Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1236: Local (and National) Color

Episode Date: June 29, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s lost and found voice, then bring on MLB on TBS and SNY analyst Ron Darling (5:33) to discuss preparing to call games, talking stats on TV, local broadcasting vs. national broadcasting, the beloved Mets broadcasting team, building booth rapport, positivity and negativity on TV, dealing with broadcasting […]

🎵 And I'm in a shanty, be alright Hello and welcome to episode 1236 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs. Presented by our Patreon supporters, I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan. Hello, speak to the people, Jeff. Hello, this is my voice. For anyone out there, you don't know this. So you hear about hitters and pitchers and they'll talk about how they don't want to overthink what you're doing. You can't get in your own head when you are performing on the baseball field. And Ben messed up. Ben messed up the intro to this episode. You didn't hear it. It's not part of it, but he forgot how to do the intro bit because he thought about it. Ben, you overthought. It's not just a reflex. He thought about it. Ben, you overthought.

It's not just a reflex. Well, at least I didn't forget how to speak entirely, which you did for the better part of a week, which it turns out not being able to speak kind of puts a crimp in one's podcasting plans. We've had all sorts of issues over the many episodes of this podcast, guests who cancel at the last minute and technical problems and schedule conflicts and other work getting in the way. We can always find a way around that. But not being able to speak, kind of a deal breaker.

When I was in high school and I was a pitcher, long story short, I got brained by a line drive and it put me in the hospital for a while. And for several weeks, I couldn't talk. I couldn't form words. But I knew what I wanted to say. My brain worked in that regard. And I could at least, I could make noise. I could issue a blaring response, just a nebulous noise that came out of my body that would assure someone that I am listening.

I am trying to respond to you. I can't say any words. This was the first time I've ever felt mute. And the worst of it, besides how long it lasted, was that it got me. I was already sick. We had a Fangraphs company meeting in Denver last week. And we had a meetup on Friday night in the Wynkoop Brewery. It was arranged by us so that readers and listeners could come and meet those of us who were present.

And we could just hang out and talk about baseball for four hours. And I went into that sick but feeling okay. And about two hours in, I could say no more words at all. I think part of it was just having to raise my voice a little above the din of the bar. And so I felt awful for the people who had come up. Nick, in the button-down short-sleeved blue shirt, you were there. You had the big black X on your hand because you were 19 years old. They let you sneak in, but they couldn't serve you alcohol. I am very sorry, Nick, that you sat down and introduced yourself to me, and I just gestured at you. It wasn't my fault.

I couldn't do anything. I couldn't talk. And so I felt hopeless, but I couldn't bring myself to leave the meeting because then I thought at least this way people can, in theory, meet the shell of a man who cannot communicate. But I did have to write out some text messages to try to get the message across. It was very uncomfortable. Yeah, well, you work from home. I work from home. A lot of Fangraphs writers work from home.

Maybe it's like, you know, when Darwin would go to different islands and he would notice that life would evolve differently on each of those different ecosystems because it was isolated from all the others. Maybe that's how it works with fan graphs, writers, and germs and viruses. They just never have any human contact. And so you kind of develop your own internal fauna, and then you meet your colleagues and everyone gets sick at the same time. That could be what happened here. Yeah, keep an eye out to see if anything gets published on fan graphs next week, because I might have brought all of them down. It's like when someone starts doing baseball activities and they start taking dry swings and you don't want to throw them right back into the thick of it. So we're not going to do all the banter now. We have a guest episode. We have two guests lined up for this podcast and tomorrow we'll be back.

We'll do emails and banter and hopefully your voice will be at fuller, fuller strength by then. So later in this episode, we will talk to Michael McClellan, who is an effectively odd listener and also someone who just obtained or is about to obtain his Ph.D. in atmospheric science at MIT. He is a smart guy and he looks at baseball analysis through a meteorological lens and the Rays have just hired him to do that or something for them. So before he disappears and goes to work for the Tampa Bay Rays, we wanted to have him on to talk about science as it relates to baseball. But before that, we are talking to someone whose name you probably know. He is a broadcaster and we want to talk to him about broadcasting and some of the nuances of national versus local calls. And yeah, maybe an obligatory question about facing Barry Bonds. It's Ron Darling. We'll be back in just a second with Ron. In each of our hearts We were a family A darling right from the start

Next week, Major League Baseball returns to TBS Sunday, July 8th at the Braves and Brewers. Ernie Johnson will be in the booth with the call. He'll be joined by Ron Darling. And we are joined by Ron Darling right now. Hey, Ron, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks, Ben and Jeff, for having me.

I appreciate it. Yeah, we are happy to. And we want to ask you about broadcasting and the difference between local and national. And you've done a lot of both of these things over the past 15 years or so. Of course, you've been part of one of the most beloved booths in baseball now

for a dozen years with Keith and Gary, with the Mets, and you've been doing TBS for a long time. You've been with the A's in the past. You've been with the Nationals. I guess we can start by maybe for people who don't know, which is almost everyone listening, how do you prepare for a local broadcast and a national broadcast? When does it start? How does the preparation differ? What sort of meetings are you involved in leading up to a game? That's a great question. Well, with the local broadcast, I prepare all day. I think what we have now because of social media is that it's limitless on what you can read and what you can follow and how to find your information, whether I'm following writers on Twitter and what they have to write for that day, whether I'm on fan graphs or other avenues

to find out information that I need, whether I'm getting notes from Elias Bureau or some information, and then just honestly just reading kind of stats and and different things like that. I don't really use the stats and the analytics, which I pore over during the day. I don't really use them in my broadcast, but I use them as a stepping stone to themes, whether it's launch angles, whether it's exit velocity, whether it's perceived velocity, all of those things I use as themes to discover with Gary and Keith. Now, as far as the postseason broadcast, I think it's completely different. Postseason, I would say this, local broadcast,

you're trying to help weave a 162-game, six-month story. In the postseason, you're trying to stay out of the way of the story. So what I try to do is that I'm doing the same thing I do in a local broadcast, preparing all day. But I think what happened and the nuances of the games prior to the game that we're playing that night are so relevant, so important. The matchups, I think, are huge. And then once I sit in the seat, I try to just get into the minds of both managers and the moves that they're going to make.

I do a lot more of managing in postseason booth than I do during the regular season. So I think one of the questions that at least a lot of our listeners and readers bring up is there's a constant discussion about how often so-called analytics or sabermetrics are discussed in a broadcast. Now, I think that Ben and I both understand even just podcasting, that it can be a mouthful to say some of the acronyms and try to explain some of the numbers. So how have you learned to sort of maybe weave analytical concepts into what you're saying without necessarily being so, I don't know, direct about these statistics that you're using? In short, in general, what is your philosophy in terms of getting complicated concepts out there in listenable sound nuggets? Yeah, I think what we try to do on the local level is try to use every avenue we have within a broadcast.

And what I mean by that, whether it's the young man or young woman who's working the sidelines, can they help us in this? Can the graphics show you the definition of whatever acronym that we're going to use so that the listener and the person watching the game at home can see that while I'm discussing whatever we're discussing? And again, like I said, without boring the listener, especially the one who doesn't like mathematics, I think what we try to do is really talk about how all of these wonderful stats and all these wonderful numbers give us a starting point to talk about something smaller or bigger in the game that'll give us a half inning of content. And so obviously when you're calling a Mets game, you're seeing most of the same players every night. There's maybe more turnover on the Mets roster than most Mets fans would like right

now, but you're generally an expert. You're an authority on whoever's on the field. Now, obviously you're seeing the Braves all the time, too. You're seeing the Brewers sometimes. But the week after that, maybe you're calling Yankees Indians. You're not seeing those teams quite as often. How much preparation is required there? Are you doing more advanced scouting to bring yourself up to speed on players you're not seeing every day? Having been a player yourself, do you make a point of trying to go down to the clubhouse and talk to guys or not so much? Well, you know, I definitely will do that. I will use every avenue I can. One is that, you know, in today's world, which makes it a lot easier, I can watch all their games. So the Braves and Brewers this week, I won't miss a game. I'll watch all their games this week.

It'll give me an indication of how they're playing, who's hot, who's not. They certainly will have a guy that in the numbers wise will tell you that he's 5'4", 45, but the last three games I watched him take at bats and he's spot on. So that watching part will help. Once I get to the ballpark, I will not only talk to the players, coaches, get to the ballpark, I will not only talk to the players, coaches, managers, but I also try to use the most valuable asset that I think I have, and that is the announcers of the home team, the announcers of the away team. Have them give me a state of the union of their team, because they've been watching them all year. They know all the little piccadillos of each player and which one is nursing an injury, even though no one knows about it except them.

Those little things, I think, are invaluable. And then when you get to the manager, let's say this weekend I get to talk to the two managers, the Braves and the Brewers, maybe I go to Brian Snicker and I say, Brian, who's available out of the bullpen today? Who's definitely not available? And I have a relationship with all these guys

that I'll usually get, you know, a complete answer. So when I get in the game and we're trying to do some, you know, pre-guessing or first-guessing, not second-guessing, you know, I can say that so-and-so is really not available in the bullpen. That's why the right hander is facing the left hander. All those things I think are important to let the viewer know what's going on. Like anyone who watches a lot of baseball,

and certainly like anyone who's played a lot of baseball, I'm certain you have a number of opinions. One thing you have that most people don't have is a hell of a platform. You have a wide reach. So how, given that I'm sure you have your own thoughts, this isn't just about the Mets, but I understand that you might think it's about the Mets, but how are you able to sort of determine the extent to which you're willing to editorialize on a broadcast as opposed to just kind of getting out of the way or describing what you're seeing on the field? Yeah, that's an amazing question. I think that there's been a kind of evolvement that's evolved over time on how I feel about those things. And I really, and boy, this is not science what I'm going to tell you, but I trust my gut. You know, if I'm really passionate about something, whether it's really good or really bad,

I trust that that passion means that it's something to talk about. And, you know, you know, if it comes to being critical, no one wants to be critical. When I, when I do a game, I want every Met player to go four for four. I want the ground to throw a no hitter. You know, I want every player to have his career game every time I do a game, but we know that's not going to happen. And so over the course of the game, I try to watch things. And if I'm passionate about someone not hustling or passionate about that, that's a wrong choice in this kind of game. Give me an example. And it's not picking on anyone, but that's had a young pitcher, Chris Flexen,

who was just up and down all season long, and he's a kid that has a lot of talent, and I'm sure he'll be up at some point. But he was pitching an extra inning game with two outs, Justin Turner's up at the plate. He decides to throw an inside slider for your listeners at home. It's taking a slider, starting at the hitter, the right-handed hitter, Turner, and bending it over the inside part of the plate.

It's a tie game, extra innings, two outs. That's a pitch that you have to keep in your pocket. You can't throw. Why is that? Because two outs, Justin Turner is just trying to do one thing. He's trying to hit a home run. He's looking middle of the plate in to get something in the air. So that situation doesn't allow you to call that pitch if you're the catcher and doesn't allow you to throw that pitch if you're a pitcher. Now, if he executes it perfectly, then maybe he does get the strikeout, but it's not a pitch that you can really throw in that circumstance because it favors the hitter who's trying to do something that's out of the norm, and that is to hit an extra inning home run. So it's those kind of things that I'll have passion about that I feel like it's a teachable moment for young players when they're thinking about how to pitch in extra innings. Yeah, and I think that's a good example of an area where your experience allows you to illuminate something that maybe a casual fan doesn't realize as it's happening.

I think one complaint I hear from people is that there are certain guys, and I won't name names either, but you listen to some broadcasts and there's a fine line because you're not necessarily there to be a cheerleader or to be the hype man for a team or a sport, but you also don't necessarily want to hear a torrent of negativity when you tune into a game every day. And I think there are cases where maybe you're hearing about all the problems with baseball and not that they aren't problems, but you know, if someone's fixating on the strikeouts or the homers or whatever it is that distinguishes baseball as it's played today, or you get the, you know, players were better in my day kind of crotchety attitude, that kind of thing can get

tiresome. So I guess you have to find the balance there. I know, listen, you know, I'm an older person. So that's going to be a natural kind of complaint that you get. But I know that there's not one time and I know when I do it, I hate myself for doing it. I never want to sound surlish. I never want to sound grumpy. I mean, at some point, I'm sitting in a booth watching a game and someone pays me for it. I mean, no one has a better life than I have. And I think that, you know, the bottom line is, is that it's such a great game. It's so much fun to watch. And you're right. I think that we talk about this all the time in our production meeting,

is that how do we talk about what we want to talk about in an intellectual way, not a way of, boy, they used to do it like this when I played. I know that there was a lot of things when I played that are not even close to how good they do it now. I know that the athletes that they have now are much better than the athletes I played with. I don't know if they're better baseball players, but they're certainly better athletes than the guys I played with up and down. So those things have to be accounted for, too. It can never be just, boy, it was great when we played.

It wasn't great when we played. It was when we played, whatever that was, just like it is how it is now. And I think that's important to interpret what the game is now, not what the game is in the future, not what the game is in the past, what these guys are having to deal with right now. Now, Ben and I, we've been doing this for a year and a half, but we're on opposite sides of the country. And so when we're interviewing someone, we're just G-chatting. We're G-chatting right now just to talk about what's going on. When you're in a booth, of course, you have the advantage of being there in person.

I don't know how often you're actually looking to your sides instead of just looking at the field straight ahead. But I understand when you're doing a Mets game, you have good developed chemistry with the people you're working with. And when you're doing a national game, maybe a little less so. chemistry with the people you're working with and when you're doing a national game, maybe a little less so, but just in terms of the logistics, you're doing this live. If men and I mess up, we can edit it out. You don't really have that option. So just how do you develop the cues to know who's going to talk when, especially when you have a three-person booth, it can feel a little crowded. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing. I think that there's so much traffic in a three-man booth. What we have in our booth, which makes it a little easier, is that Keith

talks hitting, I talk pitching. So that helps us with queuing when it's our time to go. I've worked in tons of three-man booths and none are as easy as the ones I work with, Keith and Gary, just, you know, I've known Keith since I was 23 years old. I've known Gary since I was 28 years old when he first got the job with the Mets. I probably have more in common with Gary than I do with Keith at times, you know, as far as, you know, things we think about, politics, whatever, you know, things we talk about away from the field. So it's easier with those guys. I think what happens when it's not those guys and what makes it difficult is that I'm assertive in

the booth. And if the person I'm working with, the other analyst is not assertive, then I feel awkward. Who is going to speak? Who's going to be kind of the type A guy in this booth. I don't want to be the type A guy, but I am assertive because I think you can't have dead air when you have to have someone talking about something. You know, if there's a great play in the field, you can't have both analysts looking at each other, was yours or mine or whatever. You've just got to be assertive. And that's the most difficult thing because you can't script it. You never know what's going to happen in the game. And when it's really good, a three-man booth, or when we're really good, when I do the Mets games, it's kind of like

free-form jazz. So it doesn't really matter who's saying the most. It's just that sometimes they have the most to say and you allow them to go, just like you'd let the bass player go or the piano player go if they had their really hot night. That happens. It happens less in the postseason. And that's just because of not as many reps. Yeah. And I was going to ask you, because the Mets booth is part baseball, part buddy comedy. I mean, you guys could do a sitcom spinoff, and I think people would watch. And often the most entertaining parts of those broadcasts are the parts that aren't really related to the insight and analysis and making comparisons to when you were a player. I mean, there's plenty of that, too. But there's also kind of the blowout when no one's even talking about the game

and things just run off the rails a little bit. So did you have to make an adjustment? Again, you've known both of these guys forever, but in terms of going from being the guy who's there to deliver information and analysis and insight, and then learning to at times dial back on that, I guess, and just go with the flow and realize that you're completely off topic and you don't necessarily need to steer it back right away. Yeah, I think that's another thing that's evolved. I think what happened when we started, it was all baseball all the time. And what happens is if you do a team for a long period of time, they're going to have their ebbs and flows, right? They're going to have seasons that are magical, and then they're going to have seasons that are very forgettable.

And I think what has evolved in our booth is that we find when we have those teams that are having those seasons that are forgettable, what are you going to do all summer? Just criticize the play all summer or criticize the players all summer? at some point, I think that's not entertainment for our fans. So that's why you either spend some time talking about some of the great players on the other team, you get off topic. And I think that's more entertaining than just kind of ramming the fans head into the wall about, you know, this is how bad they are because of these reasons or whatever. I think at times, and I wouldn't say this is as bad they are because of these reasons or whatever. I think at times, and I wouldn't say this is as much a criticism as a good thing,

I think at times we are an unbelievable baseball broadcast, and other times I think we're like the Larry Sanders show. And I'm not sure when it comes in and out of that, because it depends on the game and our feel and our producers feel, who I think has had a big influence, Greg Picker, on what we do in our show, whether it's kind of a thing that was going to bastardize the game, that we were going to somehow be making fun of the players because we weren't interested in the game anymore and just going through the baseball cards. But he has a great instinct. And for whatever reason, in blowout games, people love that we're going through baseball cards. So he was right. We were wrong. And now, listen, the one thing that's great about doing broadcasts,

not everyone's going to agree with that. There's some people that wish you would just get back to the game. And I totally, totally understand them and understand that. But more often than not, people still like to be entertained. And that's what we try to do when those games get out of hand. Probably three of the most thankless in ballpark jobs would be umpiring third base coaching and being an announcer. And now you have the advantage of with the Mets belonging to a crew that is, as we've talked about, widely beloved. But of course, you do national broadcasts,

which can have a different feel to them. And you're exposed to people who aren't just Mets loyalists who are watching at that point. I don't know if you ever search your own name on Twitter, but you're a playoff announcer, so you probably shouldn't. I always come to announcers defenses because I can't think about filling three and a half hours of time talking about anything. It just seems like it's a very impossible job. But how would you explain maybe the way in which it is difficult? I know your seasons at this point, but how hard is it to fill up three hours, three and a half hours of a baseball game every single day when you know that if you say something that's – if you misspeak or if you just say something that's flat out wrong, it's going to go on Twitter and it's going to circulate? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I was prepared for this job because at some point I was booed by 55,000 fans at Chase Stadium many times.

So that produces big shoulders. I understand in the postseason that there's two things really working. want and desire and nostalgic for those announcers that were with them all summer long and gave them such great entertainment and wish they were doing the postseason games. I totally understand that. And there's no way that I can know as much about the Chicago Cubs as Len Casper and Jim Deshaies. There's no way. So I understand that also. So that's why I try to stay over my skis or stay in my rails, and that is I try to do the game. I understand that there's little things that happen during the season

that are so subtle and so nuanced that the fan who watches 162 games will certainly know that I won't know. And I think that's amazing because that's what makes great fans. But at the same time, when I'm doing postseason games, I don't really worry about that stuff. And, you know, not that it's not important to me. I mean, everyone wants to be liked and everyone wants to, you know, everyone to be happy. I mean, literally, I leave some ballparks in postseason when teams get swept. And from my booth to the car is a gauntlet of hate that you'll never, ever witness before. And I know where it comes from.

And and but you know what? Like I said, I was you know, I've been through that. I've had people boo me off a mound. So I don't take it personal. I understand their passion. I understand, you know, I did a series where the Cubs, I think, were beaten 10 times in a row in the postseason where I did the games. I did in 2008, 2009, where they were swept twice,

and then the Mets swept them. So that's 10 straight postseason games that I was announcer where the Cubs did not win a game. So that puts me in a really bad place. But you know what? It's just part of what it is. So I just try to concentrate on being prepared, making sure that in game I'm doing as good a job as I can do.

And as soon as the game's done, I let it go, just like I did when I was a pitcher. After you're done and if you've given up five runs in five innings, it feels horrible. But at the same time, you just have to let it go because four days later, or in this case, as an announcer, one day later, you got to come back and do it again. i understand their passion i really do and i know um that that comes with some vitriol and i and i know that too but uh you know um that's uh that's part of it and that's why uh you know i always used to say when uh when fans would get you know pretty mean about your performance that's you know kind of why kind of why you were given this job is because you can handle it. And that's how I feel about doing the postseason.

So last one for me, we've been talking a bunch lately about pitcher hitting and DHing and AL versus NL. And you, of course, played in the NL and AL. You've called NL and AL games. We've also talked about the difference between eras. And've called NL and AL games. We've also talked about the difference between eras. And some people think that 80s baseball, when you came up, was the best brand of baseball, that it was the most balanced. And of course, now I'm kind of setting you up to say things were better in my day, I guess, after we said that you don't like to do that. But do you find that there's more to talk about or that you are thinking more about strategy when you're calling an AL or NL game? Or do you find that there is more or less to talk about strategically today

than there might have been during your day or even when you started calling games, which was a while ago and a different brand of baseball then too? Yeah, it really has. I think it's changed just in the number of years that I've done games. This is my 13th with the Mets, so definitely the game has changed in that small time. Certainly, people, my friends in the booth is that because of the game and the game has evolved into less action than there's ever been, it gives people like me or announcers more time to say stuff than we've ever had. And when you think about it, because there's such a, a lapse in action in between stuff. And, but I try not to forget, because then I'll be doing a Cubs game and Joe Maddon will suicide squeeze

or he'll hit and run or he'll do some stuff. So you still have managers in the game that have embraced everything that is new about the game, but at some point, because of how they grew up and they're old enough to remember, they can pull a fast one on teams because a certain team has not seen it in such a long time. As far as the postseason is concerned with National League, American League, the starting pitcher has so much less to say about what goes on in the game now

than in the history of the game. So if he gets two at-bats in a postseason game, a National League pitcher, that's huge. So I think after that happens, the American League and National League game is kind of the same. You know, double switches, you know, all those things are kind of easy for me to cover. But the postseason to me has become, and this probably happened two, three years ago, you can go all the way back to La Russa, but I think when Francona for the Indians started bringing out Miller in the third and fourth inning,

you saw it a lot last year with Dave Roberts and the Dodgers, is that you have to start managing the bullpen as a manager or a guy in the booth once you hit the second and third time to the lineup. And that's something that has completely changed from when I first started. It would be, okay, let me keep my eyeballs on the starting pitcher, see how well he's doing, and then proceed from there. Now he could throw three no-hit innings, and the next thing you know, there's a relief pitcher coming in.

So that's something that's really changed. And so if you don't have as much action on the field, you don't, you know, you have the three outcomes. But the one thing that has become more relevant and prevalent is the guys coming out of the bullpen at such a large number every game. And that you have to be on top of. So last question we will ask, and this is something that's sort of obligatory whenever we talk to someone who used to pitch. Now, you probably know this, but you are second among all pitchers historically, and number of times striking out Tony Gwynn. That's not the hitter we want to ask you about, but got to ask you, one of the other ways in which you were fortunate is that of all the times that

you faced Barry Bonds, you got him just a little before his peak, but nevertheless, you did face Barry Bonds 45 times. He got you, he didn't get you. It goes back and forth. What are your memories of having faced a very young Barry Bonds? I remember when he first came up, he was batting leadoff for the Pirates in those days. You hear a lot about 5-2 players. You very rarely see 5-2 players. It's usually hyperbole. They're usually 3.5-2 players or whatever. Barry was the first 5-2 player that I saw. And I played with Strawberry,

but Strawberry was never going to hit for high average. He was always going to be a 270 guy, but more of a slugger. Barry looked like the real deal from day one, especially with the speed. I'm lucky that he hit his second home run in the major leagues off me, not his first, which was off Craig McMurtry, because then when he broke the record, I didn't have to see my face

giving up the home run all the time. But I will tell you an interesting story about Barry. So I pitched against him early in his career, very difficult out. I had some success. He had some success. But once he got traded to San Francisco, I was traded to the Oakland A's, where he signed as a free agent. I was traded to the Oakland A's, and we played that Bay Bridge series. And Barry, when he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, would always take the first pitch. He was just like that. Maybe in an RBI situation, he might jump on one pitch, but he always liked to see that first pitch. So he could really just throw it down the middle with him early in his career.

So we get to the Bay Bridge series. Somehow the first two guys get on and Barry comes up and I throw it down the middle and he hits a three run home run. So he runs around the bases. Luckily, luckily this doesn't count on the ERA. It's kind of spring training game. So I get my work in over five, six innings or whatever. And I go out to the parking lot after the game and Barry's out there with friends. And as I'm walking by, and of course we know each other, I said, Hey, Barry, he goes,

Hey, Ronnie, I don't take that first pitch anymore. It was like, Oh my God, you're right. You're so right. But it shows how he had transformed as a player, and then I did not get the memo. Speaking of hitters, all-around hitters you faced a lot. You faced Tim Raines more than any other hitter in your career, and he faced you more than any other pitcher except for Fernando Valenzuela. And somehow you held Tim Raines to a 646 OPS in 99 plate appearances. That is pretty impressive. Well, Tim Raines and Ryan Sandberg, I think, are the two guys that I faced the most in my career.

And I don't know how I didn't totally blow up. It's just those guys got your attention. You always had the bear down on those two guys. And if you're going to be successful, you've got to be able to get the big hitters out. But they always were an incredible test, especially Rock. Rhino, because of his incredible power but uh rock of course because of of so many things he could do

to beat you and let's not forget you know as a hitter you did i'm just looking right now you know you only had the two career home runs but back-to-back starts i mean well that's gotta be the career highlight well i always say it wasn't really i guess for the hitting it's a career highlight but i know in 88 i had a really good year i don't know how many hits i had but i was hoping that somehow i'd come out with a silver slugger but my ex-roommate tim leary i think got it that year so at least we kept it in the apartment but um uh that was probably my best year with the bat but i always say to people when they say you had two home runs in the major leagues i said yeah but they were back to back So that tells you a lot of dry times.

So I was more of a classic ex-player, ex-athlete who had warning track power. That really was my strength as a major league hitter. Would you say you're prouder of the two home runs, the two triples, or the one stolen base? I think the two triples because the stolen base I could always steal. They just wouldn't let me steal. I pinch ran a dozen or so times in my rookie season and I think a dozen times in my second season. But I knew I could always steal.

They just wouldn't let me. But the two triples, because I remember I had one in Wrigley and Buddy Harrelson was the third base coach. And I hit a triple, got the third base, and I was just standing there. And Buddy congratulated me. And he goes, I have to ask you a question. And I said, what? He goes, you're not breathing hard.

And I said, what do you mean? He goes, you just ran a triple. Every player that hits a triple is breathing hard when they come to third. I said, I'm a pitcher. All I do is run every single day. I mean, this is my strength. And he thought that was so funny. All right.

Well, Ron Darling can pitch. He can hit. He can run. Or at least he could do all of those things. And now he can broadcast locally and nationally and write books. He does it all in every medium. And you can catch him on TBS every week starting next Sunday. And, of course, throughout the playoffs where you can catch all the American League games. And he is on SNY as an analyst, he's on MLB Network as an analyst. He is very easy to find, and we are happy that we found him today. Thanks, Ron. Well, thank you, guys. This was a

great interview. I really, really liked it. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, so we will take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Michael McClellan, who, again, is about to be a Tampa Bay Rays front office analyst. Just a quick note, when Michael mentions John Chenier and David Hesslink, those are both members of the Seattle Mariners front office. John Chenier, effectively while listener, longtime official stat keeper of the podcast, as well as Sonoma Stomper's assistant.

And David Hesslink was our guest on episode 1224. So just so you know, when those names come up, who Michael is referring to. We'll be back in just a sec. Everywhere you go, I'll always take the weather with you. Everywhere you go, I'll always take the weather. Everywhere you go, I'll always take the weather with you. Everywhere you go, I'll always take the weather, the weather with you Everywhere you go You always take the weather

The weather with you All right, so for the second time in as many weeks, we are joined now by someone who is about to disappear from the public eye because he is about to start working for a Major League Baseball team. In this case, a team that doesn't tend to employ people who talk to the press, much to my dismay. But we are getting our licks in with him here because he is joining us now. It's Michael McClellan. He is technically still a PhD candidate in atmospheric science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science at MIT, although he has just successfully defended his PhD. So it's only a

matter of time now. Michael, hello. Welcome. Hello, Ben. Hello, Jeff. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I am glad that we can. And it has to be now or never because you are about to head down to Florida to start working for the Tampa Bay Rays as an analyst in the R&D department. And we know that even if you knew what you were going to be doing for the raise, you couldn't tell us in any great detail. But as you were just telling me, you don't seem to have that much clearer a sense of what you'll be doing than I do. Yeah, well, you know, as part of the interview process and sort of going down there, what I was told the sort of final line was, you know, we'll worry more about the details when you get down here. And I've taken that to heart. I focused focused on my PhD and as I told you guys before we came on

came on the air here it sort of feels like my brain has gone through a food processor in the few months leading up to my defense and I am slowly pouring that back into my head and figuring out what I need to do next so I don't think I would have been had the capacity to think too much more about anything specific with baseball even if I had tried. So you just got or are about to get your PhD in atmospheric science. And I know because you wrote about it that your dream initially was to be a research meteorologist. And you were a kid, you were tracking hurricanes on a laminated world map

you wrote. So how did you get from that to now going to work for a baseball team? Yeah, so it has been quite an adventure. And I would say that, you know, all the sort of origin story aside of being just utterly fascinated by lightning and by hurricanes, tornadoes, I realized that actually getting out in the field and doing meteorological research, not sure if that's what I wanted to do. I definitely didn't want to be a TV meteorologist and so I ended up going through the process of undergrad to grad school, figuring out exactly what I wanted to do, and sort of fell in love

with chemistry along the way. And so the research that I've done at MIT has mixed chemistry and atmospheric science in that it's all about tracking the emissions of greenhouse gases. So how did I get from that to baseball? It's still quite a huge leap. And it was in 2015, still quite a huge leap. And it was in 2015, December 2015, I was just reading, browsing MIT News websites. And at MIT, people have a class ring. It's very iconic. You'll see if someone is wearing a ring and it has a beaver on it, they went to MIT. And I think the title was something like trading in his brass rat, so that's the name of the ring, for a World Series ring. And I learned that John Williams, so he is working in the front office of the Royals, where I grew up in Independence, Missouri. He was in my department in 2008, left with a master's, decided to stop studying tropical meteorology

and go on to go work for the Royals after showing up at the winter meetings, handing out resumes, and finding a job ultimately. And so I knew he was there, I was going to be home for winter break, and I just sent him a cold email saying, I saw the article about you, I have no idea if you have any free time or even if you live in Kansas City over the winter, but if you're around to grab coffee, do you think you could do that? And very quickly got back with an enthusiastic yes. And that was really the start. I learned how someone went from atmospheric science to baseball research, especially as it applied to really furthering a team, a team's goals, their research, their sort of insights into the game.

And I realized that it was definitely a possible path because someone else had already blazed that trail in front of me. So in at least this one way, you are very similar to Mike Trout. I don't know yet about how valuable you'll be to your baseball team. But so can you say a little more about what the process was like to actually getting hired? You know, you talked about how you got in touch and I saw you at the Sabre seminar just last August. But, you know, there's a difference between meeting someone and expressing a certain amount of interest and actually getting a job. So to whatever extent it's possible, can you speak to what the hiring process from start to finish was actually like? Certainly. Yeah. And I also remember that it was at Mead Hall for the annual Fangraphs meetup. And actually, the first person I met was Ryan Watt.

And then upon talking to him, I just offhand mentioned that I had to go over into a corner and fill out the registration form for our intercollegiate competitive weather forecasting team. And he said, that's something that Jeff is going to want to hear about. And so he pointed you out to me and I went over and introduced myself. And I think we talked about microclimates near mountains. And if I had any insight into how to forecast weather in those kinds of microclimates, I didn't say anything, I think, profound at that moment. But it was definitely a fun conversation. And I don't know

about you, Jeff, but having the opportunity to talk about something that was not baseball at an all baseball event might have been a good break. And so I really enjoyed that. And I would say that the biggest step in me getting a job, and this is advice that I can give out to anyone who is out there right now, you know, thinking about how do I translate what I'm working on into a job in baseball? The resume drop at Sabre Seminar was what really did it. And I can't suggest enough to people to get to Sabre Seminar. If you're a student and do the student resume drop, that's a really great way to just have

some conversations with people. And if you're not in a place where you're looking for a job, and at that point, I actually wasn't. I thought I was gonna be in my PhD for a little bit while longer. I still thought that I might try to swing going back to NASA after I had a summer internship at Goddard Space Flight Center. That didn't pan out, the project got canceled. And so it sort of left me with,

well, this is something that was feasible. Enough people wanted to talk to me about what I was working on, and some sort of really initial research that culminated in a few Fangraphs community research posts and a few posts on Banish to the Pen. And it was that, I would say that was the real turning point, having those contacts in the front offices that everyone I met, I could, you know, reach out to later that fall and say, actually, I'm thinking about a job. I saw that you actually have a posting. You know, we talked

for an hour or so. You know, this is me saying this to any of the front office members that I spoke with. Do you foresee, you know, sort of a need that I could fill? And it was out of that that I sort of had some some long-standing conversations with the Rays especially with Will Cousins so he was a postdoc at MIT with Peko Hosoi I was working with her for quite a few years and actually through her helped I wouldn't say collaborate in that maybe I read a draft once and gave a few comments but to former podcast guest David Hessling. That was his undergrad research advisor. And so through her, through David, who was, as we learned quite a few episodes ago, was an intern at the Rays, Will being at the Rays. It just seems to be that

everything was coming up Rays. So just as a quick question, then how did friends and family and peers respond to the fact that you were going to work in baseball after completing your PhD? Because as you've talked about, this wasn't really the goal. All the way through PhD, long program, you probably had your sights set on something entirely different. So what was the response? I think this can be pretty well captured by my grandpa's response. So, you know, even him being a baseball fan and him, you know, being supportive of, you know, everything I've done throughout the time. You know, thinking about grad school, even, you know, back in undergrad, you know, all the sort of different things I was working on. It's not that anyone, you know, thinks I'm making a mistake or a bad choice. But it is some

puzzlement of how does this mesh? How do you take what you're working on and try to use that to find any sort of insights that teams could use? And ultimately, how I've explained it is that in thinking about what I could do next, quite a few things would be some sort of research postdoctoral position where, you know, I would be continuing something I was working on or maybe even shifting gears and trying something new. But ultimately, you know, I'd be working for someone for a year or two on something that wasn't necessarily my project. And at the moment, I felt like having some credible opportunities in baseball, I would regret forever, I think, if I didn't at least give it a try.

Whereas there's not a single kind of research position, postdoc out there, that I've just been eyeing forever and would love to take on. And so, yeah, it is an open question. And I think that a lot of questions I've had have centered around, well, don't the Rays play in a stadium with a dome? You know, what kind of meteorology are you going to be doing for them? And, you know, that gives me an opportunity to talk about the difference between methods and the topics that I might be working on. But, you know, that is a good question that it's not a clear path at all.

But in sort of a similar way, I would say that once again, I'm not exactly blazing a trail. I have the distinction of not being the first, but the second person to work with Professor Deborah Gross at Carleton College on air pollution and environmental chemistry, go on to get a PhD, and then go work for a baseball team. The first person to do that is a frequently mentioned friend of this podcast, John Chenier, whom I am planning on meeting in just a few days. We never actually met in person, but I am on a post-PhD, eight-city, 10-day trip to go knock

eight ballparks off my lifetime list so that way I can show up at the trop and have that be number 30. Yeah, I'll ask you about that at the end. Certainly. So there's a long history of people with scientific training, either dabbling in baseball or getting so bewitched by baseball that they end up working in that field full time. And you're not even the first person in the public to have a meteorology background in that Clay Davenport, one of the founders of Baseball Prospectus, did a lot of meteorology work, still does, I believe. And I think he was working on models for predicting rainfall using satellite data or imagery. And I know he was interviewed about this once, and he said, the biggest similarity between handling the two types

of statistics is that they each involve making forecasts that are there for everyone to see, and you end up being wrong a lot. You learn to develop a thick skin. Other than that, what are some of the ways in which these fields overlap? You have written a couple posts for Banished to the Pen about projecting baseball like a meteorologist, which I'll link to, but can you summarize in terms of the techniques that you use and some of the principles? How is forecasting weather like or unlike forecasting baseball? Yeah, I think that this is a sort of interesting field in that there have been a lot of advances recently in meteorology in very much the same way you can think about, you know, sort of advances in baseball research. So, you know, we might have StatCast, for example, in baseball,

but for meteorology, we might have the new GOES-16 satellite that is a brand new era of weather satellites that's bringing in data at a much higher spatial resolution, time resolution, and taking some measurements that we've never had in semi-real time ever, you know, covering at least continental North America. And it's really, I would say the fundamental thing that I really enjoy about the two is thinking about how to include rigorous aspects of physics and mechanics into the kinds of forecasts and predictions we make. In a rush, for example, whenever I don't have time during our WX Challenge intercollegiate

competitive weather forecasting competition, I just take a look at the sort of the pre-computed forecasts and do some kind of statistics to it. All right, you know, it's been cold biased by two degrees over the last week. So I think the trend is going to continue because the winds are the same. And I'm essentially using statistics on what has happened before to argue for what I think is going to happen in the future. And that may be fine, but it may be a complete bust. Similarly, if I have a lot of time,

I can take a look at all the underlying pieces that play into what is going to happen with the weather. So one huge aspect of forecasting the weather, a very important aspect of forecasting, is to look at what is happening at the high altitude level. So the 500 millibar level or about the height at which the atmospheric pressure is half of that the surface. That tells us the winds up there, the temperatures up there, give us a lot of really important information as to what might happen in the

next day or two. Those are the kinds of drivers that actually move hurricanes and move large-scale high and low pressure systems that you'll see on any standard weather forecast, you know, the big L and the H. Those of us who have some training and can interpret those a little bit, there's a lot of very useful physical information packed into those maps that a lot of people, you know, may never even pay any attention to. So with the wealth of data available, coming up with a rigorous way to include it in what we're working on, not only going forward, but also looking backward as to how did we do knowing what we knew at a specific time.

And if you can sort of do these hindcasts to, or reanalyses, depending on sort of what the goal is, there's a lot of useful information in knowing how you messed up because it might point to why you've messed up and you can make better forecasts going forward. You've mentioned that you don't know exactly what you're going to be doing with the Rays when you join them, but do you get the sense that the Rays know what they want you to do when you join them, or is this more, do you think that this is more an opportunity for them to see someone

who is not only interested in baseball, but also coming from a very smart background and a very data-oriented background and just figuring, well, we have a person and we're going to find a role for him. I know I understand you probably can't actually answer this question, but I've already asked it. So now the panel goes to you. All right. that, no, I can't really answer the question, but I would say that to the extent that it is unclear what I'm going to be doing, I think that it is probably purposefully unclear what I'm doing, so that there might be some opportunity to, you know, breathe some new ideas that maybe haven't been thrown around or haven't been explored fully. And who knows, they may come from all kinds of different aspects of what I've worked on in the past. But maybe there's some tidbit of

something from my weather forecasting competition that, you know, I'll get down there and realize once I have my fingers on the keyboard and can see all the underlying data, there may be something really neat to try out that is pretty simple that just hasn't been done before. So I know you're interested in all aspects of how physics and baseball intersect. What are some of the areas where you find that the most fascinating? And I'm curious about home runs and the ball specifically, because you once wrote a piece for Fangraphs, the community blog there, about how wobble in the baseball might affect fly ball distance and the home run raid. And you've written about humidors. I'm sure you followed the recent MLB report, some of the mystery around why the ball has been flying farther now that it has been established that it is.

But there's still something of an has been established that it is, but there's still something of an open question about why it is. So to the extent that you can talk about that or tell us about any other interesting ways in which your physics training can be brought to bear in baseball, tell us all about it. Yeah, absolutely. This is something, there's something about the ball that is just so interesting and I would say that two of the most fascinating reads I've had recently have been Rob Arthur's piece where they did the CT scan of the the balls and looked at the at the guts of them to see what had changed and then another recent post I can't remember you all might be able to help me here but where the ball was taken apart and the thickness of the fibers that were in it were measured.

Right. Meredith Wills wrote that one for The Athletic. Yeah. I believe that she was at Sabre Seminar last year, too, and I believe I met her there. And I think that we had an interesting conversation about also transitioning from academia to baseball. So we'll see where she ends up. But maybe this is getting back to, you know, sort of the wonder of being a kid and playing with something like Legos or, you know, any kind of hands-on experience. You know, for example, just a year ago, I used a drill press for the first time, and I absolutely loved doing it. So maybe I missed out on my calling as a mechanical engineer or a materials engineer. But that is what drives my huge interest in the ball.

It plays such a central role in all of the different pieces, every play, every aspect of the game of baseball. It's, you know, the ball is even in the name of the sport. And I think that there are a lot of opportunities for further study out of that MLB report. I'm not sure that any particular team will embark on any of those, but this is where I'm really hoping that the sort of larger community and especially somewhat outsiders, like two of the people that I've worked closely with, Alan Nathan and Pekka Hosoi, both of whom were on that ball committee, I'm really hoping that there can be a continuation of those types of pieces that get out there in the public, because those are the

things I love to read. And who knows, maybe someone like David Hesslink maybe some undergrad at MIT on the baseball team will start doing research with Peko and we'll be able to take that work even further I'd love to see some of that in the final final few sections of that of that report I was really happy to see that some of the ideas that I put together in that Fangraphs community blog piece about mass distribution of the baseball and how that could impact its flight. While I focused on angular momentum versus linear momentum, and they were looking at drag, changes in drag, if the mass distribution isn't perfectly centered in the center of the baseball. It seemed like there were some similar conclusions that we all drew from the report and then from my piece,

that it's very possible that what has happened is a benevolent change to the baseball, an improvement in manufacturing processes that have just made them more uniform and more perfect that has had an unintended consequence. And I think it's a really important piece of the storyline to highlight there that sometimes good things have unintended consequences, and this may be one of them. And I can't wait to see what happens next. And I can't wait to see more people take apart baseballs and see if they can find what's, what's changed and what's making them behave differently.

That's a, that's going to be you. That's what the Rays are going to have you do, take apart the baseballs. So you, you mentioned Alan Nathan, we're talking baseball and science. So you have to mention Alan Nathan. He is, he's the public, he's the face of baseball science. Anyway, so you're coming from grad school and you're coming from an area where there is ample peer review. It's built right into the system. You are, in a sense, public facing and your research is reviewed and critiqued and absorbed by your peers in the field, if not your superiors, at least your colleagues. Now you go work for a baseball team and no matter what you're doing, it's going to be kept in-house almost certainly. And I don't know if you're

going to be doing meteorology, but you might be the only PhD meteorologist who works for the Rays. So how do you feel about going from more of a sort of open source environment to joining an organization where no matter what you're doing, it's pretty much all closed up? Yeah. So I'm maybe, I'm not maybe the best person to sort of extol the virtues of peer review and the openness of science. There's a sort of a reason that I'm, I looked elsewhere, was looking in different positions. And one of them is that, you know, I find that some aspects of that are pretty closed off. So when it is peer review, but it's sort of two people that are randomly assigned to read your manuscript, and one person says, published as is, it's perfect,

and the other person says, this is garbage, it should never go out into the public eye, it's really difficult. I find that difficult to sort of square up with the idea of openness and of, you know, sharing information and really holding each other accountable to high standards of science. That being said, I think there have been some changes recently in the sort of way that happens with new open source journals where anyone can comment on draft works. So maybe things are changing.

That may ruffle a few feathers in some of the denizens of the high floors of the ivory tower of academia. But I am excited to sort of get back to what I experienced in my summer of 2016 being an intern at NASA, where it was my job to plan operations for a flight mission. So the idea was that we would fly planes over West Africa underneath satellites that were going overhead to calibrate the sensors that we have on board a plane compared to the maybe one or two sensors on a satellite of interest. So that way in the future, when we aren't flying planes,

how can we have better understanding of air quality in West Africa? And I loved being able to think about operations from the standpoint of, all right, I've got to go figure out what countries do we have airspace agreements with? What, you know, I've got to go figure out what countries do we have airspace agreements with? What are the conditions? What are the altitudes and speeds that these planes can fly? And those are the kinds of things that would never, no one needs to peer review that. It's pushing forward a shared mission. And that's a piece of the puzzle that will never go out to the public, but it's a crucial piece in making sure that everything else goes smoothly and what we ultimately put forward is a good product.

And I see some similarities in being on a team and contributing in my own way without my name attached or without everything going out into the public on a baseball team, just like being the sort of 10th person on a flight plan for a NASA mission. So I'm sort of excited to still work on science and engineering type problems in the industry, but maybe not in the same way that I've been doing it the last few years. So really, from the first moment that I started learning about sabermetrics and getting interested in it, I had these parallels with baseball kind of come unbidden to my mind just in daily life. I'll read something that is not at all related to baseball, and it will make me think about

baseball in some way, or I'll think that there is some way in which people think about baseball that maybe is analogous or that is helpful in thinking about this other subject and vice versa. I would imagine that that happens to you too. So can you think of any examples that we haven't touched on where either you're working on non-baseball science and you think this is like baseball. There is a baseball concept that's applicable here. Or the other way around. Now that you're working on baseball, you think I studied something that now I can apply to this sport. Yeah, I would say that the biggest thing that comes to mind for me, and it's a very recent example, so that may be why it's so fresh.

why it's so fresh, but in the playoffs of our WX Challenge weather forecasting competition, how it works is the team submits a consensus forecast. So all of the members of our team put it together. We put together what we think is going to happen for the city that we're forecasting. And ultimately, it's up to us to determine the best way to submit one number, one high temperature, one low temperature, one max wind speed, and one amount of precipitation that represents our entire team's thought process. And so, you know, I was sitting there thinking, well, what if we took some sort of weighted average of the past contributions, you know, the scores that everyone had from the previous days, and then add in some sort of factor that has to do with how certain we are in the forecast that we've done. And I just couldn't help but sit there and think of how many sort of wins above replacement our different

forecasters are. I know that that's not, you know, sort of a new concept of thinking about skill in terms of those kinds of things, but I was just thinking, what if we had a leaderboard, a war leaderboard for us at MIT on our weather forecasting competition? I wonder what would have happened. Similarly, I think that there's been on the podcast recently a listener that said that they have started incorporating the concepts of TOPS plus or any sort of stat that references one's own performance. And those kinds of ideas, I think, are incredibly powerful in figuring out in any type of events, any situation, where a person is contributing the most.

So tell us about your ballpark tour. How long did it take you to get to 30 or how long will it have taken you when you do get to 30? Is this all 30 active parks or have you seen some that are no longer around that you still have to check off newer parks off your list? This is kind of in direct contravention of the stereotype that stat heads don't actually go to games and like baseball. So tell us about checking off the ballparks off your list. Certainly. So clearly growing up near Kansas City, I have been to

uncountable number of Royals games. In fact, I think I struggle to remember, but there's good reason. I was so young. I think that one of my first memories involves a Royals game. Not the game at all. I can't tell you anything about the game or even about the fireworks. But we got home and we were in the driveway and my dad slammed my hand in the door. And that's what I remember of being about three years old and having my hand slammed in the car door. So that was the start, the start of my 30 ballpark tour.

I have not, there are not any gaps right now in active ballparks. So it's not like I've seen an old one, but I've been missing the new one. I did go to Target Field, but I had also previously been to the Metrodome. So I don't count that as two. I count that as one plus on my map that I have in my office back at MIT. But right now I'm in Cupertino, California, getting ready to meet one of my friends who works at Amazon after he gets off his shift. And then we're going to end up going to Giants game tomorrow. So that's going to be another ballpark off my list. And

that's one that I've been to. I've been to the stadium, but I've never actually seen a game. And so right now I sit at 16. So this was my post-PhD trip, sort of a gift to myself and a way to sort of clear my head before I move on to the next steps. And I'm going to be hitting eight stadiums in this 10-day span so it's going to involve a going to Giants game tomorrow driving to Oakland to see a game they're going to LA to see a Dodgers game going to San Diego to see a Padres game driving all the way back to San Francisco flying to Phoenix to see a Diamondbacks game flying to Dallas to see a Rangers game flying to Houston to see an Astros game and then finally flying to Seattle to see a Marinros game, and then finally flying to Seattle to see

a Mariners game, but also to see David Hesslink and John Chenier. Then back to Boston, where I will be hopefully putting the finishing touches on my thesis and getting it in soon. And then that only leaves a smattering of ballparks that I have left, and I'm going to hit them all before I actually start with the Rays. So the goal is walk on day one at the Trop, and that's going to be ballpark number 30, seeing a game there. I think that over the years, a lot of people have gone to see the Royals and come away with a sensation of having a hand slammed in the door. It's more or less the same thing. So people love opinions.

People love talking about stadiums. You've been to half of them so far, a little more than half of them. What stadium that you've been to has left you with the strongest impression, be that positive or negative? Or actually, to customize this question on the fly, stadium with the most positive impression for whatever reason and stadium with the most negative impression. Don't be afraid to offend.

We are not affiliated with the stadiums. All right. Well, best stadium I've been to, and this one stands head and shoulders above everything else. Actually, PNC Park in Pittsburgh was my favorite experience. And it was staying in a hotel nearby, walking across the Roberto Clemente Bridge. There were just food trucks. I got a hot dog and walked across it.

And then I was stopped by someone on the street who saw my Royals hat and said, you know, I've never even been to Kansas City. But in 2014, I just wanted them to beat the Giants so much that I became a Royals fan. So here, let me buy you a beer. So I got a free beer before I even walked into the park. And then just the sort of atmosphere. Part of it was that the weather was phenomenal, but also the views to outfield at PNC Park, I just thought were amazing. And so that was

a real highlight for me. I don't know if this has to do as much with the stadium. It may have just been the day I went, but I went to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and it was a scorcher. It might have been 8 p.m. It was a night game. It might have been, you know, 8 p.m. It was a night game. It might have been 8 p.m. and still 95 degrees. And all the concession stands were closed except the ones that were serving hamburgers. And I just, I didn't feel like eating a hamburger in 90 degree heat. And so I ended up leaving early and going to the Victory Brewery taproom nearby and just seeing the rest of the game there. It was so much better of an experience. I was there with my dad, and we just sat there and drank beer instead of sweating and sweating at 9 p.m. So beer seems to

be ultimately the thread here between all these stadiums. But yeah, both of the extremes that I've had have been in the state of Pennsylvania. All right. I am glad that we got this chance to talk to you before we lost the chance to talk to you. And I hope that you find success with the Rays, that you figure out what it is that you'll be doing there. And I have no doubt that you will and that you'll find ways to contribute. I have no doubt that you will and that you'll find ways to contribute. I kind of hope that maybe you'll get this out of your system and you'll come back and you'll fix global warming and maybe take over the EPA or something. We could use you there too. Well, thank you so much. My career goal, my initial career goal, if I were to set one,

when I did set my career goals two years ago, was to become the administrator of NASA or NOAA. And so, yeah, maybe those are still in the cards. Who knows? I might have another act in my career yet. But I'm really looking forward to putting all of my heart into this next chapter with the Rays to see where it takes me. So thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, it was great that we could thread the needle here with my limited media availability. So thank you so much for having me on. NASA administrator, that position was vacant for quite some time. You missed your chance, I think. I believe you already have more scientific training than the new NASA administrator, so you may be the best candidate for the job. And I should also mention that I

believe you'll be the first member of an MLB front office who is also an alum of Banished to the Pen. That's banishedtothepen.com, the site started by Effectively Wild listeners, which is always looking for writers. And you were one of those writers briefly. I was. And how I got involved was by looking at the Facebook group and emailing contact at banished to the pen.com. And that's contact at banished to the pen.com. And very quickly, I was put on, I was given a WordPress login, and I was given the opportunity to put some ideas I had some random thoughts into a semi organized fashion that I hope at least a few people read. I know for a fact that I have at least three retweets on one of my articles on Banish the Pen.

So some eyeballs have at least been on the header of that page. Yes, my eyeballs certainly have. All right. Well, so join the Facebook group, write for Banish the Pen, and you will get a job offer from a Major League Baseball team. That seems like the way it works. Yep. Could be correlation, not causation.

Yeah, that's how it works. Okay. Don't sue me if it doesn't work. Well, usually this is where I would say that you can find so-and-so here or there. But in this case, you cannot unless you have the password to the Ray's office where they keep the army of R&D analysts, most of whom you've never heard of by design. But I will link to the work of yours that is out there so people can get a sense of what we'll be missing. And thanks again, Michael, and good luck. I really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for chatting with me. And yeah, I can't wait to see the next article that somebody writes about taking apart baseballs. So if that comes out, you'll know I read it. All right, that will do it for today. So thanks to Ron, thanks to Michael, and thanks to Jeff's Immune System for cooperating. You can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to keep the podcast going jake winship ben clemens chris wiki rob haverkamp and alex mchale thanks to all of you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild

on itunes thanks to dylan higgins for his editing assistance. And please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastofangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We will get to your emails tomorrow. Talk to you then. Choirs and tales of promises and pleasant There's a tale of why and why The uneasy time to come And the long way round we go together Three, two, one Hello and welcome to episode... Er, wait, no, that was wrong. Hello and welcome to episode, or wait, no, that was wrong. Hello and welcome to effectively, whoa.

No, you were at the first time. I've forgotten how to do, did I? Yeah, right? Episode, wait, what do I say? Episode, you say hello and welcome to episode number. Oh, I made the mistake of thinking about it as I was saying it. It's got to be reflex and habit or else it all goes wrong. Yeah, you're just like a hitter in the box.

Don't think about it. Yeah, don't overthink it. Okay. There's been one voice noticeably absent from the Beatles, that of George Harrison. Here's why. If there's anything that you want

If there's anything I can do Oh, we shouldn't laugh, George. It's awfully rough. I think I should just add that the programme that you're listening to has been recorded and we're actually talking to you from a few weeks ago.

So if you were by any chance thinking of seeing the Beatles in action perhaps tonight, there George will be. Large as life and twice as beautiful. Right? Pardon? On with the music.