Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1784: Have You Heard The Rumor?

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the reasons for and consequences of MLB’s lack of compelling record chases (à la Alex Ovechkin’s in the NHL, Stephen Curry’s in the NBA, and Tom Brady���s in the NFL). Then (21:16) they talk to Sam Dingman and Mac Montandon, the hosts of The Rumor, a just-completed six-part […]

All records never die All records never die You can watch the waves roll by You can see in their eyes All records never die All records never die Oh, records never die Hello and welcome to episode 1784 of Technically Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. So we are talking today to Sam Dingman and Mac Montandon, the hosts of The Rumor, a really fantastic investigative but also silly podcast about the longstanding rumor that there was a fight between Cal Ripken and Kevin Costner over an affair and that Ripken was injured in this fight and that as a result, the Orioles canceled a game in which Ripken was unable to play by claiming that some of the lights in the ballpark had shorted out and the conditions were too dark for the Orioles to play the Mariners and artificially extended his streak. So it's about the rumor, though it's really about fandom and how conspiracies get started and some bigger issues. It's six episodes. You can find it on Blue Wire and we'll link to it on our show page, but it's in all the usual podcast places. And it wrapped up a couple weeks ago and

we both really enjoyed it. And we had some lingering questions for Sam and Mac. So we will bring them on in a moment but we recommend the rumor to everyone oh yeah when you when you were like hey uh should we talk to these guys i was like sure and then i realized that that meant that uh i was gonna have to listen to six hours of podcast and and then i started and i was done within a day because it's very compelling stuff and really well done so I recommend it especially as you were hungering for baseball stuff during the walkout it is a very pleasant and interesting diversion so yeah yeah yeah I also binged it in one day which I know

having been on the other side of creative endeavors and spending months on certain things and then someone will say ah I finished it in one day or X hours. And part of you is like really flattered that you consumed it so fast. And then the other part of you is like, oh, that took me a year and you finished it in an hour. But this will not take an hour. It takes maybe four or five, but it is well worth it. And we will have a little light spoilery discussion here, but we'll start off non-spoilery. And there's a limit to how spoilery it can be, really, because this podcast is about one of the more famous records in sports and baseball,

Cal Ripken surpassing Luke Gehrig's Ironman streak. And as we just look around right now, there are interesting records being broken all over sports, right? And you had Steph Curry breaking the all-time three-pointer record just this week in the NBA. I guess there wasn't a ton of suspense associated with that because it was clear for a while that he was going to just blow by it. But you also have Alex Ovechkin chasing Gretzky in the NHL, which I've kind of gotten into because that's a compelling mix of plausible and yet not set in stone. It's very much in question whether he can do it, but it is also well within reach. And we've seen this in a lot of sports lately. If you watch tennis and you see both men and women going after setting Grand Slam singles records, I mean,

there are all these exciting things happening in other sports. And it's not to say that there's no history happening in MLB there certainly is but when it comes to all-time records or even really some of the more compelling single season records yeah post barry bonds who broke the scale in a lot of ways we just haven't seen that like that really just hasn't been a big element of baseball fandom and as people who kind of came of age as fans during the 98 home run chase and how exciting that was at the time i do find myself missing that yeah and i think part of it is that even if we were on pace for something like that all of the recent stuff with the ball would make us for instance skeptical of home run totals like how how valid is this

really although i guess we have plenty of questions about that with respect to the last home run totals like how how valid is this really although i guess we have plenty of questions about that with respect to the last home run chase but yeah it seems like some of the the recent attempts at it have have faltered because of of injury or usage you know we were all so excited about the possibility of de grom beating right gibson's era record and then he got hurt because you were just like stop stop throwing so hard. And he didn't listen, Ben. He just stopped. He just didn't listen.

He was like, I'll throw harder and harder. And then all of a sudden, there was no more chase to be had. So yeah, it is sort of a lean period when it comes to that stuff. But I don't know. I guess they have a way of kind of sneaking up on you. So maybe we'll look around in a couple of years and be like, oh, so-and-so's only X number of whatever's away from that thing wow yeah we had shohei otani doing unprecedented things all season so i can't complain we had otani but there are certain

records that if they were within someone's reach it would be fun and this has come up this lament has been mentioned on the podcast before and sam Sam Miller wrote about this early in 2019 because he did a piece for ESPN about which unbreakable records actually could get broken. Yes. And he drew a distinction in that piece between records and fun facts. So he wrote, a record is something you chase. People know what it is in advance. A fun fact can be just as impressive, but it is bespoke and discovered only after it happens. Mike Trout has the most war in history through age 26. Jamie Moyer had

more wins after his 31st birthday than Pedro Martinez had in his career. Mark Grace once hit 825 when he went the opposite way, the highest ever. Fun facts, but not records. And as he notes, there will be fantastic fun facts season after season but it's hard to find a real record post bonds and he mentioned a couple that had been said at the time like aaron judge breaking the rookie home run record or the yankees breaking the all-time team home run record i mean in that sort of 2017 to 2019 period basically every team set some sort of home run record but not really the more interesting home run records and as he wrote can you think of any record in the 2010s that a you

were aware of before 2010 and b has been broken since not really and i guess there are some candidates since he wrote that but not the really really bold ink kind of records that we all obsess over and know the numbers by heart. And I guess it's interesting to think about why that is, why we are not in a record setting era in baseball, because it is an era with a lot of change in some ways. Obviously, in these other sports, these records have been enabled by changes in the way that the games have been played or by changes in the rules or conditioning or whatever it is. And Curry, of course, helped change the way that basketball is played these days. But it's not as if the three-point line was just added or changed. It's been there for a while. But he and others helped really revolutionize the value that is assigned to that. And in baseball, there's certainly been a similar reappraisal of certain strategies

and tactics and what is valuable. And teams have completely changed how they work in terms of the front offices and the player development process. And so you'd think there would be the potential there for the status quo to have been shaken up enough that we would be seeing some interesting records set, but not really. It just hasn't really worked out that way. but we have some incremental increase in the average length of career because guys are actually taking days off when they need to and we're kind of thinking about injuries differently. I'm sure that that plays some role, but I don't know. Are we missing it? Is it the void? Is it the thing in the midst of baseball?

I mean, right now we're just missing baseball. But generally, I wonder if that is part of the issue and I wonder if we will ever think about them the same way again. If we end up with a tight race and a competition, I think a certain generation of fan is going to remember being burned by that previously. So I wonder if we will be able to sort of come to them with the same wide-eyed innocence that we once did. Right. Yeah, I guess it's a few reasons. I mean, there's been a lot of baseball. There's been more professional baseball than there have been most other sports, and maybe that's part of it. And obviously, the caliber of play has increased, and so it's harder to have outliers and for the best players to be so much better than everyone else that they can really rack up

records. But that's true to some extent in every sport. And maybe it's partly that you haven't really seen significant rules changes for the most part in MLB recently compared to other sports. I mean, the NFL has changed so many rules, often to the benefit of the product and the entertainment value, but also has contributed to constant record breaking, right? Like records are broken so often that no one even knows what the records are. So I don't think that's ideal. You know, there's a new passing record of some sort set every season, seemingly to the point that it's hard even to remember who the previous record holders were. You should just assume it's Tom Brady. Just assume it's Tom Brady,

you're going to be right more often than you're wrong. Right. And so I think I'd rather have it be scarce than have it be so common that it doesn't seem special. But, you know, Sam in that article wrote, the main reason is records get set in extreme environments, and baseball mostly isn't as extreme as it was in the 1960s when pitching was out of hand, or the 1930s when offense was or the 1880s when there were only eight pitchers and they each threw 600 innings. Instead of records, we have to settle for seeing the greatest baseball players in the history of the world putting up non-record statistics, alas.

So, yeah, it's not so bad. But it is an extreme environment in some ways, obviously. Like it's an extreme strikeout environment. and I guess they're strikeout records. Those just aren't quite as exciting or special anymore because those are constantly being broken. And it's an extreme home run environment too, but just not in as entertaining a way. It's not single season home run records being broken or challenged. It is just everyone is hitting 20 instead of someone hitting 70. And obviously, this is partly that the PED era, the steroid era, just sort of swung things out of

whack to the point that it is hard now to surpass some of those record holders. And if there was a clearly observable effect on kind of a league-wide basis of the PED era, it would probably be the longevity and the fact that players didn't age quite the way that they did before and have since. And as you're saying, some of these records are just, can you last a long time? And so it's maybe harder to last a long time and be productive into your 40s if you were not picking what some of those players were. Yeah, for sure. sure yeah i don't know that there is uh anything even really on the horizon like sam ran down some of the possibilities in his piece and he always said that the the most interesting record set would be the 21 strikeouts

in a single game we still haven't seen that he listed off some others an undefeated starting pitcher someone challenging oral herschheiser's 59-inning scoreless streak, the saves record, the doubles record. I guess we did see Nick Castellanos make a run at the single-season doubles record. And then I guess also in baseball, because he mentioned Babe Ruth's war record, for instance, and we have seen some players on pace for that. for instance. And we have seen some players on pace for that. But I think one of the things is that in baseball, a lot of the stats we pay attention to these days either haven't been around for very long. And so it's a record in the stat cast era, which extends all the way back to 2015. Someday that will sound more impressive than it actually is. But at this point, it just hasn't been long enough. And so it's either either things like that that we just haven't been able to measure for that long

or it's something like war where we have it retroactively but it's also sort of squishy and it's constantly changing and evolving and you can't see it being set in the same way that you can count a number of games played or home runs hit war doesn't really accrue to players in that transparent way that you can see on the scoreboard at bat by a bat so i think those are some of the problems and you know another thing sam has written about is like batting averages are lower and you're not going to get a 400 hitter and it's just harder to do certain things and then you have the load management aspect that you mentioned which obviously has like been even more prominent in the nba and other sports but you're not going to get pitcher career records for innings pitched or wins or

what have you because the load is just being divided among many many players plus whereas in basketball and football the analytics era has led to players doing things more often that are fun, it's kind of led to players doing fun things a little less often in baseball in many cases. You know, fewer stolen bases, for instance. You're not going to get anyone coming close to Ricky Henderson in any way, shape, or form, which has something to do with the offensive environment, but also something to do with the fact that people are running the numbers now, and maybe those things were not tactically sound even if they were exciting.

So again, you just get more strikeouts, but fewer steals, fewer triples, fewer innings. You could still get team winning streaks or scoreless streaks, but a lot of things, at least for the foreseeable future, are just entirely off the table. And so we're so starved for records that we get excited about things like Wander Franco trying to break and ultimately tying the record for reaching base safely in consecutive games, which was fun because it was Wander Franco, but the qualifiers, it was the longest in AL slash NL history by a player 20 years old or younger, which made it impressive. But again, it's not really a storied record but that's the best we had yeah and and so i think when you take all of that together it just doesn't

lend itself to the record chase but then i you know i think sam's point is well taken it's just they've never been they've just never been better than they are right now so we have to take solace in the fact that we are just you know happen to be watching the best baseball that we've ever seen played right now. Yeah. I guess Garrett Cole kind of made a run at Nolan Ryan's single season strikeout record that season that Sam wrote that. Sort of. He didn't come all that close. On a long enough time frame, we will get rules changes and things will evolve and there will be interesting record chases again. But it's just something that I was sort of lament weird one because it wasn't like highlights it was just

like is he in the lineup today did he play like right did he get a day off or not like even on the famous day when he broke garrick's record and he just like he was there and he like walked around and it was really special and everything but he wasn't like doing anything at the time he was just like reporting for duty basically which was like amazing but it wasn't so much uh like riveting physical skill although obviously he had those two and like staying as durable as as he was is an amazing physical skill it just doesn't lend itself to highlights in the same way that some other things do. Well, and I think that we've kind of, as not just in sports, but in culture more generally, are kind of thinking more critically about our relationship to work. And someone showing up and giving fans like a good time at the ballpark every day is admirable. But I also think that in other aspects of life in other

industries, we would be very willing to say like, you should take a day off if your back is barking at you man if your knee hurts like it's okay for you to have one day off like that is not you know it does not indicate like a lack of want on your part so i i also think that part of why we are thinking perhaps a little bit differently about ripken's record in particular is that like we're thinking about work a little bit differently. And we're like, Cal, you probably should have you probably shouldn't have gone that long. Maybe like it might have been better if you had if you had taken a day off every now and again. And and I don't want to you know, I'm sure there are Orioles fans listening to this who are like, how dare you? I don't want to like impugn that legacy.

It's an incredible thing that he did. And the fact that he did it isn't made less incredible by the fact that we think about injury management or load management or work differently today than we did then. But it is, I think, a more complicated legacy than we were really cognizant of at the time, just because we think about this stuff a little bit differently than we were really cognizant of at the time just because we think about this stuff a little bit differently than we used to so it's i wonder i wonder if someone were starting to approach that today how we as media members would write about it and sort of how we would think about the obligation of that person to continue both for themselves and the team because i think

the conversation would be different today which doesn't mean that it was bad before it was just you know we we engaged with these questions I think pretty differently then than we do now yeah he almost certainly hurt his stats and by extension I suppose the team to some extent and I think that was kind of a conversation at the time especially later in his career as he declined. And in the rumor, they do talk about some instances where he kind of finagled his way out of games before they were over just after he had qualified to extend the streak, but maybe got himself a few innings off here and there. But yeah, I mean, in retrospect, all this time later, it's hard to say, well, maybe your career batting average would have been a couple points higher. Right. Or maybe the Orioles would have won this game or that game instead.

I mean, who knows about the physical toll that was inflicted on him that he inflicted on himself by insisting on staying in the lineup all that time. It's like us constantly doing podcasts on holidays and things. So do we need to do podcasts during the week of Christmas? Probably not. Maybe I should just take a week off at a certain point ben maybe you should have suggested that yeah maybe you should just take a week off at a certain point i mean i don't know man i'm just i'm just asking questions yeah maybe it would make subsequent podcasts better but uh then the fans think of the fans yeah actively wild fans out there just sobbing because there's no new podcast in their feed that day.

I do it for the fans. Right, but then some of us are like, I'm going to go to the mountains where I literally can't podcast. So I'm not saying that that's a hint, but one could interpret it that way if one wanted to. Yeah. Everything's fine, you guys. yeah i mean everything's fine you guys i think that uh that ripken obviously like it burnished his legend yeah it brought a lot of joy to him yes to fans of the sport so the fact that he did

that you know it certainly worked out in a lot of ways i can't say he shouldn't have done it but right yeah and and as we will as we will hear from from our conversation and from the rumor like it meant it meant a great great deal to a great many people so to yes the takeaway here should not be that meg doesn't like cal ripken jr or that she thinks that he should have taken a day off she is simply suggesting that if we were in a similar situation today that she's curious how the conversation would unfold because it would probably be a little bit different. That's all.

All right. Well, let's let our conversation with the hosts of The Rumor unfold. We will be back in just a moment with Sam Dingman and Mac Montanon. Everyone's dancing when they get to talk of his wealth Too much romantic can only be bad for your health Oh yeah Now it's really got you Someone paid to have him by last night Not true Cause I don't believe you heard it right All right, we are joined now by the hosts of The Rumor,

which I think of as kind of the equivalent of only murders in the building with fewer murders and more baseball. And if we are sticking with that comp, then I think the Martin Short of the show would be Sam Dingman, one of the hosts. Hello, Sam. I can confidently say that is the first time I have ever been compared to Martin Short, and I'm going to cherish it for the rest of my life. Well, I guess that means that the Steve Martin is the other host of the show who's also joining us, Mac Montandon. Hello, Mac. Hi there. Thanks so much. I love that comparison. I was hoping, however,

you're going to go with Selena Gomez, but I'll take Steve Martin. He was like a childhood hero once. I just thought in this particular piece, yeah, I was feeling more Selena. Costner and came up with an excuse to postpone a game so that he could extend his Iron Man streak. We don't know whether that mystery is solved or not. Like any good murder mystery podcast, there's some uncertainty at the end, I suppose. We can perhaps get into that, but we'll start in less spoilery territory for anyone who hasn't heard the show yet, and maybe we can stick some more spoilery stuff at the end. So I was curious as I was listening to this about the timeline for recording and reporting and producing the show, because it certainly sounded as if it was something that you had

been working on for some time, but in classic serial-esque fashion, it sounded as if you were doing reporting as you were going and you were developing new leads, perhaps in response to the show coming out. So how did you guys meet, I guess, is the first question. And then when did the fateful tip from the off-duty cop come that propelled you to make a podcast about the rumor? I guess, Sam, you want to start? Sure thing. Well, Mac and I met because I once upon a time hosted another podcast about the Orioles. I've devoted a terrifying amount of my life to doing podcasts about the Orioles. And it was called Baltimore Ons.

And one time we read, myself and my co-host Alan read an article that was really just had so much heart and good humor in it. And it was by this guy named Mack Montandon. And it was the story of the time that he tried out for the Orioles. He went to an open tryout that the team had and embarrassed himself, but won our hearts in the process and since embarrassing but heartwarming was basically the whole brand of baltimoreans we thought hey maybe this guy would be great to have on for a conversation so we invited mac on the show and he showed up at my apartment carrying under his arm a framed eight and a half by 11 picture of Eddie Murray that was also autographed. And he set it on the desk next to him for the entire time that he was talking as, I guess,

kind of like a talisman to get him through the experience. And since I have similar objects related to Cal Ripken and Mike Musina on my own desk, it was just clear right away that this was somebody who we were meant to find each other. And from there, I would say we continue to have podcast adventures of various kinds. Mac came on another podcast that I do called Family Ghosts and told a very moving story about his family. And we've just been looking for opportunities to collaborate ever since, which kind of leads us up to the fateful tropical themed birthday party. Right. Mac, you want to take it from there?

Sure. So I went to this birthday party, which you hear in episode one of The Rumor, and that was in January of 2020. So kind of the last party in the world before the world ended. And, you know, I think as Sam said, he and I had spent literally years, you know, trying to sort of land on the perfect story for us to work on together. And, you know, as is often the case in the universe, the story ultimately kind of ended up finding us in the in the person of this off duty NYPD officer who, yeah, just as soon as he found out I grew up in Baltimore. I mean, honestly, it was like within seconds he was asking me if I've ever heard the rumor, his words. Thank you again for giving us the title of the series. And yeah, I knew exactly what he was talking about. felt you both felt about this potentially being true and undoing sort of a central identifying

characteristic of of your personalities right i i grew up a mariners fan so i know all about having nostalgic love for mid-90s teams that ultimately disappoint you for a long long time so you you have a sympathetic ear here but i i I'm curious, sort of, you talk a lot about it in the series, but how you thought about that potential trepidation as you were actually doing the reporting, because I think as you, you both mentioned at points in this, like finding the right answer might be sort of shaking to you, not just as, as people in the world finding an answer to a question, but as human beings who have a particular understanding of your own identities. Thank you, Meg. as people in the world finding an answer to a question, but as human beings who have a particular understanding

of your own identities. Thank you, Meg. I agree so much that it can be heartbreaking to profess allegiance to an organization that so consistently lets you down. And in my opinion, the answer to that question is that I think from an early stage, Mac and I felt like, one, from just a personal investment

standpoint, the trepidation was what felt really interesting to us based on where we both kind of were in our lives as both people and storytellers. It felt really interesting to explore that. And also, I think at a somewhat more zoomed out, from a somewhat more zoomed out perspective, it felt important to make the show about the trepidation because of the relatively high likelihood that nobody was going to be willing to tell us the truth about this. It was either not true or something that nobody had figured out for 25 years because it was a very well kept secret that people weren't going to break their covenant for

just because two podcasters came knocking at their door. And so I think it felt to me at least like by making it very much about the trepidation, it gave us a chance to tell a story that's about much more than just a simple did this or did this not happen, but rather to really surface the stakes of something like this and create an opportunity to talk about why we invest in these things so much in the first place. Meg, were you aware of the rumor prior to the podcast? I wasn't. I wonder if, and I guess we can talk a little bit about how this managed to permeate the culture on the East Coast. I wonder if there was just a, it couldn't cross the Mississippi, even though it involved the Mariners. Like, I don't know if that was part of the issue here or not, but.

I am on the East side of the Mississippi, but neither of us is an Orioles fan. I guess we are slightly younger than you guys and not that much younger than Sam, but a bit. So maybe it's an era effect. Maybe it's a fandom effect. Like how pervasive did you guys feel that the rumor was either at the time or today and among Orioles fans and among the general baseball following public?

Yeah, I mean, growing up in Baltimore and spending at least the first half of my life in a very well-constructed Oriole bubble, I kind of just assumed like everyone knew it. But one sort of surprising thing, I think, to both of us as we went along with the recording was that wasn't really true. And especially as you're sort of alluding to, Ben, like with younger fans, you know, we went to a game over the summer and before the game asked dozens of fans there, you know, pretty point blank, like, have you heard this? And overwhelmingly,

the response was either no, or if they had sort of indifference to the facts of it. But then there was also other interesting wrinkles like you hear in the show. One of my favorite conversations was with the writer Will Leach, who grew up as a Cardinal. Friend of the show. Friend of the show, Will Leach. And, you know, he grew up not in St. Louis, I think, but near there and as a, you know, huge, huge Cardinal fan. And yeah, he and his sort of crew out there were intimately familiar with it.

And like most people who are familiar with it, very much like uncertain how it got into his network and bloodstream so i feel like it is this weird moment in how like information gets passed around like just sort of pre-internet in a way right and it's like yeah how do we how does this like modern folklore get handed around so to me that was like one of the more interesting aspects of our reporting work. Right. And that allowed you to tie this into some of the larger issues of our time and conspiracy theories and fake news and so forth. And let's just say that the rumor is false and that this did not happen.

And again, we can get into that. But if we stipulate that this is a made-up story, what is your theory for how it started? And I read the Vulture interview that you guys did, and Mac, you revealed, I think, that you had asked an internet forensics expert to help you try to track down an origin story. And if this were today, then undoubtedly you could go back and find a 4chan post or a tweet or something that was the first reference. But because this is the late 90s, it's not as easy to do that. So does each of you have a headcanon kind of for how this happened, if we assume that the actual event did not happen? Well, I think I haven't gotten all the way to the end of this theory, but my suspicion, based on everything that we learned and in really diving back into the context of Cal and the streak in the late 90s, there was, I think, there were at least some sports journalists, Ken Rosenthal among them, who were very openly questioning why Cal was keeping the streak going at this point. record. He's reached the unreachable star. And as much as we all loved and worshipped Cal,

if you really tied us to a chair and made us confess, all of us would have been willing to admit that at this point he was not necessarily an impact hitter and you know he'd been moved to third base because his his defense was starting to slip a little bit and so there was in the air this inkling that maybe he had sort of passed his prime and with that the gentle assertion that it was starting to feel like the streak was more about him at this point than it was about the team or that it was starting to feel like the streak was more about him at this point than it was about the team or that it was about the kind of service to baseball. He'd already quote unquote saved baseball after the streak. In 1997, the team was in the midst of a wire to wire run in the American League, first place in the American League East. So there was just starting

to be this more palpable question about like, well, what is this really for? And like, does he really embody all these ideals that we have hung around his neck? that there is allegedly some strife in his marriage and this power outage happens and and it is known that he is friends with Kevin Costner and then this power outage happens and there's no explanation for it without knowing exactly how it jumps from that to this cohesive narrative that has lasted for more than two decades, it does seem like there were enough circumstances in the air that it didn't seem totally insane for that assertion to be made. And people, I think, were starting to look for a reason to doubt his integrity. I'm curious then, if you had to chart it, what was the sort of peak and the nadir for each of you in terms of your willingness to believe that this was the explanation for that game being postponed? Because I imagine that, I mean, as you listen to the series, you can kind of get a sense of this, but there were some peaks and valleys along the way. So when did you most believe and least believe the rumor to be true? Let's see.

I mean, that's complicated, Meg, for me, just because I am still swinging back and forth. So I'm not sure if my peak or my valley has necessarily been hit yet. But in terms of the story as it is, as it exists in six episodes, I guess I've said, I think that, you know, it was pretty early on in the reporting. We spoke with a Baltimore attorney who knows Cal socially, and he told us he believed it was true. He also has connections to the Angelos family. So he seemed like someone who was a sober minded person who was, you know, in a position to sort of verify this information potentially. So I think it was like on that early conversation that, you know, Sam and I both got off that call and we were like, okay, we better like get serious about this because this thing that seemed somewhat insane might actually be true. So I guess, yeah, as of this moment, that's probably

my peak of, of believing. And then in terms of the Valley, this is actually the first time I thought about that. So that's good answer could change, but I think it probably, if I'm honest, like was in Sam's studio in Greenpoint when he, you know, I'd seen it a little bit in the script, but it really wasn't until Sam sort of delivered his what we referred to as like our closing arguments late in the series that i was like okay my friend good job you just like really did great work in like making a compelling case that this can't possibly be true at least like the broader narrative of the rumor you know i think like sam still allows for like weirdness in it but um yeah i guess i would say it was like sitting there listening to sam but i was finally like okay maybe he's right man i didn't

i didn't realize that perhaps i will um I should start like tweeting more about divisive political topics. Please do. Please do. That seems like a good career move. about to discover that there was really something to the allegation and the rumor was, you hear it in the show, we're on the phone with Bill Malstrom who's the electrician who designed a lot of the electrical systems at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and we're talking to him about this, about the outage or so we think because after an extensive conversation in which we have described and he has described in meticulous detail events that we know only happened on one night in the entire history of Oriole Park at Camden Yards he says well I'm not necessarily talking about that night

and Mac and I weren't in the room together we were talking to him you know from different locations but I could feel us exchanging sidelong glances. And like, Bill, we all know the night we're talking about here. Like, why are you being so cagey about this? And then he says, well, we're talking about the streak, aren't we? Which is not something that we had brought up with him directly in that phone call. We, I mean, we were obviously planning to, but he spit it out before we could get to it and that you know it's like you could i could feel my headphones getting hot because my forehead was flushing like it really felt like you know we have somehow made our way to the guy

who has been told do not talk about the real reason for this. And like, it almost felt like he had accidentally wandered into territory that he knew he was not supposed to be in. And he even says to us, this is thin ice for me, guys, like, I've got to get permission if we want to continue this conversation. So at that point, after, you know, months and months and months of doing this, it was sort of this feeling of like, well, what else could we be talking about? It was sort of this feeling of like, well, what else could we be talking about? Yeah, it was like, how deep does this go? Is there a sniper with his sights trained on this guy's head? Right. He was like, I think he was like, if I remember right, Sam, he had like been at Camden Yards that morning. Like he still has like regular check-ins there. That's right. And he was like walking at one point from there to his truck to continue the call.

So, yeah, Ben, when you said that, I was like, holy crap, that's actually like geographically possible. Yeah. Yeah. So that that was I mean, and, you know, and he had said to us, I'm going to talk to the Orioles. I'm going to get permission. We're going to see what's going to happen.

Obviously, as you hear in the show, he never got back to us. But Mac, let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong. But Mac and Bill kept up a texting relationship in the days and weeks after we spoke to him. And Bill continued to profess a willingness to say more. He was just trying to figure out how to navigate the politics of it. So as all of that was unfolding, it really felt to me like I need to prepare myself for the fact that this podcast might not just be a slightly self-indulgent exploration of the emotional terrain of fandom. Like we might actually be about to really melt the myth here. Right.

And then of course that did not happen in quite that way. But to answer the other part of the question, once we had that conversation with Al Clark, it was actually weirdly affirming to me because I felt like this isn't just a guy who was literally there when the decision to postpone the game was made. He's an umpire. Like his whole job is to make an even handed call. Now, there is the caveat, as we say in the show, that Al may not be the most even handed guy, given some of the scandals that he's become embroiled in. But, you know, the fact that he was literally standing there in the corridor with Cal and did not seem to have any problem outing Randy Johnson as a bit of a boozer. Are we getting into a spoiler territory here?

Oh, whoops. Yeah, I guess I just kind of tipped right into it. I won't say anything else but to say that, you know, once we talked to Al, I felt like this is a person who was there, wasn't just there from an electrical standpoint, and he has no, he has no reason to protect anybody. To him, it's just a great story. And once he told us his version of the story, I became very convinced that and delighted that the story was somehow weirder than we had hoped and allowed me to preserve some of the emotional stuff that I had been hoping to preserve. Right. And I think one of the things I appreciate about the podcast, despite the fact that the premise is sort of silly and the stakes are maybe a little lower than, you know, is Adnan

a murderer or whatever, I think you did a really diligent job of trying to chase down leads and talk to anyone who might be even peripherally aware of the rumor or have something to say on the subject. And you ended up talking to a lot of people who, Ripken and Costner aside, were in about as good a position to know what did or didn't happen as anyone. And I was curious about the reporting process and about what percentage of your interview requests were denied slash laughed at, and whether you always disclosed why you wanted to do this. Was it, hey, we're making a podcast about the rumors that Cal Ripken fought Kevin Costner because Costner was sleeping with Ripken's wife? Or was it, hey, we're making a podcast about Cal Ripken.

And then once it was too late, then you slip in the rumor. Wow, that's a really dangerous question you just asked there. Let's see. I mean, in terms of percentage of asks to lands, I mean, I guess it depends. We might have to break it down by industry because we did really well with the electricians of the greater Maryland area, but less well with former Major League Baseball players. So yeah, I mean, I think we had like a super long list of Mariners and Orioles, especially who were identified as being on the 1997 rosters for those teams. Yeah. I mean, you landed Ledesma and Jeff Rebele and Mike Bordick. I mean, at the very least, if nothing else comes of this, at least Sam got to talk to his hero, Jeff Rebele. So remember some guys.

That's a good point, Ben. And I feel like in answering that part of the question, we should remember that in baseball, if you get a hit three out of 10 times, you're in the Hall of Fame. So I think we should just leave it at we're in the reporting Hall of Fame when it comes to our percentage there. Sorry, I forgot the other part of the question, but maybe Sam wants to talk now anyway. Were you completely forthcoming about the interview subject in all cases? Completely feels very definitive. I would say we were, you know, I mean, we didn't want to scare anyone off right away. So I think like initially we were somewhat broad in our ask, but then as we got closer to talking to them, I think in most in many cases, we were

more specific. And, and certainly, you know, after interviews with a lot of the central voices on the show, before the episodes came out, you know, we went back and said, hey, just so you know, like, the story has gone very much in this direction. So we don't want you to be sort of alarmed or surprised by what you hear. Yeah. I would say as fun as it was to talk to Jeff Reveley, he has not returned any of my text messages since. So as a friend making operation, it was not very successful. Have you really texted him? I had to text, hey, you want to hang out? Can we do a follow-up interview? Or is it more like, what's up, Jeff? Jeff's like, for real, you are invited to Thanksgiving.

How do we make this happen? But in all seriousness, I feel like my thought, at least in that initial outreach to... Mike Bordick is the first guy that I wrote to. And that was a situation where I happened to notice that he had just joined Twitter and was perhaps still making his way around the interface. And that if I sent him, you know, if I added him on Twitter, you know, a notification would probably show up on his phone and there's a good chance that he might at least see it. show up on his phone and there's a good chance that he might at least see it. And legitimately, I think Mac and I knew from the beginning that part of this story was going to be about re-examining the legacy of Cal Ripken and this record that was of massive importance to us as Orioles fans, but is somewhat derided by members of other fan bases and also is not something that is talked about very much these days.

And so from that standpoint, there was a legitimate reason to want to talk to people who played with him about what it was like to be around him when he was in the midst of pursuing that. And then also Bordick being a broadcaster, he did color commentary for the Orioles for many years, and I think still does. There was a piece of the story that was going to be about how do we tell the story of baseball? How do we craft the story of baseball? And why do we do that the way that we do? And those things all felt like, regardless of whether or not Mike Bordick or the other players that we got in touch with are willing to talk about the rumor itself, I'm sure they'll be willing to talk about those things. So it felt like if we approach them and say that those are the things that we want to talk about, they're much more likely to say yes. And that proved true. And then while once we were on the phone with them, it felt yeah, and we had

established a bit of a rapport by showing a possibly frightening memory of extremely specific moments from their careers that even they had forgotten about. But also, you know, asking all of the questions that we wanted to ask about those narrative issues and just kind of like the clubhouse environment and what it's like to be around Cal's persona all day. It felt then very fair to say like, you know, full disclosure, another part of the story that we're interested in is this rumor. And we want to get your perspective on that. And so that to me felt like a way of, you know, not totally hiding the ball on them in terms of what we wanted to talk to them about. Because one of the things I'm really proud of is that the show does end up being about how the narrative is crafted and what it's like to be around somebody who has this whole mythology that's been built around him. And then it also made it much more likely that they would say yes to talking to us. And then another thing that we found, you know, is when we talked to the Will Leaches and the Matt Zoller

Seitzes and the Alison Glocks of the world, folks who are storytellers pure and simple, we didn't have to be at all cagey about the fact that it was about the rumor. When we spoke to them, they were like, this is great. So, you know, that was something that we very much got more of a feel for as we made our way through the booking process. I guess this is sort of a related question, as we've mentioned here, and as you mentioned on the podcast, like you don't end up actually talking to Cal. And I wonder if you are disappointed by that, or if you're a little bit relieved that you didn't actually have the opportunity to confront this guy who meant so much to both of you with the, not accusation, but question of whether or not his entire legacy was premised, at least in part, on a lie.

but question of whether or not his entire legacy was premised, at least in part, on a lie. Great question. I think I'm fairly unequivocally relieved. I think there was a question earlier about trepidation, I think. And Sam and I are two people who really don't want anyone to be mad at us and um we especially don't want like in my case a childhood hero in sam's case maybe his favorite person on earth to be mad at us so after rebel a after rebel a then ripken i know the order um la desma might be creeping up but um but yeah i mean i think that we were both legitimately kind of terrified at the prospect of uh that conversation i mean i think you know in terms of story and if i can call myself a journalist like there was definitely like that part of me was disappointed not to talk to him but as a human being who doesn't want to be yelled at that part of me was was not so disappointed i i think i if i'm being honest i think i was probably in a way more eager

to talk to costner in part because like i'm not as worried if he yells at me but also because there was a couple moments where I thought we had a shot. Like, Ripken always seemed, like, kind of impossible. But, like, there was a moment, maybe I'm deluding myself and thinking this had a shot, but I was at the airport about to go somewhere for some holiday. And gosh, I think it was Mariam Khan, our researcher at Blue Wire, who was extremely helpful, saw on Twitter that either Kevin Costner or whoever operates his Twitter had posted something about like, ask me a question. I'm here. I will respond. So I like signed up for whatever. I'm at the airport. There was also like one of

the craziest things I've ever seen at an airport gate. I'll tell you about another time going on while I'm on my phone, like registering for this weird thing that allows me to ask Kevin Costner or his social media person a question. And I like in moment i was like oh yeah baby he's totally responding to this and um he did he did not yeah i mean often the right around ends up being better and more interesting than the profile with access and fortunately for you guys both of these men had addressed the rumor in the past, you had some audio about that. So that was good. And as a Yellowstone viewer these days, I feel like I would be afraid to talk to Kevin

Costner about this now that he is John Dutton in my mind, as opposed to some of his more cuddly characters from the past. At the gym that I go to, MLB Network is always on. And as I understand it, during the lockout, MLB Network is just 24-7 Costner coverage. That is basically the sole programming on MLB Network now. And so I was seeing Billy Chappell last night and I was thinking, okay, maybe I could talk to Billy Chappell about this. But John Dutton, I don't think so. Yeah, it was interesting that all that field of dreams stuff was happening right in the middle of us making this for sure yeah and so one storyline in the podcast ends up being your relationships to baseball and the fact that this rumor and the potential expose of of cal ripken is less than a god and a perfect being might be the thing that snaps the last

string that is connecting sam to baseball and it seems like a lot of that a lot of your loss of connection to the sport just has to do with the orioles being historically terrible which is completely understandable and i guess part of it is also just growing up and getting older and all of these things that happen to us as we mature and change over time. But I really did at various points just want to reach out and hug you, Sam, and tell you that it would be okay even if you were to find out that the rumor was true. if the rumor were true, it would make me think less of Kevin Costner potentially, but the precipitating event would not necessarily make me think less of Cal Ripken. If he were to find his wife and Kevin Costner in bed together, I would not blame him for punching Kevin Costner. So that would be okay. And as things that we have later learned about 1990s baseball stars go, like maybe making an effort to let Orioles fans down because of something Kevin Costner did, it would not necessarily tarnish the image of Cal too much in my mind.

Plus, I think we should point out that this was August of 97, right? And so he had already broken the streak at that point. And you tell the story on the pod about how you were at the record-breaking game with your dad and it really meant a lot to the two of you and so if the iron man streak were you know 2431 games instead of 2632 games i don't know that it would be any less legendary yeah yeah well i i appreciate the the the spiritual hug ben it really. And I really did feel throughout the process like this is playing with fire, you know, like for anybody to tell a story about their hero that is going to be as fair minded and even handed and investigative as it ought to be, one, you know, the danger of

that is usually a sign that it's a story worth telling, but it did feel dangerous in that way. And it really is genuine, the point that I get to in the final episode of the series, however, where, you know, Mac did point out, actually did point out to me, I had forgotten that in our conversation with Tyler Kepner of the New York Times, which was wonderful. We only ended up using one little snippet of it in the show. But, you know, I put the question to him, you're somebody who has been just a real rosy-eyed lover of the sport and all the mythology associated with it since you were a little kid.

And now you're, you know, one of our premier investigative voices when it comes to the topic, have you gotten jaded? And he said, you know, I'm like the kid in Almost Famous. I can look at it in all and warts and all, but I never lose that sense of wonder. And for me, it's exactly what you said, Ben. It took me a while to get there. But once I kind of clocked, in addition to all the points you made, the fact that let's say that the precipitating events alleged in the rumor are true, it isn't a spoiler to say that, you know, we find this out somewhat early in the

podcast that Cal did show up at the ballpark in uniform that night. And the idea that he seemed to care so much about all of us who cared so much about seeing him out there every night, that on a night when potentially one of the worst things that's ever happened in his entire life has happened, his friend and his wife have allegedly betrayed him. He still says, I've got to show up. I've got to go out there and do my job. That's who I am. It's what people depend on. There is a very deep selflessness and generosity in that, if that is in fact what happened. And it's not hard to, it took me a while to get here, but it is not hard to preserve a sense of wonder about the man when you view it that way. Yeah. The hero worship aspect of it is interesting to me because I got the sense that Mac had a little less of that despite being as big an Orioles fan and from a slightly earlier

era so maybe it would have been a little less Ripken centric but I was as big a baseball fan as you were growing up but I don't feel like I have that same reverence or attachment to any particular player maybe if you told me Bernie Williams was a bad guy. I would be pretty sad about that. But I think for the most part, I emulated them. I certainly looked up to them to some extent. I imitated their batting stances and that sort of thing. But I guess they didn't mean that much more to me than these are great baseball players and I love baseball, but it didn't go that far beyond that. And maybe Mack with Eddie Murray, perhaps it did for you too. But I guess it could be a combination of, well, this is Cal Ripken, who is the heroist of heroes. Or maybe as you get into a bit on the podcast, Sam, it could be what was going on in

your life at that time and the role that baseball played for you and the relationship between your parents and so forth. And so it seems like your inner 13-year-old has sort of survived to today through the person of Cal Ripken. Yes. Again, sorry, Cal, that you continue to have to be the steward of my 13-year-old self, but that's just the way it is. Yeah, no, I mean, I think the thing that was really interesting, going back sort of to the idea of making sure that the trepidation remained part of the storytelling, is that it was a real opportunity to ask ourselves some hard questions about why did we latch on to this narrative so much? And as you were just pointing out, Ben,

for Mac and I, there were different reasons, but the binding and the grappling was just as deep in both cases. And one of the most thrilling elements of putting the story out is the emails and messages that we have gotten from other fans who have said that it has helped them, you know, kind of talk to themselves and to others about why this mattered so much and why it continues to matter. And I think it would have made me, even if the show had been a process for me of completely renouncing Cal Ripken as my hero, it still would have been a process of understanding why he mattered to me so much. And that would have been just as valuable, even if I had come down on the other side of it. That was a very unexpected outcome of investigating what, you

know, as you correctly pointed out, is a very silly rumor. Well, it did make me think there's this moment where you're all grappling with sort of the enormity of the Ripken estate that is very much in question as part of this. And it made me think about sort of the enormity of the Ripken estate that is very much in question as part of this. And it made me think about sort of the role that we as fans play in the myth-making that goes on in baseball. And obviously, Cal Ripken Jr. was trying to project a particular image. And I think there are, I'm sure, parts of that that were very sincere and parts of that that were sort of more intentional artifice because he's a public figure

but you express sort of surprise that this this guy that is put out there as the everyman who sort of embodies this spirit of baltimore was living in this extensive estate and i i wonder how much responsibility we think players should have in sort of that myth-making process because on the one hand, like, yeah, there is a disconnect between this guy who is supposed to embody a city of people, the majority of whom were not living that way. But also like, of course, he was living in a nice big house. He's a professional baseball player. So I wonder how much we have to take responsibility for our own part in the myth-making sometimes.

much we have to take responsibility for our own part in the myth making sometimes? That is such an important question, Meg. And I think my answer would be, yes, we I don't think it really falls on Cal to, I don't think we should expect him to live as like, you know, a renunciate, and to not reap the benefits of all the hard work and effort that he has put into being as extraordinary of an athlete as he is. And we should definitely acknowledge our role in perceiving him one way and the service that it provides us to create this aura around him. But I also think, and this is something that we tried to get to in our wrap-up of the show, is we should think about the people who apply the same level of extraordinary skill with the same amount of extraordinary consistency to much less glamorous roles that we similarly depend on.

And I'm thinking here about the electricians that we met in the course of reporting the story, to whom we do not extend the same amount of hero worship when what they are doing sustains and propels our illusions about the world just as much as Cal Ripken. And that's true outside of sports stadiums, obviously. But I do think that sports stadiums are a pretty interesting laboratory to consider that in. We talk at the end of the show to these two electricians, Eric Howell and Alonzo Andrews, one of whom is the father of a very famous pop star. Folks will have to listen to the podcast to find out which one. Truly one of the best moments of the series. I wouldn't think of spoiling it.

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. I'm happy to spoil the ending of the story, but I will not give that away. Absolutely not. It is a gem. But, you know, Eric says to us in the course of that interview,

our entire function is basically to do all of the sweaty and in many cases, very dangerous physical labor that sustains the illusion that we all watch on our TV screens every night. I mean, he talked about, you know, transformers blowing up and falling out of, you know, cranes and stuff, all of these things that he and Alonzo and everybody they worked with, did on a regular basis. And that's all stuff that we in all walks of life completely take for granted so that we can continue to walk around in the increasingly pervasive algorithmic existence that we all reside in, where everything seems to just be happening without any effort,

exactly as we all want it to. And I felt like, you know, this story ended up being a way of talking about how, if we're gonna make the myth around the people who do the prestigious things, we should also, and we should acknowledge all of the effort that goes in behind the scenes for those people who do those things,

but also for the people who do the things that aren't as prestigious that enable us to live that way and to believe in those illusions. I started imagining an Alonzo Andrews jersey hanging in the stores at Camden Yards. And I want to maybe try to make that happen, Sam. Let's remember to kickstart that. Okay. There were some points during the series where I thought, how are they going to get to six episodes of this? And then there were other points where I thought, how is this going to last only six episodes? And you kind of acknowledged that at one point when it suddenly seems as if there are all sorts of spiraling directions you could take this. when it suddenly seems as if there are all sorts of spiraling directions you could take this.

And I know there were people you didn't get to talk to that you wanted to talk to, and maybe some lines of reporting that didn't pan out the way you'd hoped. But was there something that was hardest to cut in the end, or did you find room for everything that had a reason to be in the podcast? I mean, it's always hard to kill your darlings, of course. a reason to be in the podcast. mini series. And then other times you're like, or is it a 20 episode two season? So yeah, it was, it was a strange reporting job for sure. But the first thing that popped to mind in terms of something I was sad to cut, and part of the reason I guess it's not in there is one day, very late in our work on this, my cell phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. And usually I don't answer those because I'm pretty sure that the warranty on my car has

expired a long, long time ago. But in this case, I did answer and I'm glad I did. Because Sam, I think I can tell the story of that strange call. Like it's not on the show, but... Is this the Ilex call? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, I think it's okay.

So here's some bonus material. Some bonus rumor material. Yeah. You'll hear on the show, or you guys remember listening and hearing us parse these police reports, and in one of them parse is generous extrapolate from read into trip all over these digital documents and um and yeah and in one of them there's very little information but there it does say the officer interviewed a security guard, I think they said, for a company called Ilex Construction. And so when I saw that, I sent a few emails

to the two gentlemen who currently run Ilex Construction. Never heard back back of course um i think like late in our reporting work on it i sent maybe like a third just last hail mary sorry to use the wrong sports metaphor but um yeah and still didn't hear back and then like a week after that last email my phone rang and it was a woman who works for ilex construction and i'm just really sorry I wasn't recording because it was truly so entertaining. She was just like, yeah, they're never going to return your email. They're never going to talk to you. I was like, OK, but there are companies mentioned in this police report. And she's like, we don't have a security

guard. And I was like, yeah, that struck me as weird too, but maybe they'd remember who it was, you know, and she said, well, they're not going to talk to you because they're not going to like talk about their bosses. And I was like, what do you mean? Doesn't say anything about the Ripkins being their boss. And she's like, well, we built, you know, we built their house or we did renovation work on their house or something like that. I was like, OK, well, now I really want to talk to them. And she just at one point she was just like, you're cute. She literally was like, you're cute, honey, but good luck. And so not only, you know, there wasn't really a place anyway for that call.

But then after Sam gives his Perry Mason routine at the end of the series with his closing argument, I had originally in my sort of counterpoint to that. My sort of counterpoint to that, I did have like, I tried to like work in some of the ILAC stuff. And it just, as you're hearing now while listening to this podcast, it's hard to do in a very sort of like condensed and compelling way. So it just didn't make the cut. But it was one of my favorite conversations that didn't make it in. Yeah. I was hoping you'd hire me as a statistical consultant to see whether anything would show up in the record after this event. Did you guys know, since this is a Fangraphs podcast and we have to play to type here, over the 10 games preceding the alleged incident, Cal Ripken hit 400. He was really on a tear in those 43 plate appearances over his next 10 games he really sort of slumped and if you look before and after that game he had a 766 OPS coming into the day when the game was canceled ostensibly because of the lights after that day off and you'd think this would have been a boost to him right

finally getting a day off he can rest his weary Instead, his OPS over the rest of the season falls to 638. Now, is that because he was banged up from punching Kevin Costner? Is that because he was suffering emotionally from the betrayal of his wife and friend? Or is it because historically, September and October is his worst month and August is his second worst month and he kind of had a career-long tendency to break down later in the season, which makes sense because he never took a day off. It could be either of those. I leave the facts to you, the listener. Now I have to amend my answer to you and say this is the thing I most regret not having in the series. Yeah, took the words right out of my mouth.

I'm available for season two if there is one which we will ask about and and also you alluded to randy johnson earlier and i will not explain exactly how or why but randy johnson does become a key player in this saga and we actually interviewed randy johnson somewhat infamously on this podcast one time and the interview didn't go the greatest really but if we ever talk to him again I will ask him about the rumor and the part that he potentially played in it that is my vow to you because I know that you were stymied in your attempts to talk to him I think the key is you have to tell him that you want to talk about Kingsford charcoal yeah and he's really excited yeah then he will agree to talk to him. I think the key is you have to tell him that you want to talk about Kingsford charcoal. Yeah, and he's really excited. Yeah, then he will agree to talk to you. And then you

can bring up the rumor. I think that's the key. Oh, man. Well, I'm down to start the Kingsford cast for the express purpose of landing this interview. Well, you guys don't know for sure whether there will be a second season. I think we hope that there will be. And you even mentioned in the finale a potential non-baseball related idea that you could explore in a second season. But we have a few pitches for you. If you're open to pitches, potential topics for the second season, we've brainstormed a bit and we have a few ideas. Meg, you want to share with us? As long as we don't have to involve any lawyers, I'm happy to hear these. Oh, well, I might have bad news for you. I want to know exactly how many beers Wade Boggs

actually drank on that famous transcontinental flight. I want to know. I think that that's probably the lowest stakes suggestion that we have i really i want to know now too yeah and also like the chicken thing yeah right yeah so you know waybogs might be sort of fertile territory for you yeah ben do you want to go okay well if if you guys want to stick with your brand of podcasts about cal ripken rumors and i know you might want to broaden out a bit but if you want to stay in your wheelhouse here did chin ho park groove that pitch that type shot to cal ripken

jr in the 2001 all-star game for sentimental reasons we've all been wondering ever since it's the 20th anniversary if you hurry and get the podcast out in the next week or two and uh i think this is an important addition to the ripken legacy wow and it could create an opportunity to also answer the question of whether or not buck showalter told told Evan Meek to groove that walk-off single to Derek Jeter. To Jeter, yeah, right. And Jeter's last game. Speaking of Jeter, I was going to bring up Jeter because I think there's a lot of rich material when it comes to Derek Jeter rumors. So, I mean, you've got the gift baskets, right? Did he hand out gift baskets right did he hand out to gift baskets to his partners following one night stands did he watch highlights of himself on the couch shirtless and pump his fist and say yeah jeets we've all

been wondering these things for years and i think you're the two to get to the bottom of them we uh we can call that podcast the jeets receipts oh perfect uh i i think if you want to start transitioning into more sort of serious fair and this could or could not involve several players who are currently on uh the bbwa hall of fame ballot but which players actually failed the survey test yes just in case you want to keep getting at the heart of people's core identities being shaped by baseball are there any legacies to be undone here yes listen we can talk offline about this but i think you have like the makings of a really excellent show we should consider so i'm just gonna throw that out for now and then we can revisit later yeah and speaking of

players who were prominent on this year's hall of fame ballot was the bloody sock bloody or was it ketchup oh that's a good one that's a good one wow wow we have like 15 new seasons this is great i promise we didn't plan just to give you topics about AL East rivals, although it did kind of work out that way in some of these cases. I guess the most serious one I have, and this would absolutely involve many, many lawyers, but did Rob Manfred- A lawyer himself. Yeah, intentionally juice the baseball. juice the baseball yes i i love the idea of i think there is actually really interesting to the four of us at least podcasts to be made about like just all of the sweatiness that goes into

major league baseballs in the first place because i remember reading a story years ago about it was like special mud that they rubbed them with from like this one river in I think it was Costa Rica. And just all this idea that some infinitesimal tightening or loosening of the seams can result in like somebody who hit seven home runs one year hitting 40 the next year. hitting 40 the next year. And then the fact that, you know, if a baseball so much as like brushes against the dirt in a catcher's mitt after a pitch, they throw it away so that the next pitch can be thrown with a fresh ball. Like where'd those balls go? Like what happens to all of them? We could do a whole series. You can talk to Al Clark about authenticating the balls. You can talk to Al Clark about authenticating the balls. Yeah, the baseball factory is in Costa Rica.

The mud is in New Jersey, I believe. So it is a multi-stage mysterious process. But yeah, there's a lot to work with here. And I don't know whether baseball is the richest vein or not. I mean, certainly there are many, many longstanding and entertaining rumors in other sports. many, many longstanding and entertaining rumors in other sports. Like in basketball, you could do, did Paul Pierce poop himself in 2008, which fascinates us all. And have you thought about whether like baseball is particularly conducive to this kind of rumor? Like obviously there's a lot of baseball history. It extends way back. I don't know whether the rumor mongering about baseball is more or less intense or compelling than it is in other sports or in other walks of life, or whether it's sort

of the same. Have you thought of a lot of baseball rumors that you would want to explore? I have thought a lot about that question, Ben, actually, of why there are so many of these odd apocryphal stories in baseball specifically. And for me, I think it comes down to the fact that baseball, by dint of the way the sport is designed, leaves so much more room for narrative than any other sport. Because there's no, or at least there was not for a long time, a play clock. There's no limit on how long a game lasts which means there's within a given game there's so much space that needs to be filled and naturally that that space gets filled

with you know whether it's it's actual meaningful facts or just broadcasters looking to fill air these stories crop up and and people have to do all this deep research into the backstories of players or the nature of what's going on in the clubhouse and stuff so that there's something to talk about on the radio or the TV broadcast while Adam Jones is stepping out of the box to adjust his batting gloves between every pitch. I think it just creates such fertile territory for these narratives. And it's honestly something that I think would be a real shame if a lot of the play clock measures

and attempts to standardize and expedite the progress of the game are implemented as there's so much talk about doing. I love that baseball is this very long, poorly written novel because it's that space between events that is where all the richness of it lives. Totally, totally. And in fact, this is just occurring to me now, but I think sort of speaks to what you guys, you're all talking about. phone with Mike Bordick and asking him, you know, how Cal seemed on August 14th, 1997, in sort of swatting away the salacious aspects of the rumor. He did say at one point he was like, you know, Cal seemed as he always seems. And he's like, I don't remember anyone huddling up in the locker room, you know, in any kind of strange way, which suggests that there are other moments built-in spaces time and space and in the way that the game is played but I also just think

you know I don't know if there's another an equivalent of like the book ball four maybe like North Dallas 40 I guess is similar, it's just like what other game could like, I mean, that Jim Fountain book is really long, right? And it's just packed with page after page of like, juicy story. Well, compliments to you two on bringing this thing home and also to the team at Blue Wire, your researchers and producers. I think it was a really well-produced show. It was a pleasure to listen to and avoided some of the potential pitfalls of narrative podcasts that get on my nerves at times. And the sound effect of the bank of lights shutting off alone, which was frequently used. That was sort of the third host of the show.

Thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, that's one of my favorite host of the show uh thank you for mentioning that yeah that's one of my favorite aspects is sam's genius of just like weaving in this sort of weird theme like um you know it's almost like a musical theme but in um very jarring sound effect form yeah i definitely it's my it's the alarm sound on my phone now every morning all right well thanks so much to you two for making this show giving us something to listen to and talk about during the lockout

I hope that the Orioles will be better for your sakes they can't really be worse and if there are any potential tipsters out there who know something about the rumor you can find Sam on Twitter at his name, Sam Dingman. And you can also find Mac on Twitter at Macabeam. There's always the potential for more rumor, whether it's about Ripken or not.

And we hope to hear from you both in the future. So thanks very much, guys. Thank you guys so much for having us. Yeah, thanks. Really appreciate it. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon

by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going and keep it ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Steven, Ryan Pierce, Justin Coates, Edouard Fabregat Roderigas, and Marco Gasparro. Thanks to all of you.

Those Patreon perks include access to monthly bonus episodes that Meg and I record for Patreon supporters at a certain tier. And you also get access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, which now has more than 400 members. And some of those members are in the process of organizing a trivia night that they are going to hold on December 29th at 8 p.m. Eastern. So you need to be a Patreon supporter and member of the Effectively Wild Patreon Discord

group, and you can register up through December 24th. I'll include a link to a Facebook invitation to that event. You can join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Please keep your questions and comments coming for me and Meg via email at podcast at mangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter.

Programming note, we will probably not complete our Stove League watch this week. We will probably wait until next week so you have a little more time to finish the last four episodes. I feel bad because I'm constantly giving Meg homework. Hey, want to listen to six episodes of this baseball narrative podcast? Hey, want to listen to six episodes of this baseball narrative podcast? Hey, want to read this hundreds of pages long romance novel about catcher framing? She's very busy. I hate to pile on,

but she is generally up for it, which I am very grateful for. And sometimes she gives me some assignments too. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode extremely soon, so talk to you then. The lights go down, ain't you baby? The lights go down and there's no one around.

The lights go down, ain't you baby? The lights go down, ain't you baby? The lights go down and there's no one around.