Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2215: Boom Boom Goes the Dynamite

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the solution to a Carlos Estévez prediction cold case, share a baseball-sicko experience prompted by the band Hinds’s new single, put actors on baseball-movie Mount Rushmore (in honor of the late, great, James Earl Jones), scrutinize two suggestions for HBP policing, assess the risks and history of ceremonial first […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2215 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Van Graaff's presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Van Graaff's. Hello Meg. Meg Raleigh Hello. Ben Lindberg There has been a break in the case of Carlos Estevez's purported prediction from 2021.

Meg Raleigh Oh boy. Ben Lindberg In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's been blown wide open, much like Carlos Estevez blew a save on Monday, although he ended up winning that game. And you know what? I think I have won this investigation because I dare say I've solved it. I think I've gotten to the bottom of this thing. So for those of you who did not hear episode 2214. We began that episode by discussing at considerable length

a reported prediction that Carlos Estevez, now Philly's closer, former Rocky's closer, had made back in 2021 in September of that season when he was still on the Rockies. This was reported by Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Enquirer. And we were somewhat skeptical of the prediction as reported. And we always take a tone of skepticism to player predictions. I would say that's one of our beats here at Effectively Wild player predictions, maybe a bad beat at times. But it's something that we often

consider and I would suggest that we subject player predictions to a certain scrutiny that most reporters do not afford them. I would say we speak truth to predictive power at times. We question whether these predictions are as impressive as they are purported to be, because our frequent objection is, well, players are constantly making predictions.

We only hear about the ones when those predictions come true. So is it really that prediction if you're just spraying predictions all around you at all times and every now and then you happen to hit the target and that's the only time we hear about it. Is that so impressive? And really were these predictions, did they go down the way that they were said to? Is there some embellishment going on here? And this prediction seemed particularly prone to that because it had not, as far as I could determine, been reported contemporaneously and had not seemed to be corroborated by any source. So I will again repeat this passage from the Philean Choir story. And this is again talking about 2021, a few days before he was struck by cased meat, because he also had been impacted

by a hot dog. But, or I guess he was about to be, he did not know that. He didn't predict that. If he could have predicted that he was going to be hit by the hot dog, he could have avoided that. How about that? That sort of exposes the limits to his predictive power shift. Really, if you can see the future, you would want to avoid getting hit in the head by a hot dog, which as some listeners wrote to us, I guess Philly discontinued the dollar dog nights, possibly in part because people were throwing the hot dogs and using them as projectiles and not as a source of nourishment or energy. And those things could be connected. But the point is, I continue to read, some fans overheard Estevez talking to bullpen catcher, Aaron Munoz. It was September 9th and the Rockies were down two to one to the

Phillies entering the ninth inning. By the way, we got a lot of emails about whether you should say that the team that is losing, whether you should say down two to one or down one to two or trailing two to one, trailing one to two. Overwhelmingly listener sentiment came down in favor of always listing the score in the order of the winner. Okay. Yeah, sure. Great. Wonderful. Happy to do it. Yes. I think that's right. I think that was so my inclination was, and you can make clear from context, so you could say losing two to one, trailing two to one. It's clear who's winning and who's losing based on the other language. Okay. So we cleared that up. There

was no guarantee Estevez would pitch, but he told Munoz to start catching him anyway. Then he loudly made a prediction. "'I'm coming in the game,' he said, "'because they're going to throw a curve ball "'and Ryan McMahon is going to hit a homer.'" Sure enough, Ian Kennedy threw McMahon a knuckle curve, which McMahon launched to right field

for a two-run home run. Sam Hilliard hit a home run in the next at bat to give the Rockies a four to two lead. Booze began to rain down on Estevez. These were not normal boos. They were like, you jinxed us. You stink man. Estevez said, you don't do that to a pitcher. And then as I'm coming down the steps, boo, because this happened in Philly. Philly's fans were not happy that Estevez had predicted that a Colorado Rocky was about to hit that home run and that he was then going to have to come into the game

to pitch. And that's what happened. That's what came to pass. Now, as we noted, no sign at the time, no indication that this was reported, which seemed notable just because predictions that come to pass seem to be reported often. Don't know the percentage of times that those are reported either, but they do seem to be reported disproportionately when they actually happen. The thing was, we also couldn't check the video or audio evidence because this was 2021.

And as we noted, MLB TV cuts off here in 2024 with 2022's games. And so 2021's games, audio feeds, video feeds, off limits, inaccessible to us, nothing we could do. And to be clear, I plan to drop this line of pursuit. And people might not believe that based on where this is gonna go next. But I was gonna just leave it live there.

I was going to leave it at one of these great baseball mysteries that we would never be able to answer conclusively and not a particularly high stakes one. So that was that. We presented the evidence. The reason we were skeptical was not just that this was not corroborated at the time, but that also as written, it seemed to imply quite an extraordinary level of prescience on Estevez's part. Yes.

Because again, the story says entering the ninth inning, right? It was the Rockies were down two to one to the Phillies, entering the ninth inning, but Estevez told Munoz to start catching him anyway, which suggests that it was early in that editing to me, least. That's the way I read it initially. And that would be quite notable because Ryan McMahon was not scheduled to hit in that inning. He pinch hit with two outs. And so we were thinking, well, gosh, did Estevez predict that McMahon would pinch hit thinking along with his manager, Butt Black, and then also predicted that he would hit

a curve ball from Ian Kennedy out. There's just a lot of layers to that prediction. Right. Many layers, so many. So I thought that was where the story would end. Yeah. Here's the thing. It just so happens that we have listeners in high places, people within the halls of power who can get their hands on the forbidden fruit of Rocky's broadcast from three years ago. Oh my God.

And we received a tip, not an anonymous tip. It was from someone who we know the name of and know their position and that they would be in a position to access these inaccessible to the public Rocky's broadcast. And I asked that person, should we credit you for this information or should we say that it came from a secret source? And the person said, you know, I didn't really care one way or another, but secret source sounds better. So let's go with that.

So it came from a secret source who is our deep throat within the MLB archives here. Deep within the administration. Yes, exactly. And wrote to us after reviewing the video feeds and audio feeds. And noted, neither feed, either the visiting or home broadcast, showed Estevez warming up at any point prior to entering the game, aside from his last warmup pitch

before he took the field. Curious, I would say. Now, I guess you could say that they wouldn't need to mention if Estevez was warming up because at that point he was not in line to come into the game. But you could also say that they'd be more likely to note if he was warming up when he wasn't yet in line to come into the game. Right. Yeah, you would think so. Yeah, that seems you might just say, wow, wow, as Devis is warming up, clearly he's predicted a comeback here, right?

But that didn't happen. He wasn't shown or mentioned on either of the TV broadcasts. He wasn't mentioned on the Phillies radio broadcast until he entered the game in the bottom half of the inning. However, he was mentioned on the Rockies radio broadcast. And here is the clip which tellingly comes from after, immediately after the Ryan McMahon home run. I feel like, it's just like Agatha Christie, I'm just like revealing how I stepped through

all the evidence, the sequence of events. So let's play this clip, this confidential clip. Now down in the count with all fastballs being thrown to McMahon to that point, Ryan may just have been thinking, you know what, he may throw a wrinkle in here. And boy, did he time it up absolutely perfectly. Not much doubt about that. His 22nd homer of the year. RBI's 71 and 72. He continues to love the city of brotherly love

with a big, big home run. Now Carlos Estevez goes to work in the Rockies pin. Sam Hilliard takes outside ball one. Okay. So is it a smoking gun? Not quite, but it is certainly suggestive, I would say. Yes. Now Estevez starts to work in the bullpen.

Now. Yes. Emphasis added, but still now is what they said. And I think that, look, there are times we've all had this experience of, you know, maybe it took them a moment to notice. Yes. Maybe he was actually up and warming prior to the pitch. Possible.

It's possible, but this does tip things ever so slightly in the other direction, I think, you know? Well, once we got this, then I had a bee in my bonnet and I had to continue down this road and see how deep the rabbit hole went. So I really had no choice. It was imperative that I attempt to contact Rocky's bullpen catcher, Aaron Munoz, the only other person who could confirm

or refute the story aside perhaps from some people who were heckling Carlos Estevez in the bullpen in Philly in a September game in 2021. And it would be tough to track those people down. So I tried to contact Munoz instead. I emailed Munoz out of the blue. I laid out the situation. Now I was worried that if he answered at all, and I wouldn't have blamed him for not answering, but he's not gonna wanna throw Carlos Estevez

under the bus here, right? And say, I have no recollection of this, and what is he talking about? But he did answer me and he shared with me what he says were the best of his recollections. He says he remembers the incident. So here's a quote from Aaron Munoz, known as Mooney, in line with the typical baseball nickname convention. He writes, I had always warmed up Estevez. Here's a key sentence. And he was known for predicting a lot of wild stuff.

Okay. Yeah. So this tells us something else confirms our intuition, which is that baseball players, they are just wildly shooting off predictions every which way at all times. Yeah. And apparently Estevez is known for this.

He just makes wild predictions all the time. And this is one wild prediction that he made, although we still have to establish exactly how and when and why he made it. So Munoz's testimony continues here. As a bullpen arm, he followed the game closely, especially when he knew he might be in the game in certain situations.

In that situation, I wasn't going to question him because we'd rather be safe than sorry. He made a bold prediction, but it was more for him to be ready just in case. He was always prepared, and especially in that bullpen, in Philly, where fans can be on you heckling. Okay, so this didn't completely clear it up for me. I had to ask some follow ups and further clarify this, but important information that Estevez is a known wild prediction maker. Yes. Yes. He's a known predictor. This is not out of character for him, which would make it more impressive. It was like, yeah, Estevez, he never predicts anything.

Right. Right. But this one time he just had this flash of insight. Okay, so I asked exactly what the prediction was and when it was made. And Mooney said, the call from the bench usually comes in before the inning starts. So the call to the bullpen, as they say from the dugout. The call usually comes in before the inning starts. So he had the call tied or ahead, he would be in the game. Okay. So they had informed him that if the Rockies came back, he would be pitching and he's a closer, but if it's tied on the road in the ninth inning,

he was still gonna get the ball. Okay, so he knew he was in line if the Rockies could score one or more. Okay. Yeah. Mooney says, so I don't recall when he made the prediction. I just know he would be warming up prior to the situation happening just to be ready. Okay. Okay. Now I asked one more question. Just to try to nail down.

Don't feel like you have to provide justification. Will you understand? I mean, once you start down this road, you might as well go down to the dead end. Yeah, drive off the cliff. So I wanted to establish when exactly this happened because again, it speaks to the confidence in the prediction if he in fact started warming up well before it actually happened before the homer happened. Mooney said, he definitely has confidence in anything

he does, but I don't recall when he actually started throwing. I just knew he knew he had the next inning if it was tied or ahead. My best guess is that he started throwing prior to Mack hitting because he needed to be ready. Right. Okay. So he doesn't really recall,

but it was two outs by the time that McMahon pinch hit. And so in theory, if you've got to get ready for the bottom of the inning and something were to happen in that plate appearance, then maybe you got to start getting going, right? Yeah. But he cannot confirm conclusively that he was throwing. It just seems likely to him that he might have been up by that point in order to get ready for the bottom of the inning. And I asked, is it unusual for someone to start warming just in case in a situation like that?

Right. Where the game would be over if the batting team didn't score, or is it not really unusual because if you haven't started warming, you might not be ready if the comeback occurs. And Mooney said, it is not unusual for a guy to warm up prior. It's more common to have a pitcher warm up so they're ready even if the situation doesn't happen. Most guys get themselves ready or close to being ready in case it does happen. That way they aren't in a rush to go into a game. Okay. So now that maybe does make it more likely that Estevez was warming up before the homer

was hit, but then also makes it less impressive. Right. Because it's not predicated on a particular prediction and then conviction in that prediction on his part. It's just, you know, good form so that he's ready in the event that he does have to pitch. Exactly. Now there was one more step I had to take here. And just to cross my T's and dot my I's, I contacted the excellent Alex Coffee, who wrote the story, Philadelphia Enquirer. And I just wanted to know because the piece as written again, we interpreted it to suggest that he was

warming up early that inning, but that's not definite necessarily. And you never know as things get lost in translation or editing or whatever. Right? So I asked Alex at what point in that inning did Estevez claim to have made the prediction and started warming if he was specific about it. And she said, I believe it was after he realized McMahon was pinch hitting. When he saw that matchup, McMahon versus Ian Kennedy, I think he made the prediction.

That was my understanding. She apologized for any confusion, but you know what? I'm glad that there was some slight confusion because it led us to learn so much more about the situation. And so here's what I think we have to conclude. Carl Sestegas did not make the prediction about McMahon hitting that home run

until at or around the time that McMahon was announced as a pinch hitter. It may have been before the home run was hit, but it probably did not predate the announcement of McMahon appearing in that inning. So we have to subtract some prescience points there, I suppose, because Estevez did not predict that McMahon was going to pinch hit with two outs. That happened. And then he said, being a guy who throws out wild predictions

all the time, said, I think he hits a home run off a curve ball here. And maybe in that situation, it would not be atypical for a closer who knows that he's going to get the ball if his team comes back to get loose, to start throwing, to stretch, whatever it is. So what we have here, I think, is actually, when it comes right down to it, a fairly run-of-the-mill prediction.

You have a player who is a known wild prediction maker, making a prediction about a home run, about a hitter who probably has already been announced, just a particular pitch type, which adds a slight degree of difficulty, but I guess you know what Ian Kennedy throws, and you've seen the scouting reports and everything. And that's that. So it does not appear to have happened

at the start of the inning, before Ryan McMahon ever appeared. And also it does not seem to have happened at the start of the inning before Ryan McMahon ever appeared. And also it does not seem to be all that unusual that someone in that situation, knowing that they would get the ball in the event of a comeback would be at least casually readying themselves for that assignment by that point in the inning. So we've learned a lot about Carlos Estevez. We've learned a lot about the warmup habits of bullpen pitchers. We've learned possibly too much about this

particular September, 2021 game. One could make that argument if one were so inclined, I suppose. It took a village. It took a source, an unsolicited submission to the podcast of some important information, which then led us down another road and then multiple sources became involved in this investigation. And here we have, I think, the most conclusive possible explanation we can have of this Carlos Estevez prediction, which like most ballplayer predictions, I would contend is not that noteworthy. I'm filled with so many conflicting thoughts about this, you know, because on the one hand,

I'll admit to feeling a little let down, you know, that the prediction was not bolder, that it was not unusual within the ecosystem of Estevez predictions. I would want to live in a world where a ballplayer could be a throughsayer. I wish there were more magic in the world. So I'm not rooting for mundanity here, but I think that's how it happened. Yeah. So like on the one hand, I feel a little disappointed. I think that if we were submitting this to a mystery publisher, that they might have some notes on the eventual stakes of the mystery. Yeah. You think three-part Netflix doc, maybe you think we have the makings of that here.

It's kind of a cold case that we've solved and put to rest after years. I mean, we can notify the families now and they can get some closure on how this happened and didn't happen. Nicole Zichal-Klein Yeah, and I don't want to make light of that. I do wonder if some of these cults in the Netflix stocks actually would rise to the occasion of being called a cult, but that's a separate conversation. I will say that I was very happy to have an excuse to stop thinking about the phrase cased meats. Cause again, I think that's an abomination or horror that deserves its own documentary really in terms of the violence of that turn of phrase. So I find myself when it's all said and done, maybe exactly where I started

out. Can't unhear cased meats. I hope that at the end of the day, things go well for Estevez and that Philly fans learn to restrain themselves when they are tempted to throw meats of really any sort, cased or non. Well, they have to pay more dearly for the privilege now that the dollar dogs are not on hand. Yeah. It does lend further credence to my theory that even perhaps in a state of either heightened emotion or intoxication, that there

was some sort of economic analysis going on on the part of the fans about what they threw, you know? And that they determined the beers simply too expensive, you know? And I say, yeah, too expensive beers. There shouldn't be, you know, it shouldn't be so much at the ballpark. It should be less. So this has been an effectively wild investigation. Your Patreon dollars fund this hard hitting investigative journalism and please keep them

coming so that we can continue to get to the bottom of these important stories about our sport and even rope in shadowy league figures as the Around the NFL podcast. Our IP used to refer to certain executives. So this just took us down a lot of different directions. Yeah. Although I will say that when you send us new mysteries, I would be fine if they didn't have cased meats as a factor. You know, you could leave out the cased meats next time. Now, oddly enough, that was not, I would say, the truest baseball sicko experience I have had since the last time we recorded this podcast. I know that's probably tough to believe. But I had what I would say was a quintessential sicko experience, just encapsulated the sicko experience of someone who's super

into baseball to a degree that is inordinate, one would say, and that makes connections to baseball in areas where one normally would not. And this was prompted by an excellent new song and single that I have sent you and you agreed. It's a banger. And yeah, it's a song by Hinds, which is a band that I quite enjoy. This is their fourth album is out now, it just came out last week. And the first single from that album

is called Boom Boom Back. Boom Boom Back. They're back and the song goes boom, boom. And we'll play a little clip of it, although I should warn everyone that it's hazardous to your health in the sense that it will get stuck in your head. Oh yeah. Not in a bad way. I think it's a pleasant thing to have stuck in your head, but it will get lodged there.

Yeah. So the album is called Viva Hinds. It is their fourth full album. And Hinds is a Spanish band. They're from Madrid and it is an all female quartet. And their two original members made this album with new additions. Two of the long-term members are no longer with the band they left since the last one. And they're a really good band, I think.

The original name of the band was Deers, but then they changed it to Hines after there was legal action threatened by the band, the Deers. And so instead of Deers, they chose Heinz, which is the word that means female deer, right? So that's how that happened in case anyone was wondering. So not the Heinz, but Heinz. They sort of started as a garage rock kind of group and they have broadened their sound, I would say. They've maybe gotten a little poppier as you can hear from this song, but I still find them very appealing musically and

This song stood out to me because when I first saw the title and I downloaded this album I was listening to it I was looking at the track list and I saw boom boom back and I immediately thought of boom boom back the baseball pitcher who played from the 20s to the 40s. And I thought to myself, could this possibly be a Boom Boom Beck reference for some reason? Mike Hines, this Spanish quartet have made a reference to Boom Boom Beck in their new single. And I have to say the answer is almost certainly no. I have done no further reporting in this particular case.

I don't think this even qualifies as a mystery because clearly no, it's not a reference to Boom Boom Beck. But here's the thing, the plot thickens. The plots are so thick. Yeah, it's a Rue, it's a Rue plot, you know? You could make gravy with that plot. Yeah, immediately when I saw Boom Boom Beck, I thought about Boom Boom Back, but here's the thing. Beck is featured on this song. Yeah. So it's Boom Boom Back, but Beck is on it. Now,

I don't know whether that's a coincidence or whether they invited Beck to be on this song, because it was Boom Boom Back and he's Beck and it sounds like Beck but you can hear Beck singing a little bit and strumming on this song. So it's Boom Boom Beck featuring Beck, which just deepens my association with Boom Boom Beck. And so I was just wondering whether I was the only person in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have streamed this song on YouTube and many more, I'm sure, on other platforms. And so of the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who have

heard the song Boom Boom Back featuring Beck, has any of them thought of the long-time pitcher for Philly and St. Louis and Brooklyn and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Detroit, boom boom back, who threw 12 seasons in the majors with a well below average ERA and has a 4.2 career baseball reference war and is bespectacled in his baseball reference headshot, which I always enjoy. Or was I the lone person to make that connection? And if so, does that say something about my level of sicko connection to the sport? And I say that with some pride, I suppose.

So that's my story about boom boom back and boom boom back. I'm not sure that I'm ever gonna hear back and back as different words ever again in my entire life. I do worry about that now. It's like when you say the same word over and over again and it loses all meaning. There's probably a term for that. I know. I'm hearing echoes of Chris Berman saying, back, back, back at Home Run Derby's pass. That doesn't spoil the song for me. Yeah. I hope it doesn't spoil the song for me.

Yeah, I hope it doesn't spoil the song for me either because as we've noted, song whips. But I would love nothing more than for them to do like a random press availability and be like, yeah, actually, did you know that like we're just like weirdly, you know, we're moved by this particular individual and his story and we love the glasses. They're allowed a ways to be cool, Ben, as a person. And I think that there is a particular flavor of coolness that I would describe most as intimidating. It's just like intimidatingly cool.

And I think that they're intimidatingly cool. And I think that they're intimidatingly cool. It's like they're just like dancing and being in cars and I- Uninhibited, yeah. They're just, they're cool girls. Yeah. Yeah. And like they're from Madrid. They're just like cool. They're cool in a way that I would feel self-conscious about if I were around them, because that's not the way that I'm cool if I'm cool at all. And now I really worry that I know exactly how my lack of cool would manifest where I

would be saying back and I'd mean back, but I'd say back, you know? And then they'd be like, who is this woman? Why is she like this? You know, like, what is she trying to say? We have to go be cool and ethereal, but have a little bit of an edge over there, away from her because we're just made uncomfortable by her obvious anxiety and lack of presence. So it's been an interesting morning grappling with this question. I have clearly had less of a meltdown about it than I did how I describe teams that are losing relative to the team that is winning,

but it might stick with me longer, you know? That's what I think I've come to. Well, you're cool in my mind, Meg, and I would think that if you were in the presence of the members of Heinz that you'd probably keep your cool better than me because I would definitely ask them if they were aware of the connection between their song Boom Boom Back featuring Beck and longtime pre-integration pitcher Boom Boom Back. Yeah, you're just saying the same words over and over again. I can't hear them as different at all. I'd like to think that they would be tickled by that connection. I don't know how aware they are of baseball, but one would think that, I mean, I would be tickled by that even if I had no prior awareness of it. And for anyone who is wondering, well, why Boom Boom Beck? Why was he

called that? I can use this as a teaching experience. So here's something I learned. Initially, Boom Boom Beck had a different nickname, Elmer the Great. This is one of those- That's so much better. Why didn't you stick with Elmer the Great? Wait, he- Well, I don't know that it was his choice. Sometimes nicknames are imposed upon us.

But the interesting thing is that his name is not Elmer. His name was Walter. And so you're probably wondering, well, how did you get Elmer out of this? And how did Boom Boom come about? He was again, Walter William Beck. And so I quote here from a 1933 piece that explains the Elmer the Great nickname. That's when he got it. March 18th, 1933, Dodgers are calling the boy Elmer the Great. He predicts he's going to win plenty of games this season. So people were predicting things even in 1933,

although I guess I'm going to win plenty of games. It's not that bold or specific a prediction. Although granted in 1933, he won 12, which I guess you could say is plenty, except that he also lost 20. So I don't know if he predicted that he would lose plenty of games, don't know if he predicted that he would lose plenty of games, but he did end up doing that. Anyway, the reason why he was nicknamed Elmer the

Great, Walter Beck, recruit pitcher obtained from Memphis, looks like he's going to supply the Brooklyn Dodgers with the color they lost when Babe Herman was traded. After a couple of weeks in training, the Dodgers have hit upon a nickname to slap on Beck. They've listened to him pop off about his pitching prowess, his skill as a huntsman, his experience when it comes to bidding a hand at bridge. And at times without a bit of encouragement, he tells the boys how he would run the country if he were in the White House. His teammates have yet to discover some line in which he'll confess he'd be a flop. Although I guess baseball was one kind of, I mean, he had a long career, just not that

distinguished a one. And so the popular moniker he has acquired is Elmer the Great. The story being from 1933 doesn't explain why all of his braggadocio and his prediction led to his being labeled Elmer the Great, but that's something that contemporary readers probably just would have known and is lost on the modern reader. And the connection there is that there was a play by the great Ring Lardner and the great George M. Cohen named Elmer the Great from 1928, just five years earlier. And it was about a braggart of a pitcher who was maybe not all that smart,

but was quite confident in his abilities. And so Walter William Beck came along and was bragging about how great he'd be at everything. And so they dubbed him Elmer the Great, just ribbing the rookie, right? Ribbing the youngster. So how did he become Boom Boom when he already had such a swell nickname, Elmer the Great? Well, I'm quoting here from his Saber bio. Okay. So here he is.

The season started well for Elmer the Great. This is the next year. Though his first start ended in a tie, he held Boston to a single run through seven innings. However, the next six weeks did not go as well. He lost four times, gave up over 12 earned runs per game, and only once did he survive as many as four innings. Assessing Beck in early June, Brooklyn Eagle writer, Tommy Holmes, lamented Beck's performances had been worse than anybody thought they could be. So no one had predicted the poor performance of boom boom.

I suppose not. Yeah, not yet boom boom back that year. In early June, Beck was demoted to the bullpen. For a month he pitched well in relief in six appearances. He gave up only six runs and 14 innings and seemed to have recaptured some of his former effectiveness. As a reward, Stenkel decided to give Beck a start

in the second game of a July 4th doubleheader against Philadelphia. It became a fateful decision. Beck's first start in more than a month didn't last long. Facing only eight Phillies, he gave up three hits, walked three and allowed three runs in only two-thirds of an inning. Casey Stengel had seen enough. Anticipating Beck's reaction, Stengel remained in the dugout and instead instructed his catcher

Al Lopez to inform Beck that his afternoon was over. Meanwhile, from the dugout, Stengel waved in a relief pitcher. As expected, Beck was furious. Rather than handing the ball to Lopez, Beck threw perhaps the best fastball he has thrown this season up against the right field fence. The ball hit the tin facade with a thunderous boom. Meanwhile, several feet away, right fielder Hack Wilson was dozing with his back to the field. When he heard the boom off the wall, Wilson instinctively rushed to retrieve the ball,

turned and fired a perfect strike to second. The crowd howled at the sequence soon after an amused reporter labeled Beck boom boom. And for the rest of his life, Elmer the Great was known as Boom Boom Beck. Boom Boom. So it was a boom off the wall and thenceforth, Walter William Beck, formerly known as Elmer the Great was Boom Boom Beck. And here we are decades later and the Kines have released a song called Boom Boom Beck, which has brought Boom Boom Beck back into the national consciousness in a big way,

at least here on Effectively Wild. Boom boom back, back in the back, in the back, in the back, in the, what is that word? You know, like just forever going to not know what I'm trying to say, Ben, you know? It's really something. Well, here is a segue to a somewhat sadder matter, but James Earl Jones,

we lost him this, this week. He passed away on Monday at age 93. One of those, can you say taken too soon about a 93 year old? Well, when it's James Earl Jones, anytime is taken too soon. We wish he hadn't had to be taken at all, but there's been no shortage of obits and celebrations and tributes to an icon, to a legend of stage and screen, and of course, a baseball specific legend. Yes.

Now you may know him best for being the voice of Darth Vader. And it's nice that he continued to play so many meaningful parts after that and didn't just get kind of typecast as the guy who sounded like Darth Vader because you would think that that might've been a tough thing to overcome, but he was well established and accomplished by that point in his career. So I guess it didn't loom over him the way that it might have if he had started out as Darth Vader, let's say. But in addition to that iconic performance and other really incredible movies, starting with Dr. Strangelove, his first screen role, and on and on and on until the past few years, an absolute baseball movie legend.

Yeah. Not just for Field of Dreams, which is maybe his second famous role, but then also for Bingle Long and also for The Sandlot. That's an incredible trifecta right there. And I should note, he also won a Tony Award for Fences where he played a former Negro Leagues player, right? And he was also in the movie, Matewan in 1987,

in which there was a baseball scene because every movie around that time was obligated to have a baseball scene. And he took some swings in that scene. So conservatively speaking, three baseball roles, like three classic ones, and you could tack on a couple more to that total too. And so I was thinking as a way of mourning

and also celebrating him, if you had to construct and chisel a baseball movie, Mount Rushmore based on baseball movie actors. And I was thinking of this in terms of career accomplishments or not just one performance in one role, but career contributions. Who would you put on baseball movie Mount Rushmore? And I think obviously James Earl Jones has to be on there.

And then clearly Kevin Costner. Kevin Costner, yeah. Right. So I think those are the cream of the crop. Those two are in a class of their own, Kevin Costner. Yeah. Right. So I think those are the cream of the crop. Those two are kind of in a class of their own, not just when it comes to quantity, but also quantity and quality combined. Yeah.

So I was trying to think of who else, if we've got two more spots to fill, who else would we put on baseball movie Mount Rushmore actor-wise, leaving directors and Ron Shelton types out of it. And I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but I consulted Noah Gittel, who was a guest on Effectively Wild in one episode when you were away and wrote Baseball the Movie, the recent book about baseball movies and American culture. And I wanted to get his thoughts and obviously he concurred on Costner and James Earl Jones. And I had suggested to him in my message that Joey Brown would be a good candidate,

not so much for modern audiences, because I don't know that his work has stood the test of time, but if you're a true baseball movie knower, you might have to put Joey Brown on there. And Noah agreed just because he was in many baseball movies. He was the star of three in a single decade, including the screen adaptation of Elmer the Great. So it all, it all comes back around. Oh my gosh. Yeah. 1933, the same year that Boom Boom Back was dubbed Elmer the Great, just a month or

so later, Joey Brown's film version of Elmer the Great, which was substantially different from the play that came out. So Elmer the Great was really everywhere those days. But Joey Brown, he was in Alibi Ike and he was an accomplished baseball player himself and also fan and sort of sports celebrity. So even though his name might not be known to contemporary viewers, I think in terms of overall contributions to the form, I think he has a pretty strong case.

But the fourth is tough. It's tough to nail down a fourth because there are many actors who have been in two baseball movies, let's say, like a long list, you know, Wesley Snipes and De Niro and Richard Pryor and Matthew Lillard and Timothy Busfield and Robert Wohl and David Struthairn and Andre Holland and Neil Flynn and John McKinley, John Candy, DP Sweeney, Jonathan Silverman. I could go on, but how do you distinguish the two timers? Does anyone come to your mind as a possible fourth? Well, this is definitely leaning on a peak rather than career jaws, as it were.

But like, I think that you could make an argument for, now, one actually played baseball in the movie and the other was just in a baseball movie, but like, I think that you could make an argument for either Gina Davis or Susan Sarandon. Interesting. And now, one role, right? We're basing this on one role. But especially for modern audiences in the pantheon of baseball movies, the league of their own occupies a very important spot. True.

And so, maybe you make a peak versus career exception for that one. Now, Susan Sarandon's role, I think, in Boulderem is hurt by the fact that she's just in the one. And it's a non-baseball playing role, right? Which to my mind, if you're going to pick one, you maybe give it to Gina Davis on that score because she is actually playing baseball in the baseball movie. Although we could also give it to Marla Hooch, you know, the actress who played Marla Hooch because there are a few things I enjoy more than Marla Hooch and League of their own. I just think it's delightful characterization

really. You could contemplate that, but I think it's hard to pick, you know, betwixt and between all of the guys who are like in a couple. That's hard. That's difficult work. I don't know if I have a satisfactory answer on how to do that. I just don't know, Ben. I don't know. Yes. I think if we lowered the movie minimum to one, then they would have excellent cases and it would be nice to get a little gender diversity on the baseball movie Mount Rushmore. This is what I'm saying. Yeah.

If we just do peak and cultural impact and modern audiences and everything, I think there's a good case for that. I was thinking of it in terms of multiple movies. And so initially I leaned Sheen just because you get wild thing and you get major league and you get major league too. And Sheen was also in eight men out so he did have three movies to his name and was one of the more convincing baseball athletes on screen I think that that's a good that's

a good thing to consider because I agree he was you know you're like good you could do it maybe you know yeah yeah It's a little feather in your cap, I think. But I have a suggestion here from Noah, which I had not thought of. I suggested Sheen, I also suggested Ron LaFleur, who was perhaps not as prominent, but was himself in three baseball movies. He was in The Sandlot, Field of Dreams, and Mr. Baseball, but not as the lead in any of them. So perhaps not the best choice. However, Noah kind of came in with a out of left field, so to speak, choice that I kind of like. He wrote, I'd throw a wild card at you

and choose Ken Medlock, who played the scout in Moneyball. Medlock is a former minor league player and coach who has small roles in Brewster's Millions, Talent for the Game, Mr. Baseball, Major League 2, Major League Back to the Miners, and the Bad News Bears remake before finally getting his moment in Moneyball. I like the narrative, he's like a journeyman pitcher who got several cups of coffee before finally playing an important role on a championship team. Oh, and he also appeared in the battered bastards of baseball, the documentary as himself because he played for the Portland Mavericks in 73. So Noah says Costner, James Earl Jones, Joey Brown, and Ken Medlock.

But yes, I don't know that that would satisfy modern movie heads quite as much, but I like the case. It's a novel creative pick. Nicole Zichal-Klein I kind of really like that, you know? And he definitely had like in his line reading from Moneyball, that's most well known, like real gravitas, you know? He like, he read credibly as a scout. And now that I know he played Meyer Leopold, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I forgot to mention by the way that James Earl Jones was also in The Sandlot 2. Just a little less of a classic, but we're padding his resume here. I don't know if I've seen The Sandlot 2. Well, I don't think you're missing that much. I guess it's better than the direct to DVD sequel, The Sandlot Heading Home, which James Earl Jones did not appear in. I don't think you're missing that much. I guess it's better than the direct to DVD sequel, the sandlot heading home,

which James Earl Jones did not appear. And he had the judgment, the wisdom to avoid that particular part, I suppose. But yes, he was also in the sandlot too. Not that he's a compiler, not that we need to just tack on more movies to burnish his case cause he's got a great one. The sandlot too, heading home. That like, that sounds like it meets a baseball movie. It's like, what happened here? We must go home.

Well, there was the Sandlot 2 and then there was the Sandlot not numbered, colon heading home. I'm sorry. How could I have confused these classics? The Sandlot verse, the timeline. Yeah. Okay. So if you have other suggestions for who should be on baseball movie Mount Rushmore, please write in and let us know. And you know, I guess a segue to that from the Sandlot. So James Earl Jones's role in that movie, of course, he plays Mr. Myrtle, the former player who resides close to the Sandlot and is this former legend and has the great baseball memorabilia collection

was buddy buddy with the babe and owns the beast. Of course, Mr. Myrtle tells a story he's blind and he tells a story of how he was blinded. And I will play the clip. I used to crowd the plate so that strike zone almost disappeared. Pictures hate that. That's the way I played 100% all the time. Baseball was life, and I was good at it. Real good. And then one day, a high fast went in, pow, lights went out. So that reminded me of the discussion that we had last time about hit by pitches and hit by pitches in the head specifically and what if anything should be done about that.

And we talked about that at some length, but we got a couple of responses to it that I wanted to mention. So one comes from listener John, who said, in response to your hit-by-pitch discussion on episode 2214, for many years I felt there's a very simple and fair solution to this issue. A pitcher shall be responsible for the health of all hitters they face, and as such, should be suspended for the full duration of a hitter's IEL stint

in the event of an injury resulting from a hit by pitch, regardless of intent. We had considered the condition that the pitcher should not be ejected unless the hitter also has to leave the game. But in this extension of that, the pitcher then would not be eligible to return in any future game until the hitter is in good health again and can come back. So this is sort of a stricter version of that. And John writes, this would in effect remove judgment from the equation in determining punishment for the pitcher, change the pitcher's

calculus for whether pitching inside is worth the risk. As you noted, this seems likely to shift some advantage back to the hitter, which one could argue is a desirable side effect, balance the consequential burden between teams, and perhaps even reduce the perceived need to perpetuate eye-for-an-eye retaliatory cycles, which has always been a result of the aforementioned fundamental risk-slash-consequence imbalance. The unwritten rules evolved specifically as the only way for teams to protect their players, quote-unquote, given the massive disparity in consequence potentially for months of IL time for an injured hitter

versus a few games or weeks of suspension for pitchers. For this policy to work as intended, a team independent doctor would need to evaluate the initial injury and also monitor the recovery to prevent the hitter's team from falsely diagnosing the injury or manipulating IL timing in order to lengthen a pitcher's suspension. He writes, I'm not convinced this would entirely take away the inside of the plate from pitchers.

They just have to factor injury risk into the equation when deciding to pitch inside and perhaps favor their off-speed repertoire on that side of the plate. True, there'd be the occasional slip of a ball and unintended injury which could potentially take an innocent pitcher out for months at a time. But why is that any more unfair than an innocent batter losing half their season or more to one careless pitch? What do you make of this ostensibly fair, but also sort of harsh solution? I'm going to level with you. I don't hate it. You know, there's always a weird thing about pitcher suspensions, which is that unlike

position player suspensions, those guys don't pitch every day, you know? And so sometimes you'll, you'll see a couple games suspension leveled and it's like, sure, that's something, but it isn't necessarily delivering the same sort of disincentive that you see when you get like a hitter who gets suspended because that guy might be in the line up every single day. To be clear, it does create a monetary disincentive for pitchers because you get paid on days you don't pitch, Ben. I don't know if you know that about big leavers, but they get paid on days they don't pitch. So I want to be mindful of that element to

it and not over correct. But I think having those things sort of tied may be interesting. I don't know if it should be for the entire duration of the IL stint, but maybe some percentage of the IL stint would be a more reasonable balance. I am skeptical that there would be much incentive for the hitters team to monkey with stuff too much, because you want that guy to come back when he's available. But if you were to set a sort of fixed percentage of maybe you only do it for the initial 10 day IL or maybe seven day IL if the guy goes on the concussion IL, because

you know that exists, then I think you could probably dilate it in a way that would kind of level it in a fair way. But I'm interested as an idea. What if he's your 26 guy on the roster, he's like on your triple-A shuttle and he just happened to be batting that day and he's kind of a replacement level player and meanwhile he got hit by the opposing ace or something. And let's say it's a division rival, wouldn't that team though then be incentivized to say, hey, take it easy, don't come back hitter because we don't need you that much. And meanwhile, we're, as long as you're out, we're depriving our opponents of their best pitcher. That's why I think as the suggestion was, you'd need some sort of impartial authority

here to say. Sure. But I also think that you could say like have the impartial authority weigh in on is an IL stent necessary or not. And then once an IL stent is deemed to be necessary, then I think you say you, the pitcher, are suspended for, you know, 50% of a 10-day IL stent and maybe some different percentage of a 7-day IL stent if it's a concussion protocol thing. Then I think you're okay. Once it's been determined that yes, the guy is in fact injured and a nial stint is necessary, then you could kind of go where you need to there. But I don't think it matters who hits who. I think you want

it to be applied equally because yes, the impact to the team might be different if you're the AAA shuttle guy, but the impact to you, the individual, that's no different just because you're a replacement level guy basically. So, yeah. I think it goes too far for me unless it's capped. Sure. Yeah. No, it definitely needs to be capped. As you were suggesting.

Yeah, because imagine the worst case scenario, right? I mean, I guess the worst case scenario is a Ray Chapman sort of situation, but say it's a career ending injury. Are we saying that the pitcher's career is over too if it was unintentional? That seems unnecessarily punitive. It's not going to bring back the injured hitter. I would imagine that most hitters in that situation would not want the pitcher to be deprived of their livelihood for the rest of their career because they happen to get hurt as long as they believe that there was no intent and don't hold that pitcher responsible really except as an accident.

And a pitcher in that situation is going to feel bad as it is. And so they're suffering to some extent just from having grievously wounded someone. And so to add a suspension to or say your career is over too now. And again, like these things will happen sometimes just by accidents. I don't think you can legislate accidents entirely. Maybe if you make the punishment very harsh, you can really make pitchers take a wide berth from inside of the plate, but then that's really going to have an impact on offense. Like to ensure that even a miss or a ball slipping out of your hand or something isn't going to hit someone in a way that could hurt them, you'd have to like throw everything

way outside. I mean, you know, it's just going to happen randomly sometimes, right? So I think, yes, you'd have to account for that. Again, I'm on board with punishing these things more harshly than we currently do, which is not very harshly at all. But yeah, this is too much for me to suggest that it should be just for the duration, however long that duration is. Yeah, you need to level set it.

But having done that, I think that this gets a lot closer to a genuine disincentive than I think a lot of the solutions that we've been offered. Now the other suggestion which was made by listener Preston in our Facebook group, this was related to the inside pitch, the sort of getting hit on the hands specifically, which we talked about too, because Whitmirefield was suggesting that there should be some penalty for that, not just for hitting someone in the head. And that's an area where I guess you might get some gamesmanship. I don't think a hitter is going to intentionally lean into one that hits them in the helmet, even though they have a helmet. That's just, that's scary and dangerous, but you know, getting hits somewhere, you don't

want to get hit in the bird bones either, but it's probably not going to be life or career threatening. So you do see some guys kind of credit crowding the plate as in the Sandlot example. So what if you used ABS, right? Maybe this could be an implementation of robot UMPs or some computerized strike zone that might help us here where at the very least it could be reviewable. I mean, it could be reviewable right now, but maybe it's an automated thing because as we were saying, what would really help is if UMPs would police

batters being too close to the plate and getting hit on pitches that would be borderline strikes, if not definite strikes. And so what if you set the system to say to an umpire, this was within X inches of the strike zone and therefore that hit by pitch should be disallowed, right? Or at the very least that would be reviewable. I guess you could kind of review some things already, but it would be kind of like an automated,

oh, no, that doesn't count. You don't get to take your base because you did not, even if it looked like maybe you got out of the way or tried to get out of the way, you were too close to begin with, you were not to like blame the victim of a hit by pitch, but like part of it is on you to try to get out of the way. And part of that is standing far enough away from the plates that you're not going to get hit. So what do you think about automating things

in that area? I don't think it's necessary. I think that all you have to do is pay closer attention, invoke more challenges. What we have is sufficient, Ben. You don't have to get AI involved in this business. Just look at it. You can tell. You just tell. Just look at it. You can on a replay, but we know that umpires don't often call that. Sometimes they do. Occasionally they do, but there are plenty of times where we see that they don't. Someone doesn't really make much of an attempt to get out of the way and they still get awarded their hit by pitch.

So it would seem that umpires are unable or unwilling to call that with regularity. And in their defense, they're trying to focus on the pitch movement and location and where the pitch is, and they're not really watching where the batter's body is exactly, and are they twisting and turning sufficiently and where they're setting up in the box? That's asking a lot of an umpire, I'd say. It's already a difficult job to try to track a pitch and then you're trying to track the batter's body and the pitch and those things are kind of in different places at the same

time. So I don't know. I'm with you generally on the robot ump ABS stuff I, I think I'm on board with this one. I think you just have to make the, did he get out of the way or not reviewable? Cause isn't that part not reviewable now? Right. You can review whether the ball hit the batter, but you can't currently review whether the pitch was in the zone when it hit the

batter or whether the batter tried to get out of the way. If that's reviewable, then I think. Just do that Ben. Why are you I think- Then I just do that, Ben. And that would challenge- Why are you making it complicated? Why are you opening the door for ABS any more than you have to? You just put it under the replay structure. What if you try to get out of the way, but you're crowding the plate to such an extent that even though you were twisting and turning, you were starting in sort of the danger zone? I mean, shouldn't that kind of count against you too? I don't know how I feel about that. I would need to think about that more. But I do think

that you should make that piece of it reviewable. This is a place where I actually am comfortable with it being something of a judgment call for replay. And you, I think that it's fine to say to guys who are like practically out of the batter's box They're so close to the plate. Hey, you should try to get out of the way Sometimes I'm replay review if you get hit by a pitch and you look like you're trying to get out of the way That's probably gonna go your way. Sometimes it might not so, you know, you decide what the balance is for you. That's right I think that that's fine I'm comfortable with that because I think a lot of these guys, they're probably comfortable with it too.

If you think about it probabilistically the way that you might the strike zone, you'd be like, okay, well, sometimes the call is going to go against me and sometimes it's not and this is one of the risks that I run, that it will be reviewed and that I will have been deemed to have not gotten out of the way and I won't get to take my base. I think that's fine. that I will have been deemed to have not gotten out of the way and I won't get to take my base. I think that's fine. I'm in favor of more things in general being reviewable. As long as we don't like dramatically increase the number of reviews that guys get, I think

it's fine. I think it's fine to just like, you shouldn't put the sport in a position where the folks at home who are watching super slow mo replays that the broadcast is just putting in front of them have a feeling like they have more complete information than the people in the ballpark. And there's always going to be a disconnect there, but if you make more things reviewable, you can collapse some of that disconnect, I think. Okay.

Now sticking with this baseball movie, JAG, I do have a sort of segue here. We got a bunch of emails about Croix Bethune who heard herself throwing out a ceremonial first pitch the other day. We got this one from Patreon supporter Sam who wrote, news broke that the US women's national team and Washington Spirits Croix Bethune, the likely NWSL rookie of the year, had a meniscus injury that required surgery. As a spirit fan, this was disappointing if not exactly surprising given the epidemic of knee injuries in women's soccer, which we've talked about before.

Is it because her shoes don't fit? Is it because her shoes are wrong? Why are their shoes wrong, Ben? Partly, maybe partly possibly because of the shoes. Further reporting found that Bethune tore her meniscus throwing out the first pitch at a Nationals game. And yeah, I watched this video and she didn't really give any indication in the moment that she had hurt herself, but sometimes these meniscus tears, they can be sneaky as we've learned with Mike Trout and you might not feel it in that moment.

And so Sam asked what other injuries have happened to ceremonial first pitch throwers? And he noted, I found a news story about the late Don Baylor, then a coach for the angels breaking his leg while catching a first pitch from Vlad Guerrero. Yes, that did happen and was kind of gruesome. Has anything like this ever happened before to an athlete from another sport? Should such athletes be avoiding ceremonial first pitches? And I tried to search for other instances of people, not even just athletes, but anyone hurting themselves on a ceremonial first pitch.

And I really couldn't come up with much at all. So this is not something that happens often or really that there's much precedent for. So I, I don't think that we necessarily need to disallow the ceremonial first pitch or prevent people who depend on their bodies functioning at peak performance to throw at a first pitch. It's not generally that demanding or stressful. It just so happens, you know, sometimes you land funny and the wrong thing tears, especially, I guess, if you've had many previous ACL injuries and knee injuries as a Bethune had. The only other instance I could find was a case in Japan that was actually last month. Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike,

she also hurt herself throwing out a ceremonial first pitch. This was an evulsion fracture in her knee joint, which carried a recovery of a couple months, although she was able to continue her official duties as she recovered and convalesced, which you can't really do if you're a soccer player and you hurt your knee, I suppose. But those in Baylor, those are the only cases I could find. So I'm saying it's probably not so serious and severe, but I bring this up not only to lament that injuries can strike at an opportunity and unexpected, frankly, times, but also because this was only one of two terrible ceremonial first pitches that I was made aware of this week, and the

other was a fictional case that came to us from listener Melanie, who sent us several questions, the last of which was, a while ago I watched an old Steve Martin movie, My Blue Heaven, which I might want to classify as a baseball movie. A decent part of the plot involves Martin's character trying to ingratiate himself with his love interest to sons who are baseball fans slash little leaguers. They go to a Padres game and some little league games. And now, Freiburg City Council's man of the year, Mr. Vincent Antonelli will throw out the first ball. Yeah! Yay! Alright, alright. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yay! Come here, kids. Come on. Come on. At one of which, Martin throws the ceremonial first pitch from home plate. My best guess is they did this because of lighting

or cinematography reasons, but is there actually precedent for throwing the pitch the wrong way? So throwing the pitch to the mound, not from the mound. Melanie says, that detail totally took me out of the moment and I've been wanting to complain to someone about this for literal months since I watched the film. Please tell me your hypothetical baseball movie

consulting firm would never have allowed this scene to be composed this way. Now, you're a big Nora Ephron fan. I am. And this movie, My Blue Heaven from 1990, was written by Nora Ephron. But not directed by her, right? Not directed by her, no.

And I would venture to say, not the best work or major motion picture associated with either Nora Ephron or Steve Martin, or for that matter, Rick Moranis is in this movie. It's a star-studded cast of 1980s and 90s comedic legends. And this movie actually, it came out right around the same time as Goodfellas. And it's basically a comedy version of Goodfellas. I mean, Goodfellas is funny, but also gruesome and violent. This is kind of the lighthearted take on the Henry Hill story, right? And perhaps has not stood

the test of time quite as well as Goodfellas. I think that's maybe an understatement. Although sounds like you're fond of it. I am fond of it. Steve Martin had a run of movies kind of like this in this stretch where it was like swinging at a lot of pitches, you know? And not all of them were home runs. Not all of them were even base hits. But this is one of those movies where you watch it and you're like, the quality of the cast elevates what is a pretty like, you know, forgettable comedy. Jon Cusack is in this too. Yeah, Jon Cusack is in it. I bring up, I bring up Ben that Nora Ephron didn't direct it because I want to lay the

blame for this particular set of, this particular sequence on the director. And look, it may well have been written this way in the screenplay. I don't know. But it could be, I think, correct to assume that there was like a lighting or configuration issue that required them to do it this way. Also, like Steve Martin's character in this is like, is ridiculous, you know? He is not a serious person. And so it could be that Nora Ephron felt like this was consistent

with his characterization, that he would be sort of buffoonish and like, you know, the jerseys that the kids are wearing are ridiculous looking. Like everything about this is like, what is going on? So it could be that it is intentionally. It's kind of a campy over the top type of movie. Yeah. And even the baseball scenes, like there's good Padres representation in this movie, which you don't see in a lot of movies, but they go to Jack Murphy's stadium home of the Padres at the time. And you just like see the scoreboard that says Jack Murphy Stadium.

And then you see only like tight shots of the stands and fans, but no actual baseball action. It's just like, you go from the scoreboard graphics to the fans, and then there's like no actual on-field baseball action. It's just like you go from the scoreboard graphics to the fans, and then there's like no actual on-field baseball happening. So cutting some corners there, but there is a lot of baseball in it, which again was par for the course at the time. This was peak baseball movie period. And in fact, I messaged Noah Gittel about this too. And he noted that Steve Martin right around that time was also in Parenthood, which had a baseball subplot as well. They were just making so many baseball movies at the time that even the non-baseball movies

were baseball movies by the Effectively Wild definition. KS – Parenthood is great. Rick Moranis, what a special guy. But there's so many people in Parenthood. The cast of Parenthood is wild. You go and it's like, it's Steve Martin, it's Rick Moranis, like Keanu Reeves is in that and Diane Weiss and Martha Plimpton. And I think that a young like Joaquin Phoenix might be in them.

But Parenthood's great. Everyone should just go watch Parenthood, really. Well, the interesting thing, I guess there are multiple interesting things, but one is that Nora Ephron, not a baseball fan, I found an essay she wrote about her fondness for Kent Tukolvi, whom she had recently discovered. So this is in 1979, she just, she was taken by his sort of stork-like figure.

And she noted that she was not a baseball fan or a sports fan really, but she was obviously aware of baseball and sports. And in Sleepless in Seattle, which was directed by Nora Ephron, and of course is a classic, a universally agreed classic. There is a baseball reference in that movie, which is kind of curious given that Nora Ephron was not that big a baseball fan by her own admission and she co-wrote that screenplay, but there's that reference to Brooks Robinson in that film. Dad, read this, read this.

Seriously, Wilson, son, I've been an excellent third baseman for as long as I or anyone else can remember and while we're on the subject, let's just say right now that Brooks Robinson was the best third baseman ever. It's important that you agree with me best third baseman ever. Hmm. It's important that you agree with me on that because I'm from Baltimore. She thinks Brooks Robinson is the greatest. So do you. Everyone thinks Brooks Robinson is the greatest.

It's a sign. And so there's a lot of baseball in My Blue Heaven as well. And yes, what stands out about the scene, first of all, as Noah noted, I love how for the writer of your email, throwing the ceremonial first pitch from the wrong spot at a little league game took them out of the movie, but not Steve Martin playing a New York mobster. Only effectively wild listeners would find that to be the particular sticking point. That's true.

Another thing that sort of stands out is that Joan Cusack says first ball. We'll throw out the first ball. Not first pitch. I was just about to say, that's not the only bit that was maybe off. So that sounded discordant to me. Then again, I thought, well, technically it's not a pitch, I suppose. So maybe it is a first ball. He's throwing it not from the mound, he's throwing it from the vicinity of home plate. So

maybe it technically is more of a ball than a pitch, I guess you could say that. And then the interesting thing is I watched The Naked Gun, another movie from around that time, which of course features an extended baseball sequence. And there's the part where the queen throws out the first pitch. So as the angels take the field, we're about ready for the first pitch ceremony with the queen of England, ready to toss out the first ball. How about that queen, ladies and gentlemen? The announcer references what she is doing

as throwing out the first ball. Really? Okay, yeah, and that was late 80s too And then I dug into this more and I gotta say I did not expect to come here to defend the historical accuracy and baseball verisimilitude of my blue heaven a movie which Makes no pretensions of being particularly true to life But I think this is actually pretty historically accurate. Now, for one thing, for a long time, the ceremonial first delivery, let's say a neutral term,

was not from the mound or very often was not from the mound. It was often from the stands, right? If you see, you know, pictures of William Howard Taft or, or Truman or whoever, you know, tossing the pitch, they're throwing that first pitch from the presidential box at Griffith Stadium in Washington. That's where you see those kind of classic presidents throwing out the first pitch. It's coming from off the field of play. And I believe, in fact, the first president to deliver a first pitch from the mound was Ronald Reagan, who was, you know, maybe projecting strength and athleticism. And speaking of baseball movies, he played a pitcher, Grover Cleveland Alexander in a baseball movie. So I guess he had that experience

too, but wanted to be macho about it. So he's out there, you know, I'm going to refrain from offering opinions about Ronald Reagan because we only need to get so many emails right before I go on vacation. can a refrain from offering opinions about Ronald Reagan because we only need to get so many emails right before I go on vacation. Yes. Well, it was a precedent setting presidency in any number of ways, but this was one of the more benign ways. And the former star of the 1952 biopic of Grover Cleveland Alexander, the winning team,

Ronald Reagan, he threw out that first pitch and subsequent to that, other presidents have done so. Now, the practice of a ceremonial first toss dates back to at least 1890. The thing is, it was quite commonplace for decades for the ceremonial first delivery deliverer to make that delivery from somewhere other than the mound and in fact for that delivery to be referred to as the first ball. Okay. Yes. And so there is good precedent for this happening and I'm actually quite impressed. So back in 1990, this was less far removed from the time when it was common for a first ball slash pitch deliverer to throw the first delivery from somewhere other than the mound and for that to be called the first ball and not the first pitch. So maybe that was

already semi anachronistic at the time, I don't know, but plenty of precedent for that happening. So I come here to defend my blue heaven, not necessarily as a film. I had not seen to defend My Blue Heaven, not necessarily as a film. I had not seen this film in full before and it's not critically acclaimed, I would say, or widely. So Noah says that he grew up loving it and so he's unable to separate that affection for the film and he still loves it, I guess, like you, but it didn't get grave reviews, right?

Maybe it got some grave reviews, but. So yes, this was not, I think, as weird or as indicative of a lack of baseball knowledge as one might think watching it in 2024. Yeah. Well, that makes me wonder, is this further evidence then that perhaps the reason that the scene unfolds in a sort of chaotic, weird way is actually like proof of real knowledge. And yeah, maybe I mean, look, I'm inclined to think that Nora Ephron is perfect because you know, here we are, but yeah, there is a later shot in that sequence where you see

kids pitching from a normal angles, like from the mound to home plate and the cameras behind the mound. So at least when they shot that for lighting reasons or set up or whatever, they were able to do that. So that doesn't seem to have been prohibitive. Anyway, I will link to a long explanation of the history of first pitches and president's involvement in that, which I found a good blog about it. And the blog does say, and I quote, these early first ball proceedings could take on any number of forms. Sometimes the VIP threw the ball in from the stands. On other occasions, the VIP took the pitcher's mound. In some cases, an opposing batter stood in the batter's box. And

in some instances, multiple VIPs played several positions. So anything went, I guess, in those wild, wild West decades of throwing out first balls, slash pitches. And that has become sort of standardized, maybe in the way that all of baseball has, you know, we've optimized the first pitch or made it more of a kind of commodity, less variation in first pitch tactics. And who knows, maybe that was for safety's sake, but sadly not for the safety of Croix Bethune. I have a take. I don't know if it's a good one. I don't know if we need ceremonial first pitches. I think we're a little loosey goosey with who gets them. I think that we need to have higher standards of first pitch delivery. I think they should be reserved for, I don't know, teachers, heroes.

There's a lot of reality TV folks who deliver first pitches. I guess you have a lot of games, so you just kind of have to get whoever you can get in there in there, right? But I don't know. We could have higher standards of first pitch selection, I think., right? But I don't know, we could have higher standards of first pitch selection, I think. Some of these folks, I'm like, who are you? Why are you here? Yeah, a lot of it's, right. Some of it's promoting something, some of it's like a local philanthropic

figure or something, which is fine. Give them their day in the sun. And most people, anyone who's not in the park doesn't see it, right? As long as it doesn't delay the proceedings and we've entered an email about that, I don't have a problem with it. I also wouldn't miss it if it went away particularly. Though I suppose I would miss the mishaps, not the few injury related ones, but the ones that make blooper reels to the extent that blooper reels still exist. Right? The ceremonial first pitch has gone wrong. Yeah. Some of those are funny, although some of them were kind of mean, you know? They have like America's Funniest Home Videos. Do they still do that show? That show was mean. Why did we do that? We shouldn't have done that show. Yeah, it was mean in retrospect, but it was fun at the time. Okay. I am about to lose you for a

while because you're going on vacation. I am, Ben. I'm going on vacation. I sound down about it, but I'm really so excited. I'm just like nervous. I'm going on vacation. I sound down about it, but I'm really so excited. I'm just like nervous. I'm going on vacation. I'm going on vacation. I need to, I, boy, do I need to go on vacation, Ben. I really do. Not because of you. You're great, but I just, you know, I'm pretty tired. Yeah. Well, we will miss you here. The podcast will continue and we anticipate your return, but because I'm about to lose you for a little bit, I got to cram in a few more topics here.

And this will be kind of rapid fire. Maybe we can get your takes. Here's one from not Sleepus in Seattle, but Michael in Seattle, who wrote in to send us a screenshot that he said gave him a hearty laugh. It is a screenshot of an ad that he saw for MLB TV, which features the White Sox, multiple White Sox players. And I said, how and when exactly did you encounter this abomination? And he said he found it on the White Sox website. So the White Sox website is serving ads to people that is trying to sell them MLB TV.

And the text of the ad says the race for the postseason is on stream. All of the action now only 29 99 by now. Then there's some fine print. And I expected the fine print to say the postseason will not feature the Chicago white truth in advertising, but no, it just says new low price for the rest of the season. Blackout and other restrictions apply. I guess one restriction would be the restriction of the White Sox from the postseason. That probably applies. But do you think this is misleading? Might anyone be hoodwinked by this? Now, I can't imagine anyone who's on whitesox.com is unaware of the fortunes of the Chicago White

Sox this season and is thinking, hey, all right, I'll sign up for this new low price for MLB TV. Anyone who's on white socks.com is unaware of the fortunes of the Chicago white socks. This season is thinking, hey, all right, I'll sign up for this new low price for MLB TV and I'll get to see my white socks, my pale hose in the postseason. And then they will sign up and woe to them. They will discover low and behold, the postseason will not feature the white socks this year. Seems unlikely. And yet, do you think this isn't in any way deceptive or misleading that there is a White Sox branded postseason centric MLB TV ad in September 2024? It's at least a little questionable. But I think in general, the danger here is low.

But maybe they're saying like, hey, we know that you, I'm going to do a swear, stuck through us through this s***y season. What if you watched good baseball? We won't be there at all. You won't have to think about us even one time. You'll get to think about completely different people the whole time. But then they show White Sox players in the ad, so that kind of defeats that. Wouldn't you want to advertise other better players on other better teams?

I guess, but I feel a little bit of sympathy here because I think that even for very bad baseball teams, they are your emotional like sort of core as a fan. Like you have your team and it's like your team, but it's your team. And so I think that you're still more likely to get click throughs if your guys are up there, even if you are, you know, advertising postseason baseball that they are not playing now and might not play again, you know? I wonder, I wonder if even white sex fans would be more willing to click on this. Yeah.

It is specifically, I believe, Andrew Benentendi and Luis Robert. These are the two players that they're selling MLB TV based on here. I considered consulting a lawyer to see is this actionable? Could we get a class action together of White Sox fans who were duped into purchasing MLB TV for the postseason run only to find that it doesn't feature the White Sox? But then I figured, nah, there's deniability here because the race for the postseason is on. Yeah. Now that race does not prominently feature the Chicago White Sox, although I guess it does

when the White Sox play a likely playoff opponent. So the race is on, the White Sox, although I guess it does when the White Sox play a likely playoff opponents were. So the race is on, the White Sox are running the race. Now they are lapped by the rest of the league multiple times, but they have entered. They will presumably finish the race. They will cross the finish line. So the race is on and the White Sox are participating in that race. They're just not doing well in that race, but there are times when they will play a presumptive playoff opponent. So I

don't think it's actually deceptive, but it is kind of a curious choice. I also wonder if this is the sort of thing that gets written as ad copy at the beginning of the season and just doesn't get updated. Right. Yeah. It could be like a automated thing, like slap a couple, yeah, or not that the White Sox were ever likely to feature in the postseason race particularly, but- Definitely not, but-

Yeah, maybe it's just a template where there's standard text and then they slap a couple players on there or it's recycled from months ago. But yeah, you think just for propriety sake, maybe take this one out of the rotation. Just, you know, if you're that far out of the race, I would say word to the wise. Okay. Now the postseason race is on certainly in New York and I guess I'm pleased to report on behalf of my fellow New Yorkers that our long New York nightmare is over. Jason Dominguez has been summoned to the majors and has made his 2024 return to the major league Yankees. And I guess surprisingly that did not occasion the immediate demotion or release of Alex Verdugo. They shared a lineup on Dominguez's

first day back and Aaron Judge got the day off a lineup on Dominguez's first day back and Aaron Judge got the day off in center and Dominguez played center while Alex Verdugo continued to play. And actually Verdugo had a couple hits, including his first homer in weeks. Oh my gosh. Which could be a coincidence, but I wonder, did the recall of Jason Dominguez light a fire under Alex Verdugo? I suppose some Yankees fans would be willing to light a fire under Alex Verdugo. I suppose some Yankees fans would be willing to light a literal fire under Verdugo or at least be willing to see someone

else do that. But would this serve as motivation? Maybe the age old veteran being pressed by a rookie and suddenly lo and behold, he went deep. I think the answer is absolutely yes. Whether he ends up getting let go or not, I think if you're in that position, you want to be like the last, I want the last thing that not only the fans remember about this, but also the organization to remember is that I did it. I did what they thought I would do, you know? I guess they could platoon maybe. I know they want Dominguez to be playing every day to get development, but in a pinch, they put LeMahieu on the IL to make room for Dominguez in the short term. But how do you fit them all in the outfield is the question. You don't. The answer is you don't.

You're like, oh, well. That'd probably be best. Yes. Also, just want to note that Garrett Cole is back to being Garrett Cole again, more or less, which now that the race for the postseason is on, you might be wary of facing Garrett Cole if you face the Yankees in October, because he was basically a non-factor and a non-entity for most of the season. I mean, he was absent for much of it with an injury.

And then when he returned, he did not look like himself, but he has looked like himself lately. Since August 1st, Garrett Cole ranks fifth in FanGraph's War among all pitchers behind Chris Sale, Zach Wheeler, Tarek Scoobel, and Framber Valdez. Those are some name brand guys and Garrett Cole's right there with him, I guess technically tied at 1.4 war over that span with Valdez and also Logan Gilbert and also Blake Snell, but incrementally, fractionally ahead. So yeah, he's been back to being an ace more or less for the past month plus, so I suppose that bodes well for the New York Nine. How about that? I was thinking he took the L in his last start, but he pitched pretty well.

And I also noted that Corbin Burns took the L in his last start and he only had a few Ks and that's kind of become a pattern for him. Yeah. You will not see Corbin Burns high on that FanGraphs War leaderboard over that span because he's been so-so for some time now. The important thing is that he's taken the ball and he's made all his starts. He's made 29 starts. He's been the stalwart in the Orioles rotation. But I was thinking about this because the other day we were talking about

Boris and the Scott Boris comeback. And well, this winter he has won Soto and he has Cormac Burns. He has the best hitter and the best pitcher. So how could he not do well? And certainly that's true for Soto, but I'm starting to wonder whether that will be the case about Corbin Burns and whether some teams will perceive some red flags. Sure. You know, he's been durable.

He's been available. He's been at or near 200 innings, three years running. That's all good, but his strikeout rate has suffered a pretty precipitous decline coming from a very high peak where he was maybe the best pitcher in baseball in that category in 2021 was just dominant and unhittable and 2022 we were deprived of a full season of burns that year, but he was just so nasty in that, in those years. And since then it's been a steady ticking down of the K rate from the 13 and 12 K per nine range to now where he's striking out like eight per nine, you know, he has a 21.9% strikeout rate, 15.9% K minus BB rate.

I never quite know how to say that. And that's not great in this era. And maybe like he's changed his, he hasn't really lost VLO. It's not like he's lost pitch speed, but he's kind of lost some movement and changed his pitch mix a little. And he's just not getting the whiffs that he was getting. And he's not really getting more grounders than he used to get either. So he still got a 3.18 ERA.

That's good, but the FIP is 3.72. The ex-FIP is right around that range. Those are not great numbers in this era. And that's right around where he was last year too, in that 3.8 range. And so I wonder whether you have a recipe for another Snell Montgomery-esque situation where you have someone who's thought of as an ace and has been an ace. I mean, Montgomery hadn't really been an ace, but Snell, right? And yet there are knits you could pick. So- Sure. There are definitely knits you could pick. So there are definitely knits you could pick. I will push back on the notion that like, and some of this is just the aesthetic experience of it, even though he's not a high strikeout guy, it's like so much more fun to watch than

snow. Every thing is better than my God, like the just the, and his walk rate has been excellent still. So it's a fair thing to raise. I think that, look, if there are knits to pick with a free agent, they're going to get picked. Because if a team can talk its way into paying a guy a little bit less than he might be expecting, they're going to do that just about every single time.

I do think that he is aided by the fact that he's still probably the best available starter on the market. And you couldn't say that about Snell or Montgomery, right? So scarcity is going to play a role even if it doesn't make him a hundred million dollars on its own or something like that. You know what I mean? His season this year is going to be shockingly similar to Jordan Montgomery's 2023 actually. Montgomery was 188 and two thirds innings. Burns is at 175 and a third right now. Montgomery had a 3.2 ERA. Burns has a 3.18. Similar FIP and ex-FIP range like in the 3.5 to 4, right around eight strikeouts per nine and two plus walks per, like it's the same season, you know, and not the same previous seasons, which is a pretty important difference.

Yes. Obviously Burns was way better, but it's sort of the same kind of walk platform year. And I'm just thinking if Burns is thinking of himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball, which he has been for a while and he is still 29. And you know, if they're going to shoot for the moon and ask for a big long-term contract, I just, I wonder whether some teams will balk at that for some of the same reasons that they balked

at Montgomery or Snell. But yeah, it's not the same case. It just seems that his stuff is diminished or at least different in some ways. And he just doesn't get the swing and miss that he did and that's what teams want. And Snell had that, but he didn't have the durability and everything. So like Burns has that, I guess.

So he's, but kind of more in the Montgomery pitching style these days. Yeah. Although like, and I, you know, there are a lot of, there are a lot of ways to be a big leaguer, but I also think that you look at Burns and you look at Montgomery and some of this is probably, it's starting late, but it did kind of look like Montgomery's body had backed up on him a little bit. I wonder how much that contributed. And it's like if you're signing a guy for the long term and you want that durability,

that's probably a point in Burns' favor relative to Montgomery at least, but I don't know, man. We'll see. Well, I have plenty of time to talk about that. And also, we've talked about the fact that the playoff picture is unfortunately not that interesting right now. We talked about this some time ago when it became clear that there were haves and have nots and there weren't a lot of teams that were on the playoff bubble.

And it's unfortunate because as we've covered, we don't really have the great teams this year. And so you might think, okay, well, if we don't have the great teams, that must mean we have a lot of parody and therefore we'll have great races right down to the wire, even if those races are among mediocre teams, not the White Sox, but the postseason race is on. But we're not getting that either. So we've kind of been deprived of the great teams, but also weseason race is on, but we're not getting that either. So we've kind of been

deprived of the great teams, but also we don't have much suspense other than seeding and buys and such, which is important, but not quite the same. What we have right now is Braves versus Mets for the NL third wild card. Those are sort of the stakes right now. I mean, yes, there are other teams that are within mathematical striking distance, but it's really Braves and Mets and Mets have a one game lead right now. And so the playoff odds, which were favoring the Braves are now barely doing so. They're essentially both right there. And it's going to come down to the wire, it looks like, and I wonder whether you have come to believe in the Mets any more than you used to, or whether you still think that Atlanta's true talent and maybe easier schedule and the pedigree of that roster and pitching staff are ultimately

going to win out. I think both things are true. I think that it would be silly not to adjust the possibility of the Mets making it upward just based on how things have gone, right? Like those, the wins that they've won are banked. Those are banked wins. And while I do think that Atlanta is even with their injuries, a better true talent team in the aggregate than New York is, it's close.

And it's such a, it's such a scant number of games that even though Atlanta enjoys sort of a strength of schedule advantage, there aren't enough games for like them being better to necessarily assert itself, right? So I don't know, I think anything could happen. I think that if the Mets make it in, well, anything can happen in the postseason. I'd be more inclined to think of them making an early exit because I just don't think that they have the pitching to hang in this postseason field, but anything is possible or they could Mets it. There's always that chance that they Mets it, Ben. They love to Mets it. And I'm sure Mets fans are sick of hearing that, but you could

pick a different team to root for if you wanted to, and then you'd hear different stuff that would annoy you. Make your choices. Yeah. I different stuff that would annoy you, you know, like make your choices. Yeah. I am impressed that their rotation has held up to the degree that it has. Wild. Cause it's not good. It is not good at all. It is not a good group.

Uh, it wasn't going to be when Senga was still healthy and boy has he not been so. No, and maybe he'd be back for October it looks like, but if they can get there, it will be because of these reclamation projects and people who've pitched in literally. I was impressed. Tyler McGill had a big start and came through against the Blue Jays on Monday. I root for Tyler McGill because a few years ago he was chasing Velo and maybe he was influenced by DeGrom and Sindergaard and he was running it up at 99 and he said he wanted to go for triple digits and he was all amped up and he was looking

at the radar gun and challenging himself to throw harder. And then he got hurt. I think multiple times he hurt his shoulder and he said, you know what, I'm going to dial it back a bit. And he said, I'm not going to go for Velo anymore. And you know what, since then he hasn't been that great. So I wish the moral of the story were, so he took a little off and he was still great and happily ever after, but no, not really. And yet I still applaud him for doing what I always wish Jacob de

Graham would do with far superior stuff. And Miguel sometimes still throws hard on occasion. He's not throwing that much softer, but he stopped doing max effort for him and showed that it is possible to do that and perhaps at least stay intact longer, if not necessarily more effective. So I'm happy when he succeeds, but this whole rotation is full of guys who've been hurt or cast offs or it's, you know, Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaya, all these guys coming up big for them. And you know, I've said before, it's like, well, you don't expect that much bulk out of any starter these days. So why not go get a Severino or a Manaya, someone you perceive to have a higher ceiling and if they give you good inning per inning pitching, then you'll be

pleased, but you would not have expected as many innings as you've gotten out of those guys. So just looking at the FanG fan graphs depth charts projections for starting pitchers, Metzor 24th right now, which is basically what they've been to this point, they've been 22nd thus far, but it's been barely good enough to keep them in this, whereas the Braves short handed as they are again, literally, they have the second best projected rotation now, because even without Strider, et cetera, they still have Cressel. And I mean, he'sider, et cetera, they still have Chris Sale.

I mean, he's a reclamation project himself who you didn't expect to get this many innings, let alone these effective innings out of. But, you know, Sale and Morton and Schwellenbach and Fried and Reynaldo Lopez, another surprise, right? But it's just a better, more talented rotation and maybe still an underperforming offense. So I guess if I'd had to pick one, I too would side with Atlanta, but it's close enough now that who knows? And it's such a small sample, but I also noted that, you know, Lindor,

of course, and his surge has powered a big part of the Mets success. And he has at least entered the MVP conversation. I think I missed the fact that he got the Trey Turner treatment where Mets fans did an organized ovation for him. And I like that this is becoming a thing. You know, there's a documentary that's coming out now that just premiered at a festival, I think made by the Obama's production company about the Trey Turner applause and the campaign to cheer for him last August and seemed to mark a turning point in his season or at least coincided with one. And Francisco Lindor got that treatment in April, which was maybe a little early for

that, but it also did coincide with him turning things around. You never know with these things, well, it's a great player. You expect them to be great. Probably given enough time, he would have found his way out of it. But Trey Turner had a 77 WRC plus entering, I think it was August 4th last year when he got that big response and was clearly touched by it. So he had a 77 WRC plus through 480 plate appearances.

And from that point on, he had a 181 WRC plus. Now Lindor, through his first 12 games of this season he had a 17 WRC+, that was through April 11th and then he got the big ovation on April 12th and was appreciative. Rest of April he had a 138 WRC+, and the rest of the season from that day forward he had a 146 WRC+, and you know he was projected for a 114 at the rest of the season from that day forward, he had a 146 WRC plus. And you know, he was projected for a 114 at the start of the season. So both these guys have, has exceeded what you would have expected for them after getting these unexpected and heartening ovations.

And I wish we had a bigger sample of this so that we could compare to projections and say, you know what, this works actually because I support cheering instead of booing. I've never been a booer and I would love to encourage this ethos in professional sports. Hey, instead of piling on and getting down on a guy, let's show him we have his back and maybe it'll actually boy his spirits. Yeah. It's a tricky thing because it has to feel, I think part of why it strikes people as working when it does is when it feels like kind of spontaneous and authentic, you know, like

a plan, an organized plan of it. And I'm sure there was some organizations at the Trey Turner thing, but like, I don't know, it feels different when it's like everyone coming together in the moment because you recognize like a fellow person in distress versus like let us do the clapping now. I don't know. But that's how it sits with me as someone in the stands, how it feels to the athlete. Like it might be the same under both of those circumstances, you know? Well, when Tyler McGill made that strong unscheduled start, he was replacing Paul Blackburn formerly of the Oakland A's.

Want to give a quick shout out to the current A's, the players on the A's, to be specific, not the ownership of the A's, just cause you know, they've gotten, I guess, kind of frisky to use a term you invoke sometimes and, and entertaining. Their offense has been quite good of late and they actually have kind of turned things around there and they have a number of intriguing talents on offense. And I, I feel bad for them that they don't get their due because everyone's focusing on the Sacramento nonsense and the end of their time in Oakland and John Fisher screwing things up every which way.

And meanwhile, you know, that team's kind of promising, right? And they have some, uh, pretty, pretty interesting players, not just podcast hero, Brent Rooker, whom I hope we can have back on again for another appearance to talk about his fantastic season, but post all-star break. The A's have a 111 WRC plus, which is eighth in the majors. They're right between Baltimore and Houston, two teams for whom the postseason race is on. And it's been Rooker, of course.

And it's been Lawrence Butler, who has had like one of the most extraordinary in season mid season turnarounds I can recall. And I wish I could stat blast this. I don't know that I'd be able to, cause I'd think I'd need like minor league game log data, but he wasn't hitting at all. And then he got sent down to the minors, got demoted, right?

He had a 555 OPS and 121 play appearances at the start of the season. Then he went to AAA, where he didn't even hit that well for a month. And then he came up and he's had a 974 OPS and 265 play appearances since his return. So he and Rooker have been totally tearing it up, you know, they're kind of like off-brand judging Soto over the last few months. It's been it's been pretty impressive to see I mean post-all-star break Butler 181 WRC plus Brent Rooker 175. He's been basically that good all season. So

Shout out to the actual Oakland Athletics players. I wish that we could focus on your play and not your embarrassment of a franchise, which is not your fault. Nicole Soule-North I think it's important to acknowledge because for the vast majority of these guys, they didn't choose to work there. It's not their fault that they have an embarrassment of an owner and for them to offer something exciting for fans to see as this era of baseball in the Bay comes to a close, like, that feels like service to me. I'm not saying that anyone's obligated

to watch them or that they're obligated to go, but I think that we should acknowledge the work that the guys on the team are doing because they're trying to have a season, they're trying to have careers. And lastly, got to get your thoughts on this before you go. So I just implied that the playoff race is essentially over other than Mets Braves, but in the AL, at least theoretically, there's a chance, right? Oh, you're doing this. The Red Sox, the Tigers, and your Seattle Mariners are all, as we speak, three games back of the Minnesota Twins who are in possession of the AL's third wild card currently.

But faltering. I noted that the Mariners had yet another excellent start that was wasted, so to speak, right? Not wasted in the sense that you got the aesthetic appreciation of watching Logan Gilbert go eight innings and allow only two runs, but wasted from a competitive standpoint. That was a 79 game score and the Mariners offered him zero runs of offensive support and lost two to nothing to St. Louis. And I was kind of curious, like, are the Mariners among the more prolific wasters of strong starts? And you'll be relieved to know that not really actually. So, so I looked up how many starts of a game score of 75 or better, which is

really a strong elite start they have had in losing efforts, not necessarily a loss by the pitcher, but by the team. They've had five this year. They're 48th when I stat-head the list of most, but the most all-time is eight, which is the St. Louis Browns of 1904 and the 1999 Arizona Diamondbacks. So eight is the most like really strong starts

that were wasted. I guess that was the ace years for those Diamondbacks. If you lower the bar to 65 as a game score, then the Mariners this year have had 14 of those, it's the most of any team this year, but it's, it's not super historic, the most is 20 all time happened, 1967, the Phillies, 2018, the Mets had 20 of those, I guess they were Metzing it in some of those starts too. And then if you lower the bar further to 60 game score, then the Mariners have had 22 of those wasted efforts this year.

But you know who else has? The Chicago White Sox. They've had 22 also. Okay. Does that just make me feel better? Are you like bucking me up with that? Perhaps not. I guess I was attempting to, by saying they weren't that extreme or extraordinary,

but also you never want to be in the company of the White Sox, I suppose. Now, if you lower the game score threshold to 55, which is not that spectacular start, but good, solid, then the White Sox start to stand out. They have 32 of those and that is the most this year. I'll get the numbers for 50 in a second. I think they stood out even more because they've had a respectable starting rotation. That's the one area of their roster that has been sort of major league quality this year, although less so since they've subtracted from it, I suppose. But that's kind of kept them in some games that they've ultimately lost. But I bring this up not to torment and taunt you, but because we have learned there has been recent

reporting that Jerry DiPobo will not be suffering any consequences of these failures, seemingly, that he will remain as Mariners Pobo. He will be DiPobo. He has quite a track record now of clinging to his job in front offices with the Angels and with the Mariners now, despite not making the playoffs very often. By the way, the White Sox have 52 losses in games where their starter had a game score of at least 50. That is close to the record. I guess you expect them to be close to the record

of any kind of futility record, but it's those 1916 Philadelphia Athletics at 58. So, you know, they're coming up there. How do you feel about the fact that Jerry, despite having just one playoff appearance, one wild card appearance in his now nine-year tenure in Seattle, will be retaining his title and position? I feel a complicated way about it. in Seattle will be retaining his title and position. I feel a complicated way about it.

Like I don't, I generally don't want to advocate for people losing their jobs, right? That's not a particularly pleasant thing to do. I feel not great about it though, Ben, because I think that there are a couple of ways you can think about DePauwto either. He is someone who is largely in sync with ownership in terms of the way that the team should be run from a payroll perspective, or he's not in sync with them, but in his

decade long tenure has been unable to persuade them to really push all in for marquee free agents. It's not to say that it has been a totally bad time. They did finally break their playoff drought. I think that they are in an undisputed way sort of in the top tier of teams in terms of their ability to develop pitching. I think that they are showing some impressive improvement in terms of their ability to develop hitters. So I'm excited about that.

But I think that this is a club that feels like it is still wasting guys' primes and is not taking advantage of, if you want to be kind of cold and calculating and beep boop bop boop about it, not taking advantage of the sort of cost control core that they have to an even greater degree than Baltimore. And I've been critical of Baltimore's spending to date because they think that you can get so fixated and dialed into the dollars per war concept that you kind of lose the forest for the trees and are like, oh, hey, you know how you're only going to have Gunnar and Adley and these guys on their rookie deals for a little while, maybe spend so that you can go and crush in the postseason as opposed

to having this weird, still, in my opinion, not good enough rotation. But anyway, it's even worse in Seattle. The thing about it is it's even worse in Seattle, you know, is the thing about it is it's even worse. I find myself disappointed and I'm curious, you know, I wish that we could get kind of the TikTok of the conversation between him and ownership because I suspect, but cannot prove that ownership is probably pretty pleased with how Jerry has handled things because as much fun as it is to make the postseason and as much money as you make when you do, they've been able to run a middling payroll and enjoy a good gait.

It's hard because it's like, I think there are very talented, smart people who work for that team. I think that there are a lot of people who work for that team, including Jerry DePoto, who would like to win a World Series. But they haven't even gone to one, Ben. I don't know if you know that about them. I think that when you have a year like this one, where you're getting such tremendous performance out of your rotation, that the deficiencies on the offensive side of the

ball really shine through. And I think that it's a multi-year problem because I'm sympathetic to the notion that like absent Otani, there wasn't necessarily a hitter who would have turned things around from them. But there have been off seasons recently where that wasn't true, you know, where they could have gone and signed guys who were impact talents and really would have bolstered their lineup and they didn't do that. And you know, free agency is a two-way street and guys have to want to come there and I'm not

going to hold a front office responsible for every miss because free agents have agency famously. And sometimes they want to go places that they've been before. They want to sign deals with different teams. They want to live in San Diego, whatever. Like, you know, that's fine, but you got to hit on some of these and you got to persuade your ownership to put up the money to do that. You know, I getting owners to spend money is a skill.

It's a skill and you have, they have to have a proclivity probably, but you got to get them to do it. You got to be able to persuade John Stanton in the room. And you have to be able to do that even when you suddenly don't have the kind of broadcast deal that you expected. Jared Ranere Right. He doesn't have the Dombrovsky ability to just pry open a pocketbook. Now, John Stanton is not John Middleton. And thus that's Fort Knox there, if you're trying to pry that open comparatively speaking, seemingly. And maybe you don't hire a Dombrowski type,

unless you're willing to be persuaded to spend. Because you know, at this point, that's what he's going to want to do and advocate. Right. But persuaded to spend because you know, at this point, that's what he's going to want to do and advocate, right? But, Depoto hasn't been able to change that pattern and he's working within those constraints and you could argue about whether he's doing a great job within those constraints, even clearly if ownership wants to retain him, then it doesn't hold him personally responsible for the team's shortcomings, or at least not to the degree that they see missing the playoffs probably potentially as a fireball offense.

So yes, I guess he must be doing a good job of pleasing his boss, which is part of the job, obviously, and an important part from a self-preservation standpoint. But you could certainly quibble with how he spent the dollars that he had to spend, even though he wasn't afforded as many as I'm sure he would have liked, and certainly Maris Fentz would have liked. So you could criticize him just like on how those dollars were distributed,

as well as how many dollars there were, which probably wasn't his call. My sense is that they really did, they being the front office, really did have the rug kind of pulled out from under them in terms of payroll. So we should say that, to be fair to him. Like, I think that he, if you the front office, really did have the rug kind of pulled out from under them in terms of payroll. So we should say that to be fair to him. Like I think that he, if you had asked him this time last year, what his budget was going

to be entering the off season, I think it was probably dramatically different from what it ended up being. But the deal that really like sticks in my craw, and it's funny, like there is inherent in these determinations, like what slice of the season you're looking at because like early in the season, it didn't look like them jettisoning Eugenio Suarez for payroll reasons, like really mattered that much because he wasn't having a good start. He had a very slow start to the season.

But you know who they could really use right now? Eugenio Suarez. And like Josh Rojas has been fine and fine, but like, come on. That was what, like $11 million? Like, get out of here. Get out of here. Like, be serious. Yeah.

At some point, ownership looks for a fall guy, I guess. It's usually a guy. By the way, they are retaining the services of GM Justin Hollander as well. And I guess Scott Service became the fall guy, the initial fall guy. And that's what often happens. That's the first domino that falls. And if that fails, then okay, now the neck of the GM or the po-po

is next on the cutting block, right? And I'm not suggesting firing people for show either. And I think there are plenty of times when a team doesn't do well, when the GM is doing a decent job, or at least the results of the team aren't really that predictive of how that GM will perform going forward. Because how many times have we seen, I guess you could even include them Braske kind of like, there's some team or administration that fails to break through and then someone loses their job.

And then someone else comes in and tinkers and spruces up the roster a bit, but it's the bones of the foundation that was there before that propels that team to greater success. And then you're like, hmm, maybe that person wasn't so bad at this. They left all of these great players lying around. And so I think sometimes it can be kind of premature. I guess it's tough to say premature after nine years and one playoff appearance, right? But they had one manager that entire time. So I guess they finally broke that glass just recently and now Depoto is next maybe, but not that soon. And to your point, it really depends what slice you're looking at, what period of time, because

it is completely plausible to me, you know, I'm not going to say that they're going to hit on every single one of these guys, but it is completely plausible to me that a couple of years from now, you will be looking at a team that has a good rotation, that has Julio, and then has some combination of, you know, Cole Young or Felton and Celestin or Johnny Fromello up and like playing great and doing good stuff. And we all look back and say, Jerry was a genius. But I think that setting aside my role as like managing editors, just like a person

who grew up in Seattle, who's family members who care about this team, who wants them to do well, this club, when you stack them up against the rest of the league even Embarrassing franchises that are doing worse from a win-loss perspective and I think arguably are probably worth run I just think that Seattle should understand themselves to be operating under a different set of specifications from the rest of the league because they simply do not have the playoff Resume to lean on and, well, we've given fans a lot of good times and this is just rebuilding or whatever. No, there have not been enough good times. When we have to have a conversation about invoking 1995 nostalgia when you've hired

your manager, you have not sufficiently backfilled the catalog of good times. You were leaning on a couple of very strong and fun albums, but ones that ultimately didn't win Grammys. And like Grammys don't matter. But you know what I'm trying to say, right? Like, this is a... So I wish if I had like complete latitude, if I could ratatouille puppet John Stanton and Jerry DePoto into like having an approach to this team, it would be like, we are going to be competitive in every single high profile free agent conversation. You think that Wonsodo staying in New York?

No, he would look great in Northwest Green. That's what we say. And maybe we're not going to get him, but we're going to be competitive in every one of those conversations. But they don't want to do that. They want to win 85 games and maybe sneak in. And guess what? When you have a talent for developing pitching,

that can work in the playoffs, but it sucks as an approach to the franchise, you know? Like people in Seattle love this team. They wanna be enthusiastic about it. All you have to do is watch how they responded to one playoff win and one all-star game. It's right there for them. It's just right there. And you, not you, Ben Lindberg, but you, the senior leadership of the Mariners are kind of blowing it. And we get to say that.

Yeah. It's like Stephen Hayden's five albums test. You got to have five great albums to be a great band. And I guess the Mariners have five playoff appearances since 1995, including 1995, but that's not enough for that amount of time, especially in this postseason era. You need more than five and you need more recently, and you need to go deeper into those ones. Yeah. You need to make a World Series appearance. to make a World Series appearance. You haven't even been there to lose it. You know? Like, what are we doing? What are we doing, Ben? I can't believe this is the note you wanted to end on before I go, I'm going to go, I'm, you know, I'm going to be up there. I'm going to see some Mariners baseball in person and I'm really looking forward to it. It's a beautiful

ballpark. There's so much about this team that's cool and fun. It's a great in-game experience. They know what they're doing with so much of this, but they don't know how to open their checkbook. And they're of the generation with their used to writing checks. So go write some. I guess Haydn's five albums test was actually about whether an artist has five consecutive great albums. Mariners have five total playoff appearances, definitely not consecutive, so they still need some help in that department. I wish you and the Mariners success and I will bring things back to the beginning by making a prediction, which is that you will return to the podcast later this month and we

will miss you until then. Thanks for covering. And I will bring it back again to the beginning of this podcast by noting that Heinz has but four albums. They do not yet pass the five album test, but I look forward to you being boom boom back. All right, well in closing a few follow-ups, Ben Joyce has been serving as the Angels' closer since they traded Men of the Hour Carlos Estevez. We talked about Joyce recently because he threw a pitch that was tracked at 105.5 mph, the fastest strikeout pitch on record, not the fastest pitch period on record. Though as we noted, if you make certain adjustments, it is plausible that Joyce's pitch was actually the fastest of the pitch tracking era.

Well, Joyce hasn't appeared in a game since he threw that record pitch, and now he's on the IL with shoulder inflammation. Who could have foreseen this? Throwing very hard can be hazardous to one's health. Should be a Surgeon General's warning. Also hazardous to one's health? Punching hard surfaces. How many times do we need to say it? Do I need to play the Will the Bird Bones Be Unbroken song yet again? Well, Anthony Banda's Bird Bones will not be unbroken. The Dodgers reliever has become the latest in a long line of athletes. To punch something and hurt himself following a rough outing,

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said it was a moment of weakness and frustration where he decided to take on a solid object. We don't yet know what that object was, but presumably it was not a sufficiently padded object. Again, pad all the hard surfaces in the vicinity of the dugout and clubhouse. It can't hurt, unlike throwing punches at immovable objects. In better injury-related news for the Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto returned from his long IL stint and he pitched quite well in 4 innings, which reminds me of a preseason prediction

Meg made on our Bold Predictions podcast. She predicted that Shota Imanaga would accrue more fan graphs wore this season than Yamamoto, which looked to be a done deal when Yamamoto got hurt, but actually even though Imanaga has pitched more than twice as many innings, Yamamoto entered the day trailing Imanaga by a mere.6 war. The two went head to head. On Tuesday, Yamamoto was great for four innings. Imanaga went seven, but he struck out only four and gave up three home runs.

All solo shots, but still not great FIP wise. Thus, based on the preliminary numbers I'm looking at, Imanaga lost 0.2 war, Yamamoto gained 0.3 war, and now they're separated by just a tenth of a win, so Yamamoto may still prove that prediction wrong. However, a recent prediction Meg made has already come true. She predicted that Manny Machado would pass Nate Colbert on the All-Time Padres Home Run list before this regular season ended, and indeed he did, unfortunately for Meg, against the Mariners in a win for San Diego, but Nate Colbert's long reign atop that Padres home

run list has been ended, Machado now holds that title with 164 homers as a Padre, congrats to him, and congrats to the late great Colbert on setting and holding that record for such an improbably long period. And now our Colbert watch is ended. Also ended is this episode. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly

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as well as upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB Ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance, I will be back with another episode a little later this week, talk to you then! the diamond lead me through the turnstile shower me with data that I never thought to compile now I'm freely now a scorecard with a cracker chat of smile effectively wild