Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1453: Time Is on Our Side

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Sam Miller and Meg Rowley revisit a fast-moving 1916 afternoon tilt between the Asheville Tourists and the Winston-Salem Twins with some historic significance, and engage in an Effectively Wild experiment. Audio intro: Ben Gibbard and Feist “Train Song” Interstitial: Muddy Waters “Train Fare Home Blues” Audio outro: Oscar Peterson Trio “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be“ […]

Traveling north, traveling north to find you Train wheels speeding, wind in my eyes Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you Call out your name, love Don't be surprised It's so many miles And so long since I've left you Don't even know

I'll find when I get to you But suddenly now I know where I belong It's many hundred miles And it won't be long. Good morning and welcome to Effectively Wild, the baseball podcast from Fangraphs.com. This is episode 1453. On August 30th, 1916, two North Carolina State League teams played a late-season Class D minor league baseball game. The game didn't attract much attention at the time, but a few decades later, it was rediscovered by a local journalist named Dick Kaplan.

And in 2011, Wynn Montgomery wrote about it for Sabre's Baseball Research Journal. It is now believed to be the fastest professional baseball game ever played. I've long been fascinated by this game, even more so after reading about the details of it. In 2015, when Ben Lindbergh and I ran the Sonoma Stompers, we considered trying to convince our team to try to break this record. We didn't do that in part because I just couldn't make the math work. I couldn't figure out how a game could be played as quickly as this one. Today, we are going to play this game out in real time. There were no radio broadcasts of baseball games at the time. The first World Series radio broadcasts were still a half decade away. So, Meg and I will be going back to that day and backfilling with our own broadcast. Only sporadic

details of the game survive, so much of what we say is made up using context clues and some guesses. Much of it is real, though, including some of the most outlandish parts. After the game, we'll briefly go over what was real and what was not. And now, to the game. Good afternoon and welcome to Tourist Baseball. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs here with Sam Miller of ESPN as the Asheville Tourists host the Winston-Salem Twins, brought to you by our Patreon supporter, Sam Hello. Hello!

Listeners might be wondering why we're already on the air today. This game was originally scheduled for 2 p.m., but the Tourists have to catch a train to Raleigh this afternoon. The teams have made the last-minute decision to start this game about 32 minutes early, so if you have your tickets, hurry down as we're about to get started. Yep, there are only about 200 fans here so far, but more should trickle in as the official game time approaches. I see that tourist's owner L.L. Jenkins' seats are empty, so it doesn't look like he's arrived yet, but he and everybody else should have plenty of time to get down here and see some baseball on this pleasant afternoon.

Here are today's lineups for the visiting twins. Leading off at second base, Ray Rowling, one of two players in this game with major league experience. Batting second, Hobb Hiller. Hobb Hiller playing third base. Batting third in center field, it's Fred Heck. Batting fourth, it's first baseman Al Bumb with a B Bumb. Batting fifth, shortstop Molly McMahon. Batting sixth, left fielder Frank Nesser. George Fry is doing the catching and batting seventh. Red Stewart is the right fielder and he bats eighth. And the ace of the staff, Whitey Glasner is on the catching and batting seventh. Red Stewart is the right fielder, and he bats eighth.

And the ace of the staff, Whitey Glasner, is on the mound. And for the tourists, we have John Corbett playing shortstop. Dallas Bradshaw playing second base. Jimmy Hickman, who's batting.350 and playing center field. Ernie Burke, the rookie first baseman. Earl Bidding? Bidding? Bidding? Bidding? Biding? Biding? Bitting? Well, he's the third baseman earl bidding bidding bidding biting biting well he's the third baseman anyhow guy dunning and right field we have earl mack catching the son of connie mack

he is the son of connie mack he is not catching the son of connie mack we have kitty wickham in left field and george lowe is on the mound lowowe is throwing his final warm-up tosses and we are ready to begin. Rowling digs in and Lowe, not wasting any time, throws his first pitch and Rowling grounds it sharply to second base. Bradshaw fields it cleanly and throws to first and just like that we have one away. And you'll notice this is an interesting start to the game, Sam. If you notice there are no umpires. The assigned official, Red Rowe, arrived only shortly before the game started. Hobb, Hiller already digging in the bottom. Sorry to interrupt you, Meg, but Lowe is pitching from the stretch with nobody on, and he quickly delivers another pitch. Hiller fouls this one down the left field line.

And so Rowe wasn't ready to take the field for this early beginning. The teams are playing with no umpire. And they haven't needed one yet as Hiller swings at that 0-1 pitch way off the plate, taps it to the first baseman. Ernie Burke fields it, steps on the bag. Two are away. And Fred Heck is already digging into the batter's box and awaiting Lowe's pitch. A reminder to those who can hear the sound of today's game, it is brought to you by Wendell and Long.

Apologies for interrupting, Meg, but that's a foul tapped wide of third base. The third baseman bidding is sprinting in a fury to retrieve it. Wendell and Long, the only piano manufacturing company trusted by the Asheville tourists. And another swing, and this one is lined into left field, caught on a run by Kitty Wickham. And the top of the first inning is already over. Sam, what an odd display. Five pitches, five five swings an entire production only took one minute and 12 seconds and the two teams are switching sides in a sprint

i have not seen this before the twins are nearly to all their positions ashville's leadoff hitter john corbett is already in the box using whichever bat was left in the vicinity of the plate and whitey glasner is in his windupup before Fred Heck has reached his spot in center field. Fortunately, Corbett popped the first pitch foul because Heck, who had just made the last out of the inning, had his back to the infield and was only about 15 feet beyond the infield dirt. Look at them chase these foul balls and return them to the pitcher. I mean, I don't think

they could be running any harder if the ball was live. Heck is now in position in center as the ball is thrown back toward Glasner. He steps on the mound and without coming to a stop, he quick pitches. It's another foul. This one tapped to the Twins dugout. It rattles around in there for a second. Corbett doesn't step out. Glasner doesn't step off the mound. He takes the throw from the Twins dugout, goes immediately into his windup, and here's a pitch in. There's a bump by Corbett. It rolls up the first baseline for about 25 feet and then veers foul. And on a two strike bunt, he is the first out of the inning. I don't want to sound too worried, but Glasner, he looks like he might be hurt today. he's normally a hard-throwing

speedball pitcher with a plus plus fadeaway these pitches are slow and looping what they used to call bloopers when the great bill phillips threw them for the indianapolis reds well whatever that pitch was it seemed to discombobulate corbett oh and it's done the same to dallas bradshaw who just swung and missed at a pitch way outside glasner gets the ball back and he's done the same to Dallas Bradshaw who just swung and missed at a pitch way outside. Glasner gets the ball back and he's already winding up and throwing and this time Bradshaw bunts too. His bunt is right back to the pitcher.

Glasner fields it, throws to first. The first baseman, Bumb, Bumb, immediately fires it back to him rather than going around the horn and two men are away. Weird game. Weird game. I don't know what's going on in this game right now and there's a pop-up right behind home plate the twins fielders

are already sprinting in toward their dugout anticipating the end of the inning and oh my gosh fry drops it the catcher george fry got spun around and dropped it and now the twins fielders have to turn around and they're sprinting back to their positions. Glasner doesn't wait for them. He pitches and it's a lazy fly ball to left field. Frank Nesser turns back around and finds it and drifts under it. And that's the final out of the inning. Three minutes and 48 seconds.

Sam, what is going on here? You know, I'm starting to wonder. You know, there have been complaints in the past few years that baseball is dying. You remember that Oakland Tribune piece a few years ago? Yeah, I remember it and can quote from it here. That interest in baseball is dying is manifested by the dropping off of the crowds that go to the game. Is this the beginning of the end for the national game?

Exactly. So part of that is the pace of the game. The average game time is nearing two hours. And many adults consider that simply too slow to keep them entertained. And many young children find it too time-consuming to fit into their busy work weeks. I wonder if the twins and the tourists are attempting to make a statement about the direction of the sport. Or trying something radical to save it, perhaps? Well, while we were talking, Al Bumb flied out to first base for the first out

and now shortstop molly mccann is awaiting his pitch but he doesn't wait long he grounds a sharp single right at the middle for the first hit of the game mcmahon makes a wide turn at first and he's not stopping he's trying to stretch this to a double but the throw in the second is in plenty of time and he's out by 40 feet we'll say 40 feet molly mccannon is 33 years old he's out by 40 feet. We'll say 40 feet. Molly McKinnon is 33 years old. He's the oldest player in this Twins lineup. He's not nearly as fast as he once was. And I'm not sure he's gotten any wiser either. And now Frank Nesser has sprinted to the batter's box.

He swings the first pitch. He drives one into the gap in left center, which makes McMahon's base running blunder really look bad. Nesser rounds first. He'll ease into second with a double. No, no, no. He's going to third. He's going to third. And he is out. He'll ease into second with a double. No, no, no. He's going to third. He's going to third and he is out. He is out ending the inning. Not even that great

of a relay. The relay throw came in and the shortstop Corbett double clutched and surprised that McMahon would try to stretch for third base with two outs. Okay, this might be the craziest fun fact we've had all year, but we are now going to the bottom of the second inning and nobody on either side has taken a pitch yet. These two teams are scoreless, and we've only been playing for five minutes and 46 seconds. And as we're getting used to, the two teams are sprinting to change positions.

The Twins are racing to their positions, still fitting their hats on their heads, while the tourists charge back to the dugout. Clean-up hitter Ernie Burke heading straight to the batter's clean up hitter ernie burke heading straight to the batter's box no warm-up pitchers for garzner and i feel like i haven't taken a breath all game all right meg we didn't get a chance to get into what this game means for each of these teams so winston-salem has come up just short of capturing its second league title as the charlotte hornets clinched first place this week so for them it's an anticlimactic end

to a pretty good season ashville is finishing its season with some disappointment. They won the league's championship last year, their first season, after changing the team name from the Mountaineers to the Tourists in a nod to their mild tourism-friendly climate. They went from 76 wins last year to just 58 this year, and they'll likely finish in fourth place. But this was a tough season in more significant ways. Just one month ago, the city was almost completely underwater. Tropical storms brought an estimated 22 inches of rain in 24 hours. The rainfall overwhelmed dams and riverbanks, unleashing torrents of water and flooding the city with a wide raging river. Houses and bridges were submerged and still the rain continued to fall and fall. Waves loaded with debris crashed through town.

Dozens of homes and most of an amusement park were washed away. Floodwaters didn't recede for days, leveling much of the landscape, submerging industrial plants, knocking out pillars beneath elevated railroad tracks. Ten workers trying to repair a bridge died when it collapsed, and an estimated 80 people died in total. The tragedy has knocked the entire community to its knees, in prayer and in grief and in laborious recovery. Nearly all of these Asheville neighbors are now starting over, replanting and rebuilding and trying to get local industry up and moving again. This game is but a passing distraction, but a welcome one, and it is with sadness that we note this season will soon be over. The bottom of the second inning is also now over. There was a chopper

to third, a blooper to second, and a line drive to center field while I was telling you that, and it took just four pitches as we are now heading to the third in a scoreless tie. Umpire Red Row, by the way, has just taken his place ending this experiment, but if baseball were umpire-less, how umpire-less would it be? Oh, Meg, that's such a great question. So, of course, you know, there are sports, the great old game of golf, for instance, where players are expected to monitor their own rules, violations, to take care of the sort of the officiating of the sport in an honor system sort of way. Baseball has never been that way.

It's a sport of scoundrels and cheats. And so you already have a cultural issue. But even if we could assume we could get past the fallibility of human nature, do you suppose that it's technically feasible that the players on the field could handle the role of officiating? I don't. I have very little confidence. I mean, we have a rule in the rulebook that requires them to run in one direction around the bases and not the other.

And that rule is expressly in there because of the chicanery they get up to when left to their own devices. So I think that the cultural issue you referenced would be problem enough. And then there's the matter of, you know, it being, despite it being mostly for the bulk of the game, one guy throwing a ball to another guy and him trying to do something with it, one that lends itself to multiple perspectives that I think would make it tricky to say with any certainty, you know, whether a ball was fair or foul inside or outside. I mean, sometimes they even can't tell if it hit them. Yeah. The top of the third is over, by the way, we're going to the bottom of the third. Yeah. It seems to me that one of the things that makes a sport where it makes it feasible for players to, to officiate themselves is that you have to you have to be able to say clearly

whether a rule has been broken it what i mean by that is if there's room to fudge if there's room to say that you are ignorant or that you had a differing interpretation of what happened then human nature is is going to cause people to to sort of slide ever more toward deceit. And so when it comes to something like balls and strikes, which are just so difficult, even for an objective arbiter to decide whether a pitch is inside or outside when it's right on the border, if you have even players in good faith attempting their very best, to be honest, they are simply going to be so biased. They're going to have such in their interest to see the pitch go their way that I think that you would end up with, oh, I'm sorry, by the way, the bottom of the third is also now over. You're going to have

a lot of disagreements that are just simply unfixable. Now, if it's something that is like in golf, for instance, it's just about counting the strokes. And so to lie about your strokes is just an outright lie. There's no way that you can rationalize it to yourself. There's no way that you can say that, you know, well, one of those strokes shouldn't have counted. It's pretty cut and dry. It's binary. It's either or. You swung or you didn't. You hit it or you didn't. And even on those things where you might be able to fudge,

like whether you tapped the ball or whether you grounded the club in a sand trap or whether, you know, the ball moved, you do know clearly whether it moved or not. And you have to make the decision about whether you're going to lie to your peers. And many people will, and in particular a sport that doesn't have an established expectation of honesty, many people will. But in baseball, it's not even that. It's simply the fact is that players, I think, often think they are safe when they are not safe because it's very hard to know if you were safe. And I think they often think that a pitch was a ball when it wasn't a ball because it's very hard to know if it was a half inch over one side or the other. I think people even think that they caught balls that they trapped. And I think they certainly have no idea

on balls that are fair and foul a lot of times. All those sorts of things just, I think, make it so that you have to have the voice of God who's attempting at least to distinguish without having the scales of self-interest tipping them one way or the other. Well, and Sam, I don't even think that that's the real danger, although there is a danger associated with that sort of righteous perception that may actually end up being factually incorrect. I think the bigger danger comes not with certainty, but with that moment of doubt. The moment of doubt is where things get really dangerous and go off the rails because, you know, if a righteous man trying to do the right thing, even if he is ultimately wrong, thinks that he is safe after a close play at first base, well, you know, you can get exercised about that and you can believe a thing to be true

and you can you can jaw and yell about it but the moment that he betrays even just slightly in his face that he's he's a little unsure and i think i think i was safe but i'm i'm not entirely positive in that moment the fans in the stands will realize that this is all really made up i mean it's happening in front of them. There are guys on the field trying to play baseball and they are standing a certain distance apart from one another and they have a clear objective for what they're trying to accomplish on the field. But the rules are made up. They're totally arbitrary. We decided it's played this way because that's how we like it. We've decided this is the right thing. And we're able to forget that this is not,

you know, set down on stone tablets, that this is not on the Ten Commandments because we're having fun at the ballpark and they all seem so sure. And so we're able to be sure that we're having fun. But as soon as they look a little confused or doubtful or don't know the rule, then we're reminded that we're kind of just sitting there hanging out because some group of folks a couple many years ago decided that this is how we should spend an afternoon. And we're going to feel a little bit silly about that. And so I think that there's danger, not so much that we can test the outcome, but that we question the value of the enterprise entirely.

We're actually in the fifth inning now. I'm sorry. We did just talk away two innings. So now we're in the fifth. I should give you a quick update. It's top of the fifth. Neither team has scored yet. The Twins were retired in the top of the third on just three pitches,

which I propose should henceforth be called a minimus inning from the Latin. For whatever it is Latin. In the bottom of the third, Kitty Wickham struck out on a pitch that hit him in the chest in the top of the fourth after a ground ball back to pitcher George Lowe. Lowe sprinted to the bag himself because first baseman ernie burke had already abandoned his position and was high tailing it to the plate where he was due to lead off the next inning also low has been replaced on the mound by eddie bacon and while you were giving that update molly man and filed away two pitches uh for strikes and is now behind oh two thank you for the update and here's the two

strike pitch and mcmahon grounds another ball up the middle again into center field for a leadoff single he rounds first and the throw is wild mcmahon isn't stopping the ball rolls away over the chalk lines toward the twins dugout and the on-deck hitter frank nesser is standing there nesser picks up the ball. Nesser fires it to the base and the tag is in time. Nesser just threw his own teammate out. What? Yeah, I, yes. Wait, Meg, did that really happen or is that something that we just made up because it seemed entertaining and nobody would know if we made it up? Sam, that really truly happened. I swear that it was a thing that just happened. That is the first out of the inning. Frank Nesser threw his own teammate out from the on-deck circle.

And now Nesser is already in the Petters box and oh my god, he just hit a first pitch home run. The twins have a run and the scoreless tie is broken. What an inning. Okay, can we go back to the play earlier in the inning though? I mean, yes, please. All right. So putting Nesser's role aside for a minute. Okay. I want to talk about Molly McMahon's strategy in this game.

So when he gets on base, he just runs until he's tagged out. He never stops. So, like, what if this were a normal feature in baseball? What if there was a player? Maybe he'd be called the Zoom Zoom guy or the whoosh whoosh guy or the pew pew guy and he did this every time would that be like i mean would that be good for baseball is it would that be entertaining could he make a career of it how good would he have to be would he have to be as good as like cap anson to survive that way i am just uh fixated on on how we would we would call it would he even have a name

would he have a name or would we just make the sounds would we just call him the pew pew guy or the zoom zoom guy zoom zoom would we just would we all chant would we just go like when he got on base would we all just start going zoom zoom zoom would we encourage that's a great question would we encourage this behavior or would we all collectively go, stop, don't do it and like try to restrain him some way? I wonder if it would be, and like for how long would it be fun? Because we like to shout about stuff. I mean, we're at a baseball game and it's quiet some of the time, but the reason we

tolerate the quiet is because we get to shout. On occasion, I shouted for a home run. I got excited. I was exercised. I shouted about it. And so you would be somewhat shouty. You get to shout fun sounding, you know, like zoom, zoom and whoosh. Whoosh has a less good mouth feel than zoom.

Great for that sort of like holding the note though. Like whoosh. Yeah, yeah. You could lean into some of the atmosphere around you perhaps if it's windy in the booth that day and pew pew is uh it doesn't have great mouthfeel but i don't even know what it is what is that even supposed to sound like some sort of like futuristic laser gun or something we don't have those and so we'd get to shout a bit but then after a, you know that this is coming, and you'll have seen him fail a couple of times, right?

You'll have seen him not succeed, and then you're dreading it. You're experiencing dread. You have mortal, not mortal dread in a literal sense, but in terms of your enjoyment, the literal end to that, I suppose. I think given the rules of the game as it's played today in 1916, it's not feasible. But you could imagine a future sometime in the next 100 or so years when baseball liberalizes the baseline, basically, and says there's no need to run directly to the base. This is a game of tag, so please go in any direction you want. And in that case, the idea of constantly going forward

would make a lot more sense. You could even imagine, well, I might ask you in a moment to imagine, but you could even imagine that that would be the default, that every plate appearance would last one batter and that there would be no runners left on bat. You couldn't go partway. You had to finish your circuit by the end of that plate appearance. And then every single batter who put the ball in play would lead to an extremely expansive game of tag in which his plate appearance hinges not just on his ability to hit the ball hard, although that is a significant start, but on his ability to avoid tags and cause general chaos. And I, I sort of think that I would like that. Although I do think that having runners on base is a nice way of giving a game texture that you, you don't want to have every

plate appearance start in exactly the same space. Like it would be boring if you were watching, you know, America, have you, do you know American football, this game they're playing on the college campuses? Yeah, I've heard, I've heard of it it so you wouldn't want to have a game of football where every play starts on the 30 yard line and it's like third and third and six like you sometimes you like to have first and ten sometimes you like to have fourth and one sometimes you like to have second and two sometimes you like to be on the 10 yard line and sometimes you like to be on the 40 yard line and all that gives it variety it would be boring to have a game where every play was at exact same place. And in the same way with baseball,

it's nice to have runners in scoring position. Like, isn't that just a magical phrase? Runners in scoring position. It sounds so good. Runners in scoring. Risp. It even makes other sounds sound good, like zoom, zoom.

Yes, it does. So I think that, I don't think I want to make it so that you are forced to be a zoom zoom guy but i do think that making the game safe for zoom zoom guy by letting him run in any direction would actually be quite would be would be quite good i i think i would support that and it would open up the game to a whole different kind of player that we haven't seen yet. Yeah, I guess I'm just skeptical that the athleticism you're describing is going to be all that prevalent.

Yeah, you don't think that baseball is ever going to be an athletic game. You think we're going to stick more with the sluggers in this George Herman Ruth style that we're seeing in Boston? Well, I'm just saying that I don't know that I've ever seen an athletic bumb, including the gentleman who's on first base sometimes. Yeah, not a lot of athletes in this, not a lot of athletic names in this lineup. No, bumb is especially bad. Is Ray Rolling an athletic name or an extremely unathletic name? Ray Rolling.

I guess it occupies two extremes. Yeah, it's a motion name, it's it's not it's not the great kind of motion generally speaking all right while we were talking by the way some innings passed uh we're now in the um in the middle of the seventh inning the twins have scored a second run while we were discussing on a home run by hobb Hiller. Another unathletic name. And Winston-Salem pitchers have turned in another minimus inning. Meg, we're now on pace to finish this game in 35 minutes, maybe? Do you think that's any sort of a record?

Sam, I'm glad you asked that. The fastest game in professional history to date was 32 minutes long. It was played between atlanta and mobile on september 17th and 1910 here's what's odd about that game before it the fastest recorded game was 44 minutes and on the same day that atlanta and mobile finished in 32 minutes two other teams in the same league finished a game in 42 minutes, suggesting that there might have been a competitive aspect to each game's rapidity. The game got national attention. It was on the front page of some newspapers.

And in some ways, it looked like the scene we've described to listeners today. Players ran on and off the field and sprinted to the batter's box, usually swinging at the first pitch. They hit mostly grounders. But there were some differences. The pitchers seemed to be trying harder than the pitchers in this game today, who've been lobbing hittable pitches. The base runners didn't vroom vroom until they were out, and so there were occasionally rallies, though it should be noted there were also seven outfield assists. One first inning rally produced a run on a double,

then a ground out to advance the runner, then a walk, and then a double steal to score the first run of the game. Another rally ended in a memorable 9-3-2 triple play in the second, in which one runner was doubled off on a fly ball to right field and another was thrown out trying to score from second base on the very same fly ball both pitchers worked like demented steam engines according to accounts there were 10 hits in total the winning run scored in the ninth inning and i'm going to read from the game account here howard murphy singled and then burglarized the second story. Wagner was then so ungentlemanly as to swat the sphere to the left garden for one base, and Murphy meandered home. As one writer has recounted, the teams had given the fans an exciting game with a bit

of everything except a home run and had set an unequaled benchmark for baseball brevity by playing a nine inning game in less time than most teams take to complete two frames the atlanta journal wrote viewed from every angle the game was a hummer so we might beat that record but the style today is quite a bit different like you say we've seen pitchers throwing pitches before their teammates were in position we've seen almost all lobs from pitchers no runner has been stranded on base every batter has swung at the first pitch they've seen although not all of them of course have hit that first pitch fairly so this has been i would say from that description from that style of play this has been a very contrived scenario and yet as we head to the top of the ninth inning there is one detail that is

clearly not contrived the visitors are winning two to one which means the home team will have to bat in the bottom of the ninth i could imagine some people will have hot takes about this game being a sham but at the very least we have proof in the score right now that this was not a game played strictly for speed and with a total absence of competition yeah that's right that's a great point so by, while you were saying that, we saw a first pitch bunt out. And while I was saying that, we had another first pitch bunt out. So that's two outs in the top of the ninth inning. The Twins are winning two to one, and we've been playing for about 26 minutes. Eddie Bacon is still on the mound. Hobb Hiller at the plate. Bacon winds and delivers, and hillar grounds one weekly to the shortstop

corbett charges throws to first and we head to the bottom of the ninth with the asheville tourists looking to either win or make three quick outs and race to their train so uh while we were talking asheville owner ll jenkins did arrive and he does not look happy jenkins always pays for his ticket and we're told he is very upset that he and the rest of the fans have not been rewarded with a full and genuine baseball game. Indeed, we have not yet even reached the scheduled start time, so there are fans who will be arriving to find out that the game that they have paid to see is already over.

And so Jenkins is now standing up. He's saying something to the crowd let me see if i can hear this okay so yes he has just issued a brief speech and assured the fans that the club will be refunding all tickets so this sort of game as you know from having watched a lot of 19-teens baseball, is not that uncommon late in the season. Baseball, of course, isn't too serious, and teams frequently have a little fun after the pennant race has been decided. Sometimes that turns into farce, and L.L. Jenkins clearly does not like this. But some would argue, just let the kids play. They play loud, all that. So, Meg,

simple yes or no question for you. Is a post-pennant race, everything is settled, all clinched up, last days of the season, is a fun game like this that defies competition and breaks all of the norms good or is it bad? It's really terrific question i think that we become overly fixated candidly with uh winning winning pennants winning trophies when the mere act of showing up and doing one's work is is admirable even if it doesn't lead to success and i think that you know dwelling too long on the results of the game tends to miss some of the things that are the best about it. If you actually manage to get to your seat because your team isn't playing a game in 32 minutes, you would get to enjoy the company of your family or your friends. You might get to feel a bit wily for going to a game in the middle of the day and not doing your work. doing your work. You might get to see something on the baseball field that you've never seen before,

although it probably takes a little bit longer to have that be satisfying than what we've seen here today. And so I think that it allows us to appreciate some of the things that we necessarily have to neglect when we're in the midst of a pennant race and playoff fever. You know, we get to enjoy some of the slow moments, the quiet moments, or even just small moments of victory that don't add up to much, but that, you know, some of these guys might remember for a while, and you never know what's going to grab you at a baseball game. You never know when a fan who hasn't seen this before will look around and say, well, I wasn't invested in the pennant race anyhow, but this is pretty great,

and I wouldn't mind coming back again with stakes that matter a bit more. So yeah, I think, I think it's fine. But all of that said, because all of those things are very fine things, you probably need them to last a little bit longer. Yeah, that is a tricky thing. I mean, I do like the idea of variety and novelty and not taking things too seriously. And a lot of great developments do happen, you know, basically because of an accident, because of something that was supposed to be a one-off, and then we discover something about ourselves or about the system at work. However, I do, I am sympathetic to the paying customer.

I am sympathetic to the consumer. Sometimes you think you know what you're getting, you're used to the thing you like and then you turn it on and it's just different and weird and not everybody likes that not everybody likes the weird experimental thing and so i'm sympathetic to that i can see why ll jenkins is taking care of his uh of his fan base yeah i understand that i I will say, I guess we should take a moment to note that, meanwhile, we are down to the final out of the game, and John Corbett, the shortstop, and leadoff hitter and manager,

we didn't say that, I don't think, manager, is up representing the tying run. He looks at Twins reliever Herman... Schwarza! Schwarza! Schwarza! Maybe Schwartia? schwarza sounds like a sauce who looks back in at corbett conspiratorially how do would you like me to take that line again no schwarza delivers a fat pitch uh right down the middle and corbett lashes out to left field and

into the corner nester chases after it Corbett rounds first and tears for second. The throw's coming in, but it'll be late, and Corbett never stops. Ray Rawlings fields it at second, throws to third. Corbett stops, and we have a pickle. Corbett retreats, and Hobb Hiller fires it back to Rawlings, who's now chasing Corbett between third base. And with the diving lunge, he tags Corbett out. Game is over.

The Winston-Salem Twins have defeated the Asheville Tourists. Nine Twins and one Tourist collapse onto the field like they finished an 800-yard sprint. The ballgame is over. A train to Raleigh awaits. Sam, let us never speak of this game again. It's a deal. Well, you know if I happen to get lucky It's a deal. All right, so I just wanted to do a quick rundown of what was made up.

So we don't have a box score from this game. And in fact, the reports of the action are quite minimal. The reporters that were on the scene didn't really take it seriously, unlike the Atlanta and Mobile game that we referenced from six years earlier, which was very well documented. So we, we had to make up the lineups. We knew some of the players that were in the game,

but otherwise we had to use other players from the roster. We didn't know the order. And for the most part, other than the scoring plays, we don't know what happened for, for each batter. So all those like ground outs, first pitch all had to be,

be made up but but pretty much everything else is true that nesser really did pick up the ball in the on deck circle and throw out his teammate and they really did uh the pitchers threw pitches before their fielders were on the field and they really did lob pitches it really does seem to be the case that nobody took a pitch the entire game and that they did genuinely vroom vroom every play that there was according to um according to uh win montgomery's fantastic write-up of this game and he also wrote a great one of the atlanta game there was not a single runner left on base so there were three home runs over the wall and everybody else was eventually out and so that was maybe the the one professional vroom vroom game that that ever happened and uh as far as i

can tell none of those guys vroom vroomed all the way around so they uh they did uh apparently make it to their train which was at 2 30 the train was at 2 30 I mean, it's one thing to say, let's play a fast game, but they had a 230 train and the game started at two. I don't know who thought that was going to work. And even when they started at 128, I can't imagine they thought they were going to finish. Who would have thought they would have finished, but they did, they finished. And yeah, I think everything else is pretty much uh as we said so i don't get to give you credit for al bumb as a name that is real real name b-u-m-b bumb boom boom what a great what a great i mean it's satisfying like a stew. Has a letter ever done more than that last B?

No, never. Never. And you sit there and you're like, you know, Ray Rowling, great name. Hob Hiller, great name. Yeah, good name. Fred Heck. What the heck? Heck of a name.

But then you get to Al Bumb. If there was no B, by the way, it would just be Album. That's right and you wouldn't get satisfaction like over enunciating bum like what a bum because it would still sound like album but instead you have to slow down you have to slow down to appreciate the bum so i would like to uh just cite the sources uh that we relied on. Again, Wynn Montgomery wrote the two defining articles about these two games, and everything is just taken from those. And so those are great pieces at the Sabre, sabre.org.

And we'll link to them. And the Oakland Tribune article about the baseball dying that we cited, that was found by Emma Batchelary. All of the information about the baseball dying that we cited that was uh that was uh found by emma bachelary all of the information about the flood that happened that summer in asheville comes from ourstate.com the article hell and high water the flood of 1916 and i think that's it of course baseball reference as always with 10 times more information than you ever think you're going to get about a 1916 minor league baseball team the hard thing with baseball references minor league names is that there's always the best names are always one name names like you don't even have a you don't

have a first name or you don't have a last name you're not sure which and like the names are just ridiculous like the name is just like and they always have a question mark because i don't know what the the i don't know how names get question marks in baseball reference i assume it means that like you're not sure he existed or something like that but it's always like uh cannoli but that's just his name bump yeah so uh anyway baseballreference.com. It's just given me a new appreciation for broadcasters. Yeah. And I had time to prepare. I mean, I didn't have time to prepare more than reading it twice. And I still had moments of stumbling. I bet there's some inconsistent name pronunciation throughout. I will remember it when it comes time for the postseason next year,

and I'm inclined to be prickly toward those in the booth. I'll probably still be prickly, but I'll feel worse about it. They do have a lot more time to describe what's happening. That's generous. That's very generous toward me. Thank you, Sam. All right. Well, we've done that, Meg. I'm crossing it off my list. There we go. That'll do it for today. We hope you enjoyed our little radio play, but if not, never fear. There's unlikely to be another game quite so short again. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going.

Finn McCaddy Strayley, Nick Bruce, Thomas Neal-Blanc, Marilyn Reynolds, and Brian Nanos. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild, and you can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. And please keep your questions and comments for me,

Sam, and Ben coming via email at podcast at fangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance. Ben and I will be back with another episode soon. Until then, thanks for listening. are we done are we done