Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1353: The Show Goes On

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

In a bonus episode of EW, Ben Lindbergh talks to SABR’s Jacob Pomrenke about the centennial of the notorious 1919 White Sox, SABR’s new “Eight Myths Out” project, the persistent misconceptions about why the Black Sox threw the 1919 World Series, whether the scandal could have stayed secret, the complicated legacy of Eight Men Out, […]

I want something extra tonight, baby. Give me something extra. Do I want it? Yes, I do. I got one. I want two. Give me something extra tonight. Hello and welcome to episode 1353 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, and I'm all alone, but not for long. This is a bonus episode of Effectively Wild. There are a couple of interviews I wanted to do, but this is the week of opening day, so there's only so much time. Just had to put out an extra podcast. So this episode is going to be a combination of two interviews, first something old, then something new. This podcast is going up on the release day of MLB The Show 19, the latest installment in the long-running video game series. So I'm marking the occasion by talking to Ramon Russell, who works on the game,

about what's new in this year's edition and some of the behind-the-scenes considerations that go into the series. I will also be joined for that segment by Paul Sporer of Fangrass, and he and I will talk a bit before we bring Ramon on about baseball video games in general. But before that, 2019 is the centennial of the Black Sox scandal, and so there's been a lot of conversation in recent days surrounding a project that Sabre has just completed called 8 Myths Out. It's a summary of some of the new research, some of the new facts that have come to light about the Black Sox scandal, and some debunkings of the more persistent untruths about what happened. And I wanted to talk a bit about that project, about some of the misconceptions you may have about the Black Sox scandal if you were weaned on eight men out. So without any further bloviating by me, let me bring in my first guest, Jacob Pomeranke. He is the director of editorial content at Sabre, and he has directed

some excellent editorial content recently on the Black Sox, and he's here to talk about it. Hey, Jacob. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me on. I was going to ask you if you were tired of talking about the Black Sox yet, but I know the answer to that question. You have never been and will never be tired of talking about the Black Sox. No, there seems to be always something new that we're learning, and I don't expect to be here for the 200th anniversary, so I'm going to get it all out of the way on the 100th. Yeah, well, I have a lot of questions about this, but I'm curious about your origin story as a Black Sox researcher, because we all, of course, encounter the Black Sox story at some point when we become baseball fans. become baseball fans. It's one of the formative tales, and you have been grabbed by it more than most probably and have devoted a lot of your adult life to it and have written about it extensively.

So where did you come across this story and what was it about it that attracted you to it? You know, I've been interested in baseball history since as long as I can remember. And, you know, this is something that, a story that I think we all kind of have grown up hearing about a little bit. And I read the book Eight Men Out for the first time when I was in high school on a family trip to Florida. And I was just so engrossed in the story. And it actually it was interesting. It actually left me with more questions than answers. And I wanted to find out what happened to these guys, especially after they got banned for life for fixing the World Series. And so I started kind of digging in. I was a Sabre member when I was in

high school. And so I started digging in a little bit more to some of the newer research that had been done and reading some other biographies on Shoeless Joe Jackson and some of the other players. And I started connecting with some other people in Sabre who were also interested in the Black Sox scandal and we ended up forming a research committee about a decade ago and it's just kind of coincided with a lot of new information that has come to light that has helped us kind of enhance the story and enhance our understanding of what happened in the 1919 World Series. And it's really fascinating, you know, the whole story and with the fixing of the World Series and just kind of how it relates to baseball also in the 21st century.

We're seeing things like sports betting being legalized again. And so it continues to have some relevance in the 21st century too. And so it's a story that we keep finding more and more about. And so it's always something that's interesting to baseball fans, I think. Yeah. Well, that leads into my next question, which was going to be about both the harm and the good potentially that Eight Men Out has done, both the book and the movie, because of course you devote a lot of this new project, Eight Myths Out, to exposing some of the misconceptions about the Black Sox that everyone believes that they know, and a lot of that comes from Eight Men Out in one form or another. And so in a sense, you're doing this job of debunking some of those myths, much like maybe Charles Learson did in his Ty Cobb biography, A Terrible

Beauty. That's another case where a lot of these misconceptions came about because a writer essentially invented them or did a poor job of trying to tell the truth. And so I wonder whether ultimately Eight Men Out is a harmful legacy. Is it bad that it cemented these myths in people's mind? Or is it good that it got people interested in the story? Because maybe without hooking you with a partly false story, you would not have become as interested in the Black Sox as you did. Yeah, eight men out is kind of the elephant in the room. You know, it's always going to be the entry point, I think, for most baseball fans to learn about the Black

Sox scandal. And, you know, anytime you've got a bestselling book that's remained in print for over 50 years and a Hollywood movie that gets replayed on MLB Network and national television for a quarter century. You know, that's always going to be, I think, the way that most people find out. And, you know, the positive aspects of Eight Men Out are that it's such a compelling, dramatic story that I think it does lead people to ask questions like, wow, you know, this is incredible that this even happened. I think some people don't even realize that, you know, a World Series could be fixed, you know, or that baseball, you know, doesn't really talk about this very much. And so, you know, why isn't this story even bigger than it is? And so I think 8-Man Out kind of serves

that purpose of being an entry point for most people, including myself. You know, that's the reason. I don't think without 8-Man Out, I don't think any of us would be here talking about the Black Sox scandal today. It might be as well known as some of the many, many other gambling scandals that we know about now. And so I think for that reason, it's always going to be an interesting read, and it's always going to be something that we're always going to have to talk about. Unfortunately, we know a lot more than Elliot Asanoff did when he wrote the book back in 1963. And we have access to a lot of new information that he did not have when he was researching the story. And so this is one of those cases, like many historical stories, where the truth,

I think, is a lot more dramatic than the fictional version that we've kind of grown up believing. We've got this old story of these underpaid ballplayers. They were uneducated and they were kind of disgruntled at Charles Comiskey, the owner of the White Sox, and that this is the reason that they, you know, were kind of seduced by gamblers and agreed to throw the World Series. And the reality is far different. And we know a lot more about their salaries today. We know a lot more about kind of their mindsets.

We've got a lot of interviews that the players gave. And so, you know, we've learned a lot more and we can put the pieces of the puzzle together in a more comprehensive way. And eight men out is a big part of that. And I think it's always going to be a big part of that. Well, you are setting up my questions very adeptly here. Segues are perfect because I was going to ask you whether the truth is actually more compelling than fiction in this case, because the fiction is pretty compelling. I mean, the idea that these players were shortchanged by Charles Comiskey, and they didn't have any money, and they were underpaid, and Eddie Seacott was benched, and he didn't get a bonus that he was promised, and basically that the players were

forced into this, that they were provoked. That makes them maybe more sympathetic characters than the truth, which is maybe just closer to, hey, baseball was pretty crooked at the time and this stuff was rampant in the sport. And these players didn't do it out of necessity, but really just for profit. But that to you is more compelling, it sounds like. So I wonder why it is that the truth grabs you in a way that maybe the fiction doesn't, or differently, at least. Well, yeah, you know, I think kind of that whole central thesis of Eight Men Out about the underpaid ballplayers, and that's, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to that and have a lot of sympathy for people like Shula Show Jackson and Buck Weaver. And so I think it's very easy to believe the traditional story, the story that we're kind of debunking now. And it does make for a very compelling story. But again, the truth is even more interesting, I find,

because when you look back at baseball history, betting and game-fixing have been around since the pre-professional days. The first fixed game that we're aware of goes back to 1865, the final year of the Civil War. And so, you know, that's before the National League was even invented. And I mean, so gambling and baseball have always, always been intertwined. And it is this culture that really led to the Black Sox scandal more than 50 years after that. And, you know, I think to understand the Black Sox scandal more than 50 years after that. And, you know, I think to understand the Black Sox scandal, you do have to understand a little bit of the background and the culture of what baseball was like. The era that these guys grew up in, in the 19 aughts

and the 19 tens was just rampant with gambling. And it's really a fascinating story. When you, when you dig into some of the details there, we have stories of gamblers rioting on the field at Fenway Park to stop a game in public in 1917. We've got stories of other fixed games. Ty Cobb and Trish Speaker got caught up in a scandal one week before the 1919 World Series. Hal Chase is known as the Black Prince of Baseball, the most corrupt player in baseball history. He was fixing games left and right, bribing both teammates and opponents. And so, you know, there's all these elements that go into it. And so just learning more and more about kind of this culture of baseball, nobody really comes out of this scandal looking good. Not the players, not the owners of the baseball officials,

not even the fans or the media. There's a lot of similarities actually to kind of how baseball dealt with the PED scandals in the 1990s and early 2000s. A lot of people were profiting quite a bit from the gambling fervor in the early 20th century. And a lot of people in baseball were looking the other way while the profits were rolling in. And, you know, it was only after World War I and after the World Series got fixed that baseball finally decided to take it seriously and say, oh, we can't have this. And they kind of pointed the fingers at a couple of players and said, oh, these guys are the villains. These guys are corrupt. And, you know, they sullied our pure game of baseball. And we've lost our innocence when, of course, baseball has never,

ever been pure. So, you know, the story kind of lives on for that reason. But yeah, nobody really comes out looking good. And again, this, you know, this is a story that has a lot of elements to it. Yeah. Well, one of the myths on this page is that league and team officials heard rumors about the World Series fix, but no concrete evidence surfaced until the grand jury investigation in the fall of 1920. And I think something that might surprise some people is just how well known this was, or at least that rumors were circulating that Charles Comiskey may have even known about the fix as it was going on, as it was just starting. So is there a scenario you can envision where this stays a secret, where this story doesn't come out? Because how did it come out? Obviously, there were a lot of people who had incentive for it not to come out, even including, say, Comiskey and people in the sport, because baseball's image, obviously, this was a big blemish. So is it conceivable that maybe this

could have just stayed quiet and we would have just thought, yeah, they lost the World Series, but it was on the level? Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, it almost didn't come out. And in fact, the whole baseball season was almost played before it did finally get exposed in 1920. And so I think, you know, we now have evidence that Charles Comiskey and many other baseball owners learned about the fix as early as game one of the World Series, and maybe even a little bit before that. You know, the very first thing that Charles Comiskey did after the World Series ended was he called in his manager, Kid Gleason, and he sent him out to St. Louis to interview one of the gamblers who had fixed the World Series. And so Gleason and Comiskey, you

know, knew exactly what they were going for. They knew exactly what information they were looking for. And they knew who the players were, too. So the rumor really was kind of the worst-kept secret in baseball. And Comiskey and others did a lot to sweep it under the rug. Comiskey actually hired some detectives to go spy on his players in the offseason, sent them out all across the country to follow them around and find out how they were living and if they had made a lot of money and were spending a lot of money off their winnings.

And so Comiskey knew very, very well what was going on, and so did many other officials. And the only reason it came out is because of kind of a meaningless game between the Cubs and the Phillies at the end of the 1920 season. That game was fixed by gamblers and the betting odds shifted very strongly before the game. And so there was an investigation that was launched and Van Johnson, the American League president, actually convinced people in the Chicago legal system to open a grand jury investigation on gambling and baseball. And that was quickly expanded to cover the 1919 World Series, too. And that's the only reason we really know about all of this, because if not for that, and if not for Ben Johnson's feud with Charles Comiskey, they had once been partners and best friends founding the American League,

and now we're kind of mortal enemies. If not for that feud, we may never know about what happened in the 1919 World Series. And it may have gone down in history as, you know, one of the many World Series that had rumors attached to it about being fixed. But yeah, that's kind of how it how it all went down there. Yeah, I mean, given what you know about this story, and what has come out after the fact, sometimes long after the fact, would you wager, I guess, since we're talking about gambling, would you suppose that there were previous series that were fixed? I mean, certainly there were games that were fixed that never came to light and we'll never know about. But would you guess that this was even not an isolated incident? never know about. But would you guess that this was even not an isolated incident? We know it wasn't, but that there were other maybe potentially sensational stories that just have never been

uncovered? Well, I'm not a betting man. But yeah, I think you could safely say that certainly many other games were fixed. It's hard to say whether or not another World Series was fixed. There were a ton of rumors. Going back to the first Modern World Series in 1903, Cy Young was bribed by gamblers in Boston to throw some games there. So, I mean, there were rumors attached to just about every World Series, and when there's so much smoke, you would expect that there's probably some fire involved in some of those. And, again, it's hard to say all these years later

without anyone admitting actual guilt that any particular World Series was thrown. But yeah, we've got rumors about a lot of them. And in fact, a lot of them involve Boston teams. The 1912 World Series had a lot of rumors too, with the Red Sox and the Giants back then. And so the 1914 World Series had some more rumors. That was the Miracle Boston Braves against the Philadelphia A's. And so the 1914 World Series had some more rumors. That was the Miracle Boston Braves against the Philadelphia A's. And so there's a lot of World Series that had rumors about them. And just knowing the culture of baseball and how many other fixed games there were, and just how casually everyone treated this. And I think that's something to remember about

the Black Sox, is that I don't think they really thought twice about doing this. Because again, you look back, Ty Cobb and Trish Beaker were fixing a game just one week earlier between the Tigers and the Indians. You know, most of them had played with Hal Chase in years past. And so they had known many players who had been involved in fixed games. And I just don't think that they considered that anyone would take this seriously. Even if they were caught, I don't think they thought they might be punished. And that's due to the culture at the time. And that's also due to baseball's reluctance to deal with the problem over a period of many, many years.

And as you point out at this page, many of the people involved in this scandal were more willing to talk about it than has been portrayed and then what might even suppose. So where do these misconceptions come from? Is it Asanoff not knowing the facts, not making an effort to know the facts, or is it deliberate fabrication, or is it just all of the above? You know, I think it's all of the above. And again, I think it's important to understand the context of when Eliot Asanoff was writing his book back in the early 1960s. This was the era of new journalism. This was, you know, the era of Truman Capote and Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson and, you know, writers that played a little fast and loose

with the facts, you know, in favor of a good dramatic nonfiction narrative. And that's kind of the writing culture that Elliot Asenoff grew up in too. And, you know, he was a TV screenwriter. The reason that he got started researching Eight Men Out is because he was hired by CBS to write for a television program that eventually got canceled. The program was never made with him involved. And so he turned his research into the book Eight Men Out. But he was trying to write a TV screenplay, and he was trying to write a dramatic story. And you can actually go to the Chicago History Museum and look through his old notes for the Black Sox scandal. And you can see where he's writing in his notes about, you know,

how do I make this more dramatic? And so, you know, that was his goal. His goal was to write a good story and sell books. And that's what he did. And, you know, his idea was never to write the definitive historical account of the Black Sox scandal. He just happened to to do so. And it happened to be marketed that way. But that really wasn't his goal. His goal was to write a dramatic story that sold a lot of books. And, well, he did that. And so, you know, I think that's important to remember, because if you go back through a lot of those old books and magazine stories from that era of American history in the middle of the 20th century, I think, you know, you're going to find that historical accuracy is not among the best traits of those stories being told. And I think, you know, a book like In Cold Blood from Truman Capote, you know, has some of the same accuracy problems, too.

And that was because they were trying to write a dramatic story. problems too. And that was because they were, they were trying to write a dramatic story and the way that we write books today, especially historical books, you know, and they're loaded with sources and citations and, you know, you're expected to back up every fact and every quote, um, that wasn't true back then. And, and so I think, you know, we, we do have to give a little bit of a pass to the author, you know, for kind of that era. Um, and, you know, and, and he never claimed it was going to be the definitive history. It was just kind of marketed that era. And, you know, and he never claimed it was going to be the definitive history. It was just kind of marketed that way. And I think that's kind of where the fault lies. And people treat that as the history book. But, you know, it really wasn't meant to be.

Were there books that were meant to be before Eight Men Out that were just they didn't connect because they didn't have that somewhat fictitious narrative or they were just forgotten in the wake of Eight Men Out's success? No, there really weren't. I mean, that's one of the reasons why didn't have that somewhat fictitious narrative or they were just forgotten in the wake of Ape Man Out's success? No, there really weren't. I mean, that's one of the reasons why Ape Man Out became a bestseller is because it really was the first kind of complete account of the Black Sox scandal. Seems strange.

I mean, often some of the best history and research is done long after the fact when maybe people are willing to open up or something. But by that time, of course, many of the figures were gone. And you'd think at some point in the intervening decades, I mean, it was a big story. So you'd think that someone would have written a book about it before then. Yeah. And, you know, one of the reasons why it became kind of a popular story to tell in the 1960s is because Sheila Show Jackson had died about a decade earlier. Buck Weaver had died in 1956. So you started to see a little bit more attention as these guys were kind of dying off into the old story and people were looking back on what had happened. The White Sox won their first pennant in 1959, 40 years later. And so, you know,

you started seeing a little bit more attention in the middle to late 50s on this story. And so, you know, you started seeing a little bit more attention in the middle to late 50s on this story. And so I think that's one of the reasons why Asanoff got involved when he did is because people were starting to think about it and starting to, you know, try to remember. And, you know, back then you didn't have baseball encyclopedias, you didn't have a lot of really comprehensive baseball history books. And so it was very difficult to find out what actually happened in the 1919 World Series. You know, people used to write letters to the editor of the newspaper, please tell me the names of the players involved in the scandal, because it just wasn't easy to find. And so I think, you know, it's difficult to imagine that

type of world, but that's kind of what they were living in back then. And so, yeah, there just weren't that many books or articles written back then. And so when Asanoff did so, people took to it very quickly because, again, it's a very salacious story. People are very interested in it and still are 100 years later. And so when he wrote that book, it really took off. So whether or not the truth is stranger than fiction, it's definitely murkier and more complex. And so I wonder whether we can say, are there villains in this story? Are there innocent victims in this story? Or is everyone just kind of implicated and it's hard to root for any particular person or feel sorry for any particular person? Well, I think probably the biggest victims, if you had to select one, I think would be the 1919 Cincinnati Reds.

I think they don't get their due as a very good, potentially great team. Even though it was only really a one-year run for them, they had the highest winning percentage in franchise history in 1919, even better than the Big Red Machine. So they had a very, very good team, a very deep pitching staff, a couple of Hall of Famers in their lineup. And so I don't think they get their due. And I do think that's something where a lot of people even then predicted

that the White Sox would have a tough time with the Reds because of their deep pitching staff. And so I think it's unfortunate for their reputation that they don't fully get to celebrate their championship like most other World Series champions do. But as far as, again, I think looking at who looks good, I don't think anybody really does. There was a line that the gambler Abe Attell used that did appear in 8-Man Out, and he said this was the story of cheaters cheating cheaters. and he said this was the story of cheaters cheating cheaters. And I think there's some validity to that because the reality is, you know,

there was a lot of greed involved in this whole story. The players were trying to make some extra cash, but also the baseball officials were too. You know, the reason the World Series was best of nine is because they wanted to make some more money and they experimented with the longer format in 1919. And so that was the sole reason, just to make a little extra money. So, yeah, there's a lot of greed involved. And, again, the culture of gambling and baseball at this time, a lot of people were profiting. And I think the players just kind of wanted their share, too. So this was, you know, how they were able to do it.

And, again, betting wasn't quite seen back then as the mortal sin as it is today. And, you know, betting on your games was an accepted practice in the amateur level and the semi-pro level. You were expected to throw down a little bit of extra money and, you know, prove yourself if you were playing in a game. And so this kind of carried up to the major leagues a little bit, too. And players regularly bet on their own games, mostly to win, but not always. So, you know, I think this was something that, again, the Black Sox players didn't quite expect that people would start taking this seriously and say, oh, this is wrong and they should be punished. You know, the culture of baseball had not been that way up until 1919.

And then it all of a sudden changed. And I don't think they were ready for that. So Shula Stowe Jackson does not have much of a presence in Eight Myths Out. And maybe that's because there are so many myths and you only had room for eight. But if a myth is that Shoeless Joe Jackson was innocent or more innocent or didn't know what he was doing or had a change of heart and tried to win, I mean, that seems like something that is part of the popular conception. So does that not rise to myth worthiness? Is there any truth to that? Well, you know, one of our goals with this eight myths out project at Sabre.org is that, you know, we were trying to definitively debunk some of these old stories. And the problem with

Shoeless Joe Jackson is that all the documentation kind of contradicts itself with him. There's a lot of very smart people that have a lot of different opinions about Shoeless Joe Jackson's involvement. And so we can't debunk anything about him in particular because there's so many pieces of contradictory information about him. And so how much he was involved, the only thing we can say for sure is that he did accept the $5,000 bribe from gamblers. We know that for a fact. There's no question about it. He admitted to it under oath and on many other occasions. So we know he took the money. But after that, everything else is murky. You know, he most likely did not attend any of the meetings before the World Series discussing the fix. He probably played his best on the field, but we're not certain.

And again, he gives some contradictory responses in his grand jury testimony and some of his later interviews about what he did on the field to, quote, earn his bribe. on the field to, quote, earn his bribe. And so the reason that we didn't include anything about Shoeless Joe in this particular project is because the documentation is kind of unclear, whereas for the eight myths that we selected for this project, we can pretty much definitively say, okay, this is wrong, and here's why, and here's some documentation to back it up. Whereas Shoeless Joe, I think we'll probably be discussing his involvement for the next 100 years, and we'll probably have 101 opinions about that. Yeah. I mean, if you haven't gone back and looked at Shoeless Joe's baseball reference page in a while, you should, because it's really impressive. I mean, even if you know that he was a great player, that he was a Hall of Fame caliber player, you might not realize or forget just how great he was. I mean, he was on track to be an inner circle, all-time great.

And, of course, he didn't get to have his decline phase, so his career stats maybe look more impressive than they would have if he had played into his late 30s or something. But, man, he was an incredible player. So do you come down on either side of the Che Shoeless Joe rehabilitation Cooperstown candidate campaign? Well, you know, for my money, I would much rather see the Hall of Fame induct all the greatest players and, you know, be honest, warts and all on their plaques about what happened, you know. So for Shoeless Joe, I would love to see him inducted into the Hall of Fame because I think he's deserving as a player for what he did on the field. inducted into the Hall of Fame because I think he's deserving as a player for what he did on the field. And, you know, I'd be okay with putting a line at the bottom of his plaque saying, you know, he was banned for life for his involvement in the Black Sox scandal. I'd be okay with that.

I think that's perfectly appropriate. And that would, you know, both celebrate his accomplishments on the field, but also not gloss over, you know, what he was accused of and what he was involved in off the field. And I would say the same thing for Pete Rose. You know, as a player, I think he certainly deserves recognition. But, you know, there's other reasons why he can't be reinstated back into baseball. But yeah, as a player, I think these guys are definitely deserving. So what do you still want to know if you had a most wanted list for unresolved questions about the Black Sox scandal, or if you could time travel

and be a fly on the wall at some certain scene or for a particular conversation, or maybe it's not even something that was said out loud, but what was going on in someone's head? What are the questions that are still burning in your brain, whether or not we have any way to ever answer them? Well, you know, I really think the biggest overall question is why did this happen? You know, why did these players agree to do this? They were at the top of their profession, you know, and for a bribe that really wasn't that much, even if they had been paid everything they had been promised by the gamblers, it really wasn't that much money. And so, you know, you wonder why these guys threw away their careers for this and why it wasn't seen as something that, you know, could have gotten them in big trouble and why everyone

was kind of so casual about it. So that's really the overarching question I have. And I think I would love to be able to discover, you know, more interviews. I mean, as more newspapers get digitized on the internet, thanks to the power of being online. I think that's something that we may be able to discover even more documents that come out and maybe give us a little bit more insight into what they were thinking and why they did this. I think that's always going to be the number one question because you look at the scandal and it's still, again, it's still relevant as far as what's happening in baseball and gambling in the 21st century. relevant as far as what's happening in baseball and gambling in the 21st century. But, you know, you go back to, we can't go back to 1919 and we can't get in their heads and say, well, you know, why did this happen? Why did you guys do this? But sure, it would be nice to find out more,

you know, climb into their heads for this thing. Because, you know, this is a story that really will never die. It's not likely to happen again. And it certainly won't happen the way it did because the era that they grew up in and the dead ball culture of gambling will never be replicated again. And so I think that's something maybe we're not doomed to repeat it but as gambling does become a bigger part of baseball as it seems certain to over the next few years is there anything about this story that you think applies to today or that gives you pause about the way things are going i mean of course human nature hasn't changed appreciably in the last century but conditions have and players make unimaginably more money than they did at the time. And there's such a stigma against this sort of thing, which didn't exist at the time. So is there any concern in your mind from being a Black Sox

scholar that something like this could repeat itself? Or do you think this will be consigned to history? No, I think there's a lot to be concerned about. And I think, you know, one of the aspects that we're digging into, you know, with our project is kind of the opportunities that these guys had to fix games. I mean, you know, they were associated with gamblers all the time.

And I think the ease of opportunity is a factor here that gets overlooked a lot. And I think that's one of the bigger reasons why these guys ended up throwing the World Series. It's not just because of greed I think that's one of the bigger reasons why these guys ended up throwing the World Series. It's not just because of greed, although that's certainly part of it. But yeah, they did it because they could, and they thought they would get away with it. And I think the more opportunities that anyone associated with baseball has to bet on what's happening on the field, the higher the risks are. And I think, you know, as the stakes

grow higher, I think, and the more people are involved, I think, you know, you got to be careful. If you're major league baseball, you've got to be careful, you know, that there aren't as many opportunities to influence the outcome of a game. And that was something that baseball did not do a good job of 100 years ago. In fact, they made it a lot worse because they made it very clear over a period of years that they were not interested in policing any of that activity. And in fact, in some ways, they were encouraging that activity. So the more that baseball encourages high stakes gambling on what's happening on the field, you know, the more ripe we are to have another scandal that, you know, could rival the Black Sox. And you've been talking about the scandal for years and you're making the rounds now.

And I wonder, because old myths tend to die hard, especially ones that are as deeply ingrained as some of the old beliefs about the Black Sox, do you find that people are willing to change their minds or to accept the new narrative and the new facts? Or do they like to stick with the comfortable tale that they were told and that they grew up with? Well, you know, I think pop culture is quite a large elephant in the room. And so it is difficult, I think, to combat old myths. But, you know, I take a little bit of inspiration from looking at other stories in American

history that people have been trying to get the truth out about. And I think, you know, there are many examples where, you know, you just, you keep digging and you keep finding out and keep presenting this information in a way that, you know, hopefully people relate to and, you know, find. And you never know. I think over time, this is something where the myth will stop being told and, you know, we'll be able to kind of get more into the truth, especially, you know, I think once you document some of this stuff and you realize, oh, yeah, this is all out there. You know, you can go to the Baseball Hall of Fame. You can see the salary information, the contract cards that are available. You know, you can look at it yourself.

You can go to the Chicago History Museum. You can look at the grand jury testimony and the trial transcripts, which, you know, none of which Elliot Asanoff ever had access to when he wrote Eight Men Out. If you can see all that stuff and you can see access to it and, you know, we documented in our Eight Myths Out report, I think, you know, that helps. I think that every little bit helps and people see, okay, well, you know, you guys are backing up your information here and that's important. So if you're just flipping through channels and 8-Man Out comes on, do you stay on that channel because it's a rewatchable movie? Or are you just fuming and thinking that's not how it happened and people are watching this and they're getting the wrong idea? No, you know, it's funny.

I still love the movie and I still find it to be extremely entertaining. The cast is great. The cinematography is amazing. The costume period design is wonderful. The score, you know, there are so many aspects of that movie that I love. It's just fiction. That's all, you know, the story is fiction. So I think that's, for me, I'm able to overlook that in favor of the entertainment, you know, and I just, I encourage, I don't mind people reading eight men out or watching the movie. I just encourage people to learn more. And there's,

you know, we have a lot of information out there now. Our Black Sox committee with Sabre is doing a lot of research, and we've put a lot of it online so that people can find it easier. So I just encourage people to dig in because there's a lot more to the story. And again, it's a lot more compelling in my mind. Yeah. Well, I will link to Eight Myths Out. And from that page, you can find all sorts of supplementary resources. You can also look up Scandal on the South Side, the book about the 1919 White Sox that Jacob edited and also wrote for.

Thanks for all the great work that you do at Sabre, and you can also find Jacob at Buckweaver. So thanks very much, and I hope this was your Talking About the Black Sox fix for today. Thanks, Ben. and I hope this was your talking about the Black Sox fix for today. Thanks, Ben. Okay, so I'll take a quick break and I'll be right back with Paul Sporer to talk about baseball video games and then Paul and Ramon Russell and I will talk about MLB The Show 19. Just to show you. Just to show you. Just to show you.

Just to show you. All right, so I'm back, and I am joined now by your friend of mine, Paul Sporer, who writes and podcasts for Rotographs. You've heard him on Sleeper and the Bus podcast, and maybe you have seen and heard him on Twitch, where he is very often playing MLP The Show, and as we speak, is hours away from playing the new edition of MLP The Show, and is really just jonesing for it. So he is joining me for this interview with Ramon Russell, but I also wanted to talk to you for a couple minutes about your experience with the game. Paul, give me your baseball video game lineage. What was the game or the franchise that hooked you? Did you start with the show or did you start with an earlier game and switch over? Well, Ben, thanks for having me on. And no, this started a long time ago. For those who don't know, I'm 37. So I've know around video games for a good while now and the first game i can absolutely remember was just called major league baseball for

i believe it was for nintendo and it was you know i can barely recall exactly what it was like but it was it was definitely i've been wanting to play baseball games forever and then of course the next level was rbi. And that was something that I really cut my teeth on. I would be ridiculous enough to like keep statistics in notebooks. Obviously, you know, back back then games weren't keeping track of everything. So we would have little tournaments and keep our statistics. And so RBI was what really, you know, made me a baseball video game fan, despite being a baseball fan for my entire life. That really took it to the next level. Then I made a fateful decision, a bad decision, Ben.

Unwittingly, I chose to get an Xbox 360 instead of a PlayStation. I think that was PlayStation 3 when those two consoles came out and did not realize what I was cutting myself off from, which for those who don't know, MLB The Show is a Sony exclusive. It's not on Xbox 360. At the time, I probably didn't think anything of it. MLB 2K was out. There was maybe even some EA games. Don't quote me on that, but Xbox 360 might have even had some EA baseball for it as well. But for the most part, it was 2K. And I was just like, well, you know, I'll play 2K. And I learned quickly of my error. Now, I was playing so many dynasties for NCAA football with my friends that I was still enjoying my Xbox 360 time. But the baseball was woefully underdone. Like the 2K series just, they dominate basketball. They did not have baseball down. They

had a few interesting mechanics, like how you pitched but the game itself was was light years behind the show and i i resolved to not make that mistake again when the newest gen came out and instead of an xbox one which i never considered no offense to xbox one but it was put ps4 all the way i got one at release which was a november it was like a thanksgiving black fr type release. I got one then, even though the first game I wanted wasn't going to come out until March, which was that season's MLB The Show, I believe 2014. And it just sat there in my living room, unopened until then. And now I've been obsessed with MLB The Show since. So I think, yeah, since 2014, I play some other games here and there, mostly sports games, but for the most part, I live and die with baseball. I mean, it's my job, but also it's my free time passion as well.

Yeah. Well, there's always super mega baseball, which is also fun. Which is a great game. It's a super fun game and it is a little bit different. It's probably, if you tried to envision what, and I know RBI baseball is out, but if you had taken RBI back in the day and said, what would this be at the top end of technology scale? That might be what Super Mega Baseball is before RBI came out themselves and started to put out their own game again. Super Mega Baseball is very cool. I just love the realness of MLB The Show with the players and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Well, so here's my kind of controversial opinion that I've expressed elsewhere. I don't think baseball is the best video game sport. I mean, baseball is by far my favorite sport. It's

frankly the only sport I pay attention to. But when it comes to video games, I have often had a better time with, say, FIFA or NHL. Yeah, FIFA's great. It's just something about the continuous action of those games. I mean, maybe that's something that appeals to people about those sports, period. But I like the nature of baseball, the discrete events and the starts and the stops, because it makes it really fun for analysis and for spectating, I think. But for playing, there's just something about soccer, about hockey, that to me makes for a more satisfying gaming experience purely, which is not to say that I don't also enjoy baseball games, and I've enjoyed the show for years, but make the case for baseball

as a video game sport, or even as a superior 3D game sport, if you see it that way. Your point is well taken, but the one thing I will say that was the game changer, which wasn't really there in NMLB The Show 14, my first iteration with it, is Diamond Dynasty, the online mode. When I'm going mono and mono, I don't like to play the computer, and last year's iteration required a lot of grinding against the computer to get some of the best cards in the game to play Diamond Dynasty online. But when you're playing online, you do have that nonstop,

maybe not nonstop action, it's pitching and hitting, but going up against someone, trying to guess what they're going to pitch, trying to find their weak spots with the pitching when you're on the mound yourself. I do think that that kind of takes it to the next level. Because other than that, I get what you're saying, kind of playing against the computer and grinding out a full season of 162 games.

That could be a grind, you know, just the word is easily placed right there, that it's a grind. Whereas it might be more fun to play a FIFA Premier League season against the computer as well. But I think the online component of Diamond Dynasty completely changes that. Not only that, but they've added some game modes that compact things a bit.

Their Battle Royale mode, which you've probably heard in the context of Fortnite and PUBG and all those games out now. They have their Battle Royale mode where they drop in a bunch of folks and they fight to the death. Battle Royale in MLB The Show is a three-inning mode. And you try to win 12 games before you lose two. And you get rewards at three, six, nine, and then the 12. If games before you lose two and you get rewards at three, six, nine, and then the 12. If you go 12 and one, you get one diamond. If you go 12 and oh, you get two diamonds, including that secondary diamond being just one of the premier cards of the game. And that mode is the action that you're looking for because every play absolutely matters.

You score one run in the first, you're feeling pretty good. It's that kind of intensity. So I think the online component is the one case I would make to say that it brings itself on a par. Baseball brings itself on a par with those other games in terms of the action, in terms of the excitement, as opposed to being kind of the long drawn out pace that baseball normally has. Yeah. Well, I'll say also that you're going to ask Ramon about this and whether this is in the cards for the franchise at all, but there's this trend in sports games recently, not so much baseball games, to deliver a more cinematic single-player experience with a full storyline. And Spike Lee will direct it, and my friend Jason Concepcion actually wrote for NBA 2K18. And

there's just a- Is he network? Yes. Okay. Yeah. He did a great job, by the way. It was awesome. Yeah. It's a fully fleshed out story mode. That, I think, would hook me and probably hook me even more so than the typical career mode. I mean, if it were done well, obviously. If it were done poorly, that would probably drive me away. But that is right. That's something I mean, if you give me

like a genuinely good like baseball movie within my baseball video game, and I can be part of it, that is something I think that would really bring me back. I actually couldn't even agree more on that. And as I'm playing, you know, I've dabbled with 2K. And when I'm playing that, and I'm playing their solo player mode, their career mode, I'm wishing that I'm trying to impress or overlay these things on MLB. I'm like, oh, they could do this, like this in MLB, because they do such a great job with it. It's easily the best one. I don't even think Madden has one. I believe there's one in FIFA called Road to Glory. Don't quote me on that. But I think they have one. I don't even think Madden has one. I believe there's one in FIFA called Road to Glory. Don't quote me on that, but I think they have one. I've never played it, but the 2K one

is definitely the best. The single player mode where you create your player and you try to build him up. MLB tries to improve it every year, and this year is going to be another big step, but I really am looking forward to hopefully they can get to the level of a 2K. So the last thing I want to ask you before we bring Ramon in here, I invited you to join me on this podcast, just knowing that you like the show. And then you just casually mentioned to me, oh, yeah, by the way, I'm in the game this year. I'm in the game.

So what do you mean you're in the game? And how did that happen? I mean, I'm literally in the game. If you have the game, you can go in the front, the front screen, go over to the rosters. And if you go into, I think it's roster control where you can kind of see the free agents. You hit L1, it should go from Baltimore to the free agents. And you scroll, you'll find Paul Spora as a 76. And you go compare it to my Twitter picture.

And it's a dead ringer because they scanned my face in. And they did that with a group of us called the Sony Partners. And it's a group of content creators on YouTube and Twitch that, you know, we're kind of ambassadors for the game. And so they hook us up with stuff like that. We went out to the community days in San Diego, got a little hands-on in January with MLB19 and got to talk with them and really relay community feedback. And all throughout the season, that's what we do too. When we get feedback in our streams and on our YouTube videos, we take that and deliver it to the developers and give them an idea of what the community feels. They're out there, they're in streams, they're in YouTube videos, they're watching everything,

but this allows them to get an even more kind of distilled notion of what everyone wants from the eight of us right now, which they're going to expand the group as well. But it was so cool when they, when they invited me out, I was already over the top excited. But when they said, do you want to get your face scanned in? I was like, how are you even asking that? Like who's saying no to that? And when they finally sent back the mock-up of it, I couldn't believe it. It's a dead ringer for me. And they made me pretty good. Yeah, 76. 76 off the top. That's way too good. I love it. I'm a pitcher. I got a little fastball splitter combo. Splitter's my favorite pitch. So yeah, if you play franchise mode, you'll be able

to put me on a team if you wanted. And then there's some other stuff coming down the line that I don't know what I can say. So I'll just leave it at that. You were probably going to be the cover model if Bryce Harper didn't sign. If he hadn't signed. Yep. They were talking. He said, hey, Spore, are you available to jump back out here and do a few action shots?

And I was ready, Ben. And you, I believe, are quite a tall person, even taller than Jeff Sullivan. I assume that that is also modeled in the game. Yeah. I think they just took Chris Sale's model, made him right-handed, put my face on it, and said, bada-bing, there we go, because I'm 6'5", 170, which is darn close to what Sale is.

All right, so we are joined now by Ramon Russell, who is a game designer and community manager for Sony, specializing in MLB The Show. Ramon, hey, how's it going? It is fantastic. How are you guys doing? We're doing well. I wanted to ask you, this is, I think, the 14th edition of the show, and it's maybe the sixth consecutive season that you've kind of run uncontested. There is no other game that is challenging the supremacy of the show right now in terms of MLB licenses. So you're

kind of competing with yourself every year. And I wonder how that works. How far in advance are you planning future additions? Because you don't have to see what your competitor is doing and respond to that. And how do you, I guess, stay motivated since you could kind of keep putting out a similar game every year and it would be the best show in town, no pun intended. Oh man, that's a few questions in there. I think we'll tackle the first one. Our competition is any game that comes out within our launch window. We're very aware of basically all the games that are coming out.

It's not just sports games. We look at everything and that's our competition. Our competition is also trying to make this year's version of the show so much better than last year's version of the show. It's a hurdle that all yearly franchises have to tackle this and it's you know what do we need to do how what features do we need to work on what new features should we put in the game to make the end user say i have to buy this game because we're always fighting that oh it's just a roster update uh thing that you see that gets thrown around oftentimes about sports games. So it's always that.

We're always trying to tackle, like, what do we need to do with MLB to Show 19 to make sure that our core consumers and people on the fence will be happy and excited about picking up this game this year. One of the things that you guys seem concerted on this year is making it more of a bite-sized game that people can jump into and play different things with the March to October, the moments. Was that something that you really focused on? Because sometimes playing a 45-minute baseball game just isn't something that folks can do. So is this a new push this year? I guess you could say that.

It's one of the things that we looked at. We do a ton of research. We look at a ton of data. We talk to a lot of fans. And one of the things that we heard when we started to brainstorm what we should do for season based modes was that people tend to check out around the All-Star breaking baseball if their team isn't in contention. The baseball season is really long and most people don't play all their games in season based modes and they don't want to see those games because they don't play all their games in season-based modes, and they don't want to see them those games because they don't feel like they're attached to it. So when we started attacking those two things, what John Livingston and Nick started to think

of was, well, this is obviously a more curated experience that people are looking for. People care about your team. If you're a Tampa Bay Rays fan, you care about the Rays and the Rays players and the narratives about that team. So when they started developing basically what they wanted to do it kind of branched off as to its own thing and that's how March to October uh became a new game mode you described me perfectly there I always have the big intention of playing 162 games but then I get into Diamond Dynasty and and there's

just no chance that it's going to happen speaking of diamond dynasty got some new great new stuff there uh who are some of the new legends that you're really excited uh for having in the game for the first time this year well obviously willie mays right like the conversation starts with him and i guess if it ended man it's really hard because we got willie's in the game this year we've been trying to get willie for a while that's why we put him at the end of the trailer and ricky henderson, between Willie and Ricky Henderson and Ty Cobb and all the other legends, we're really, really happy to add another 30 legends to our roster. I think the brilliant thing that you guys are able to do is span the generations. You mentioned some of the guys that

you had there, but like newer guys like Kerry Wood, Mark Pryor, and then going all the way back to like a Christy Mathewson. So spanning the major eras of baseball has been a big win for the game. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like Nick and Steven and Luis and Jackson, when they start looking at those lists early on, like we have this big list, like these are the guys we really, really, really want to try to get because our fans will be really excited. And we're always trying to get some newer names, some names that may have played whenever color television is invented. And we also want to make sure we get those old school guys as well. So I think this year we have a really good mix of newer legends and some really iconic ones like Willie Mays and Ricky Henderson. One of the things that I thought

was interesting when you talked to me about the game a few weeks ago is that you discovered that people weren't that good at the game. And so you've made some adjustments to change things there. And to me, it sounded sort of like what's happening in Major League Baseball with some of the changes that have been discussed to help hitters out. You know, pitchers are throwing harder and harder, batting averages are down, strikeouts are up. Can you talk about how real life kind of mirrored simulated life in a way well yeah i mean baseball is hard i think it's the hardest uh game to play in it's the hardest sports to understand hardest sport to understand because round bat round ball you know weird stuff happens

and for us specifically um when we were talking to fans and we were looking at all the data um we noticed like man people people are really struggling and we would ask them like hey like are you good at the game people would be very honest like no i can't hit and and we would feel the same way like oh it either and the more and more we dived into it was like oh man like that's a very large part of our uh community that just can't hit very well and so that's on us right that's something that we need to fix that's something that we need to uh debug and troubleshoot so we spent about eight months reworking not only the hitting engine but reworking all the difficulty levels and we need to uh debug and troubleshoot so we spent about eight months reworking not only a hitting engine but reworking all the difficulty levels and we had to come to an impasse where

we found out not only was the game too hard for most people but at the very very top end like your top two percent of the players it wasn't hard enough and so that was very hand-scratching so what we've done is on hall of fame and legend difficulties which are our two hardest difficulty levels the game's much more unforgiving pitch speeds are faster than they've ever been the fastball is very dominant the swing timing for fastballs is a little bit smaller than it used to be but on all-star and below those difficulty levels aren't as crazy hard as they used to be pitch speeds may be a little bit slower we're looking at swing a little bit more. And we're trying to give users different avenues to improve at the game. Instead of getting the game in the first week, you realize, man, I can't hit. It's going to be like this all year. I wanted to follow up on that and ask, because I know that you've put so much

work into the physics engine of the game and trying to make it mirror real life. And I wonder whether it's something that potentially could be used to test changes to baseball. You know, everyone's talking about if you move the mound back, if you did this, if you did that, if you change the strike zone, what would baseball look like? And I wonder, you know, you have engineered the game to try to mimic the majors,

but would it be possible to use the game to try to figure out what baseball would look like if certain things were tweaked oh absolutely like in certain aspects it definitely would um our the the code that runs the game our hitting engine our physics engine it's very very true to life we can take a home run that aaron judge or bryce harper hits basically this season and we can put that same picture in we can put in the coordinates for the hit velocity where it went and we can put that same picture in, we can put in the coordinates for the hit velocity, where it went, and we can have that ball land within the margin of error. So our game is very, very realistic in that aspect. Ramon, one of the things, speaking to the physics, is making sure that the defense works well

and is properly emulated, but also balancing it so it's new with each hit type as opposed to just being animation-filled. So how do you guys work on balancing those things and making sure that the defense is as crisp and realistic looking as you can possibly make it? Right. So like that's a multifaceted thing. So the first thing there is looking at exploits and what's not working quite the way that it should. And one of the things we noticed when when people play very competitively, they just want to win. So they would exploit animation and holes in our animation system. But the good thing about that is it gave us an opportunity to fix it and take our fielding and player ratings to the next level.

So not only have we tried to attack all those exploits, we've also spent a lot of time trying to separate players' abilities. We want the best fielders in the game to stand out, and we want the worst fielders in the game maybe to stand out as well, but not so much on the good end. I think that's what you're going to see play out this year. Over the course of time, Mookie Betts, Matt Chapman, and Golgo players, they're going to make more plays and they're going to make more spectacular and harder plays. The guys who are not so good, you're going to see more spectacular and harder plays the guys who are not so good you're going to

see them make more misses and that's something that that just takes you got to play a good amount of games because because baseball is a game all about sample size like you can hit 500 for a week and then you could go 0 for 33 over the next seven games and that's just how wonky and crazy game of baseball is but we think we've done a really good job of trying to improve every aspect of fielding and user control to try to put out a good product that looks like what you see on TV today. About the difficulty and how a lot of average players struggle with hitting in past editions, for instance, do you find that baseball players are good at the show? Is there any transfer of skills there? It depends.

Like Eric Hosmer, who's a good friend of the studio, like if you put the sticks in his hands, he will smoke you. Like that guy is really, really good at the game. Others, not so much. So it always depends on the specific individual that you're talking to. I think that makes sense. And I've seen, you know, just some friends who are college players, even decent high school players, it can translate positively or really not have an impact on them. I think one of the things is just that hand-eye coordination and the reaction time. I think that's always going to be the biggest deal. That's why the young bucks always have a bit of an advantage. We've mentioned some different things about the game can be tough,

even though you guys are working to change that. But for somebody that's coming in and wants to get into Diamond Dynasty, what would be the best way to start up? How would you tackle it for a new person, Ramon? I'd create a team. We have a wonderful tutorial into Diamond Dynasty this year, which also lets you play a few moments, which is have a wonderful tutorial into diamond dynasty this year which also lets you uh play a few moments which is one of our other brand new features this year

by the time you play those first introductory moments you should have a really good idea what's going on in diamond dynasty and also for conquest or other modes in dd most of them have a really cool intro video that kind of breaks it down on what this mode is about. Here's the things you need to do to be successful and kind of how it all works. And with most things, the more time you put into it, the more you'll learn. Yeah. And the moment mode that you mentioned there, a new addition that is essentially just replaying a scenario from history or maybe even from the current season once the game comes out. I wonder how you picked the initial lineup of moments and whether this is something that requires a lot of control on your end or whether in future editions you could perhaps envision the community playing a role there and sort of setting up moments that

they want to play. Well, yeah, that's definitely something that's going to happen in the future. Like we're launching the game with you have welcome to show moments, which these are these curated moments that we've created to start our season we also have a few storyline moments and these are basically a set of moments based on a theme like Bryce Harper's rookie year or the 2016 Cubs or a series run or it could be based upon a legend like a Babe Ruth or Willie Mays where you're replaying moments or iconic moments from these guys' careers. And what we also have the ability to do with the moments feature is we can create fantasy moments. Like we could create a moment where Babe Ruth is pitching against the current day Astros. Like how would Babe pitch against these, like a current day lineup.

So the creativity is there and the flexibility with our system is there for us to basically create any type of pitching and hitting moment that we want to. We got to get Babe Ruth going up against Adam Adovino. Right. Hey, there you go. Yeah, we put that in the trailer and a few people caught on that. It was awesome. One thing I want to ask about, we've talked a lot about Diamond Dynasty.

Road to the show is still the bread and butter. And obviously playing through multiple seasons is something you want to do and accumulate, but there hasn't been kind of that extra aspect to it where you're really learning about your player and kind of watching them grow the way some of the other modes have, or other games I should say, like 2K. How much do you take from those titles to try to bring in and expand the Road to the Show? And what are a couple features that we can expect to see this year in Road to the show well we we play and we watch everything um not just other sports games but other rpgs because you know road to the show is an rpg and the baseball experience is very unique um it's a lot about that internal monologue that you'll have with yourself

as you're playing in the minors you get up to the majors um so that part of the storyline you kind of curate yourself but as far as features are like we really let the feedback uh people really like the archetype last year but they didn't necessarily like the fact that you couldn't make a 99 overall character right so we've allowed you to do that again but with but there's a catch like uh when you choose the archetype you have major attributes which are really easy to train and the easiest to get to 99 and you'll have minor attributes that are a little bit harder to get to 99 so you can still make your guy 99 it's just going to take some time we also heard feedback that people love the dialogue choices but they wanted them to have more weight they wanted them to be a consequence so every single dialogue choice you have enrolled

to the show now affects your personality and the perk tree because this is how you unlock all the perks now. It's all the thing that's happening off the field in Road to the Show. And also off the field, we have a brand new set of training minigames. So there are still those minigames where you just press a button, you get those boosts, but now we have over 10 actual interactive training minigames. And some of them actually help you become better at the game, like the PCI one. you get those boosts but now we have over 10 actual interactive training mini games and some of them actually help you become better at the game like you know the pci one we also have a

bench press and a pilates mini game and it's a way for you to augment and get more training points in in-game we have dynamic challenges and they they pop up randomly and it's really cool when you get them because you could have a game where you get two or three dynamic challenges or you could go a whole series without seeing them and with dynamic challenges what it allows you to do is basically wager on yourself either a little or a lot saying okay i think i can get a single at this battle okay i think i can hit a home run and if you can do those things you can accomplish and complete the challenge you'll get boost in your experience points and also on the flip side if you don't complete them there's no negative aspect.

So it's basically you're betting house money with the dynamic challenges and road to the show this year. So last thing, you've been at Sony since 2008. So that essentially overlaps with the pitch tracking, ball tracking era, PitchFX and now StatCast. And I wonder if you can explain a little

how that has affected development of the game going back to before this information was widely available to now where it's not just pitches and batted balls, but speed of players and movement in the field and so on. How do you integrate all of that information? Right. So the speed of our players is actually done by looking at advanced statistics, so there's no hand in that. And our attributes, like we take, it's a three-year split. I believe it's 33 and a third, 33 and a third, and 33 and a third. And we're looking at a three-year average of the player to give us his attributes. And then, basically, we get these attributes kicked out, we put them in the game, and we take a look at them.

And for the most part, everybody looks where they should be. I think where some people could get confused is where a guy has this one hot year and they're like well why didn't he get this this crazy boost for instance uh with mirafield for the kansas city royals led to league and steals um so people expected him to be like the best base dealer in the game but you have to look at that three-year average and then we also do live roster updates like every two weeks and then once a month we'll have a very big roster update where basically Luis is just combing through tons of data trying to make those changes with guys going up with roster uh attribute updates and guys going down and that's a very very tedious process because as you know you're like with baseball you need a good sample size to be able to make determinations on how good or how bad of a player he is. Right. And do you get fewer

players upset about their ratings because it's all based on objective information now? It's not just opinion? Oh, absolutely not. Everybody's speed rating is a little bit too low. Everybody wants a little bit more pop in the bat, but I can't really blame them. I think I'd be the same way. Yeah. Do you ever adjust? Do you take another look at that? Or is it just like, hey, our hands are tied. It's StatCast. Sorry. Our hands will always be tied. But if somebody mentions it to us, we'll always do a double check just to make sure everything looks right. And just to appease them, perhaps. All right. You can find Ramon on Twitter at Ramon underscore Russell. And if you're listening to this now, you can go get the game.

MLB The Show 19 is out right now. So go pick it up. Thank you, Ramon. No, thank you for having me. And Paul, thanks for joining me for this. And if people want to watch you play MLB The Show, where can they do that? Ben, thanks so much for having me on.

They can follow me on. They can follow me on Twitter at Spore and on Twitch at Spore as well. That's S-P-O-R-E-R. I'll be on quite a bit this week. If they're listening to it, the release week, which is the week of March 25th, you're going to see me on a whole bunch and throughout the summer. But obviously with the release tonight, it's going to be action packed. So just jump in, say hello, let us know. Let me know that you heard us on the podcast. And if you love baseball, you'll have a good time in the stream, because even if you don't play the game, we're talking baseball all the time. And again, Ben, thank you so much for having me on with you. Okay, that will do it for today. Hope you enjoyed the bonus podcast content. You can

support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. James Bennett, Timothy Cullen, Dave Go Mariner's Wesolowski, Sean Ezrapoor, and Donald Vincent. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. I believe there's a group there that is planning to play the show together, exchanging PSN IDs, so you can get in on that if you're interested. You can rate, review, and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes and other podcast platforms keep your questions and comments for me

and meg and sam coming via email at podcast at vangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system if you're a supporter thanks to dylan higgins for his editing assistance extra editing assistance this week you can pre-order my book the mvp machine which comes out later this spring and sam and meg and i will be back for a three-person podcast next time. The hosts will all be assembled, so we'll talk to you then. Until this time tomorrow We'll be joined upon the duel On Royalshire, the hell's deal