's unsurprising that you'd start to see the spark of that with the Giants, who I think are also good at pitch design, and that you would see a team like the Dodgers be interested in trying it and seeing what they can do to help him build on that. And

yeah, it would be great. I always wonder how guys involved in those big trades where they are perceived to be like the wrong end of it feel about that stuff. Right, yeah, there's that too. Yeah, the whole Dansby Swanson, Inciarte trade, yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of different, you know, sort of lenses through which to view Shelby Miller's career so far.

And that's certainly one of them. And it always is nice when those guys get something of a second act, even if it, you know, like dance piece, it's going to like sign a massive deal this season. So like there will be, even in this year,

there will be that particular comparison to make if one is keen to, but you know, guys don't choose to trade themselves very often. So I always feel bad when that becomes part of the narrative legacy of a player. Because it's like, that's not Joey Miller's fault. So I wish she'll be well. Hope that we see a cool and sort of revitalized version

of him in LA. And then we'll get to ask once again next offseason, can the Dodgers revitalization stick? Does it carry on into the free agent market and we'll just get to have that conversation again which is kind of fun plus there should be like more people named shelby i feel like there aren't a lot of shelby's anymore you know yeah i'm with you on that yeah he was also in the jason hayward trade yeah that's right so wow it's been sort of a zealot yeah Yeah. I forgot about the Jason Hayward Cardinals year.

That happened. That did happen. It was good that year. Yeah. Anyway, former first round pick, Shelby Miller. It's an interesting career and he still has a chance to change the ending. All right. So our ending is the past blast. This is episode 1936. This past blast comes from 1936 and from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. This is a really interesting one. Not that most of them aren't, but he headlines this one, 1936 playoffs, playoffs. The format of baseball's postseason was a source of great debate in 1936, just as it is today. How do you sufficiently reward a team

for finishing in first place against the demands of a short series tournament to crown a champion? Fans of minor league teams across the country were just learning to grapple with those questions. The idea that a league's second or third or even fourth place team should have a chance to play for a championship at all was not unique to baseball. Back in 1933, Montreal Royals executive Frank Shaughnessy convinced owners in the International League to adopt an end-of-season tournament modeled after the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. It was wildly successful, and almost every minor league quickly adopted some variation of the Shaughnessy system. By 1936, the Sporting News recognized that the playoffs were here to stay, writing, quote, Not many years ago, a playoff was something of a novelty in organized ball. When the so-called Shaughnessy system was first introduced, fans could not understand why a club, after finishing on top of the standings in the regular season, should not

be declared the pennant winner. And when leading teams went down to defeat in a preliminary series, leaving lower-ranking clubs to fight it out for the championship, vigorous protests arose from fans in the city represented by the number one team at the conclusion of the regular schedule. This criticism has been offset in some circuits by recognizing the leading club as the pennant winner and rewarding the playoff winner with a cup or a separate title, which is an idea we discussed recently and I'm in favor of, conclusive evidence that the majority of fans like the playoffs is furnished by the large crowds attending the series.

The system not only helps maintain interest throughout the regular schedule by keeping more clubs in a contending position, but also furnishes a stimulant at the end of the season when interest otherwise tends to lag. So with the early wrinkles being ironed out, criticism decreasing, and crowds growing, the playoffs bring every evidence of becoming a standard climax to the regular minor league season. And Jacob concludes, the Shaughnessy system was nearly dropped by the international league after the first season in 1933 when the Buffalo Bisons, who finished under.500, beat out the first place Newark Bears to win the championship. But ultimately, the new playoff system helped minor league baseball

weather the storm of the Great Depression and created a lot of excitement that all other leagues have followed. Despite Shaughnessy's lobbying, it took major league owners another 30 years to finally adopt a playoff system in 1969, and grumbling by fans of first-place teams that don't win at all continues to this day. So this is very much a nothing is new under the sun, as it was then, as it still is sort of situation, which is often the case with the pass blasts, but very much enjoyed that the griping that we still do about the playoff format now was present from the very start

of playoffs as a thing in Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball, which was long before Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball, which was long before Major League Baseball. And I looked up that 1933 International League season that was the trailblazer in this respect. And it was something that was adopted over some protest. And Buffalo was one of the teams that voted in favor of it, which worked out in the Bisons' favor because they then made the playoffs after not a very spectacular season. And they played a best of five.

And we know how many games they had to win to win the championship. We've covered that. Pennsylvania, Morning Call, September 25th, 1933, after the conclusion of that series, where the author is very derisive, very scornful of this playoff system. It says, Buffalo, the quote-unquote cheese champion of the International League, not sure exactly what cheese champion meant, yesterday beat Columbus. Like of actual yum yum eat cheese or cheese it. Like Swiss cheese, like it had a lot of holes in it or whether there was some meaning to cheese champion or whether Buffalo was associated with cheese. I don't know what it was

but I think this is meant to be a derogatory term, the cheese champion. They're not the true champion. They're the cheese champion. But they beat Columbus American Association champions in the first game of their champion. They're not the true champion. They're the cheese champion. But they beat Columbus, American Association champions, in the first game of their Little World series, it says. And if Buffalo's winning of the International League pennant isn't a laugh, none ever was. If you have a sense of humor, the so-called Shaughnessy series is really funny. Frank Shaughnessy, who invented the idea, thought it would be nice to have the four leading teams play a series for the pennant at the close of the regulation season. But imagine the feelings of the Newark players

when they found themselves eliminated in the playoffs after finishing 14 and one half games ahead of their nearest rival over the regulation 168 game stretch. In the playoffs, Rochester won three out of four games from Newark and Buffalo took three straight from Baltimore, then whipped Rochester for the title. And yeah, it wasn't even close. They finished, the Bisons finished 21 games behind Newark in the regular season. And this author says, what if Cleveland in fourth place should be given the American League pennant? So this author would probably not be pleased by the new expanded playoff format. But it was a success in terms of generating interest because I also read in the Decatur Daily Review,

so this team, the Buffalo Club, was managed by Ray Schock, who was on the Black Sox but was one of the clean Sox Hall of Famer. So he was managing, and it says, when Buffalo and Rochester played the final game for the International League pennant, it drew 30,000 fans, the greatest turnout in all of Buffalo history. And maybe that was partly because it was a night game, and so they had the newly installed electric lights going up. So that was an attraction, as we discussed recently.

But yeah, that team was not very good. So from the very start of the playoffs, this was a complaint, and this was a risk, and we are still dealing with the ramifications today. So it all could have been avoided if they had decided, well, we can't have this. We can't have our Buffalo Bisons. They were 83 and 85 that year, a 494 winning percentage. They finished behind the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, the Rochester Red Wings, and the Newark Bears, who were 102 and 62 it's a 649 winning percentage and so in the playoffs rochester played and beat newark and buffalo played and beat baltimore and then buffalo played and beat rochester so that was that this actually

says it was four to two so i guess the finals was was the best of seven it sounds like but could have just cut all of this off then if people had decided, well, this is unacceptable. We can't have the Buffalo Bisons of the world winning a championship after finishing sub 500. But we're now heading for a scenario where we could have another 500 team that is winning a World Series

after finishing many, many games behind another first place team. And it's all because of the Shaughnessy system, which dates back almost 90 years. Wow. Mm-hmm. That's that. Wow. All right. Thanks to those of you who have been sharing your Spotify wrapped end of year or almost

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you get access to the Effectively Well Discord group, more than 900 members in there, talking baseball, talking about the podcast, talking about all manner of things. You also get access to the aforementioned monthly bonus episodes, plus cameo-style messages if you so desire, discounts on merch and

ad-free fan graphs, memberships, and more. Check it out at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify, of course, and other podcast platforms. Keep on iTunes and Spotify, of course, and other podcast

platforms. Keep your questions and comments coming for me and Meg via email at podcast of vangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. If you are a supporter, you can follow us on Twitter at NWPod. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will have one more episode for you before the end of the week. so we will be back to talk to you soon. Try not to burst your bubble Get those balls in the air How hard can it be So hard you'll get to do it Get those balls in the air

Keep those balls in the air