Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1786: The Rosin for the Season

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the United States of Shohei Ohtani and Baseball-Reference player page popularity, a perplexing fact about fielding percentage, time-shifted baseball (and watching only wins), learning to love a sport later in life, whether pruney fingers would be a performance-enhancer for pitchers, the great rosin bag battle of the 1920s […]

I'm so glad we met, and I like you so much, and I'm also glad that I got all those friends. Popularity. Popularity Popularity Popularity Hello and welcome to episode 1786 of Effectively 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. You live in a Shohei Otani state, and you are a native of a Shohei Otani state. And I am not, and I'm feeling bad about it. I assume you saw Baseball Reference's year-end stats. They did sort of an equivalent of Spotify wrapped, but for Baseball Reference traffic. So they had the most viewed player pages and the most viewed team pages. And then they had the most viewed player pages by state. So they have a map of the country and they have headshots on each state. Just the most

popular player by page views or lookups this year in that state, according to their data. And Shohei Otani obviously was the big winner here. He had the most popular player page of the year at Baseball Reference. And by my count, count he carried 25 states so he was the most popular player looked up on baseball reference in fully half of the states in the union which is impressive but not new york so in oregon he is the most popular in washington he is the most popular in your whole region that you are from he is the most popular in your whole region that you are from. He is the most popular the entire West Coast, essentially, and also Arizona, where you currently reside. And he is not the most popular player in New York. And now I'm looking around at my fellow New Yorkers and questioning everything and also questioning myself.

Did I not visit Shohei Otani's baseball reference page enough? Is it by IP address so that it counts unique visitors and my thousands of visits to run a similar exercise at Fangraphs.com that he would be number one with a bullet in New York and that you would account for a perhaps concerning percentage of the traffic. So that was really what I took from it. I think that's true. I think if you were to do this exercise for Fangraphs, he might win every state. I think if you were to do this exercise for fan graphs, he might win every state. I know the traffic patterns are obviously similar in some ways at those sites, but I know that baseball reference skews a bit more toward historical pages and past players and milestones and things like that. And so like the number two player by popularity this year at Reference was Albert Pujols, who did change teams. So that was part of it. But also he's chasing milestones and setting records.

And so I think that is a big part of that. And that is probably why you're seeing Otani win only 25 states. I bet he would win more at Fangraphs and I bet he would win New York. But I should be stuffing the ballot box more than I am, I guess. Now, that said, Jacob deGrom won in New York, but I should be stuffing the ballot box more than I am, I guess. Now, that said, Jacob deGrom won in New York, and that's a defensible pick. Obviously, there's some home cooking happening there, but deGrom was, I think, the seventh most popular page overall, and this is the home state of his team, and there were a lot of reasons to go to Jacob deGrom's

player page this year although to be fair he only played like half the season I mean why were you going to Jacob deGrom's page in the second half of the season he wasn't there maybe to see if he was back yet or something but that's the defense and and I get that I can't blame Mets fans for going to Jacob deGrom's page or others but still I would have liked to see a different result I think the one that I was the most struck by was Miguel Cabrera checking in as the fourth most navigated to player page and I I guess so he he got to 500 home runs this year right that happened in 2021 he's at 502 career home runs so i imagine that that

had something to do with it he has not yet gotten to the 3000 hit mark so perhaps we will see another spike next year as he rounds into form there but i i was very surprised by that it made me wonder like is someone leaving his page open is there a tab somewhere in new mexico apparently that accounts for miguel right that's the thing he won two states michigan which makes sense and new mexico so significantly less good sense to me yeah not sure i understand that one in some cases like there are some teams or there are some states that are less populous and don't have teams near them. And so there are some strange results in the Dakotas. It's like there's a Barry Bonds won a state up there.

And I guess it's a smaller sample. Christian Yelich won Alaska for some reason. Yeah, sure. smaller sample christian yelich won alaska for some reason sure so i guess that's just if you happen to have the world's biggest christian yelich fan living in alaska fewer people visiting the site and no local team so that makes some sense but yeah there are some strange results but really like living in a non-otani state, it's like being a liberal and living in a red state or vice versa. You know, it's like you feel like you're behind enemy lines or something. But maybe I can convince some of my fellow New York natives to convert to the Ohtani train next year.

I'm sort of surprised Aaron Judge didn't win it. I think he won at least one state in the region, but I guess his season was not as historic or spectacular as DeGrom's, even though it was very valuable. Yeah, I was a bit surprised by that one. I was surprised that Austin Riley, am I remembering this right, that Austin Riley won Alabama, but Otani won Georgia? I think so, yeah. So that was surprising to me. It was also i mean i i can

understand a member of the braves winning states around georgia that makes good sense to me particularly the ones that don't have teams of their own i was surprised that freddie freeman was not the winner or ronald acuna jr i know that austin riley had a a sparkling season it was a great effort on his part perhaps not an mvp winning effort but a great effort nonetheless but yeah some of the some of the deviations were a little surprising i was happy to see some joey vato love that was that was nice yeah vato won iowa i think yeah so that's interesting did he win iowa or did he win ohio i thought he won ohio oh he win Ohio? I thought he won Ohio.

Oh, maybe he won both. I think he won both, Ben. Yeah, okay. I think he won both. He has cross-Midwestern appeal for folks. Maybe he has said something particularly forceful and compelling about blackout restrictions. And so the people of Iowa are like,

Joey, that's our guy. He's standing up for us. Maybe that's how we can account for it. But yeah, it's a funny exercise. It was more sort of true in an intuitive sense to me than some of the silly snack food ones. So it had that going for it. I never know whether to actually trust that data.

I think many times it is largely baseless. I assume that our friends over at Sports Reference are more meticulous when it comes to their data collection. little tiny states up in the northeast are each other it's fine i don't mean to offend you vermont i just sometimes mistake you for new hampshire you are right next to each other and then i have occasion to um remember um the the correct geography so please please leave me alone kyle schwerber big in maine yeah who knew yeah bobby dalbeck big in new hampshire i don't know how that happened. I mean, I get that you would think there'd be a big Red Sox presence in New England, but I think Otani won Massachusetts. Yes.

Yes, he did. He's just the best is the thing. But not in New Hampshire where Bobby Dahlbeck is the best. No. I guess maybe New Hampshire has views on two-way players, live free or die, indeed. Where is Bobby Dalbeck from? Is he from?

No, he's from Seattle. Is he? Yeah, apparently. Bobby Dalbeck's from Seattle? Bobby Dalbeck sounds like someone from Massachusetts. I will not be taking questions on that assertion. Nolan Arnauto won Colorado, which makes sense. No, Merrifield won Colorado.

Oh, did he? Oh, did I get that wrong? Oh, okay. All right. See, I don't know that- That doesn't reflect any better on the Rockies then. No, it sure doesn't.

I don't know the teeny tiny states where- Yeah, they're all square states. How am I supposed to tell them to depart? It's part of the four corners, Ben. Part of the four corners. We make it so easy on you out west. We're like, look at these big old states.

These big states, you can fit a whole baseball player's head in those states. You don't have to make them smaller. They fit right in there. Adalberto Mondesi won Mississippi. Yeah. Unless my geography is off again. I don't remember. He won a state.

I know that that's true. I don't remember now. This is making me face some hard truths about how much geography I actually remember. I think they're going to revoke your diploma, sir. It's been a long time since I had Flicka. Yes, he did win Mississippi. You are correct. Okay, I got that one at least. Yeah, you got that right i grew up with the the placemat yeah the presidents

and the states and the capitals i mean when i was like in grade school i was on top of this stuff and not so much now montpelier all right so i have one little fun fact here that was shared on twitter by matthew trueblood and I thought this was really interesting. He said, food for thought, and then he lists the average MLB fielding percentage for each 10-year increment or, you know, at intervals of 10 years starting with 1911 through 2021. And the takeaway is that fielding percentage has slowly and steadily climbed throughout the past century. So it was 956 in 1911. It was 985 in 2021. And it increased in every single 10-year interval there except 71 to 81 when it stayed level. But basically every 10 years it goes up two, three, four points, sometimes more in earlier periods.

And I think it is food for thought, as Matt said, and I love this stat because there are like seven different ways you could interpret this. It's fascinating, but I have no idea what it means. And there are a bunch of possible reactions to this that you could have. Why is fielding percentage increasing over time? What does it mean? I think a lot of people took it as a reflection of the shift. And so you had people quote tweeting or replying and saying like see the shift works or see you have to outlaw the shift or whatever their personal stance on the shift is they took this as confirmation

of that sure yeah i'm not sure that this is evidence of the shift's effectiveness or not or whether this has anything to do with the shift potentially it could but this is not babbip this is not how many hits you get this is is fielding percentage. So what percent of fielding opportunities are completed cleanly as opposed to resulting in errors? And I don't know that the shift affects that at all. putting players more in line with where the batted ball is going to go. And so I guess you could say that maybe the shift leads to easier plays and therefore would lead to a higher fielding percentage. Or you could say that maybe players reach more balls, they have more opportunities to field things, and there are difficult opportunities in there. And so that might lead to more errors. But also, this trend clearly started decades before

the shift became in vogue and was increasing even more at that time. So a lot of people took it as, oh, see, this says something about the shift. Not sure that it does or what it would even say about it you could say that it has something to do with just fielders being better in general just you know more athletic players who don't mess up as much when the ball is hit to them you could say it has to do with equipment right you could say it has to do with gloves being better and the fact that players are not wearing little teeny tiny gloves or oven mitts on their hands anymore right and that might make sense because it seems like the leaps were larger earlier in the century that matt covers here so it goes up more from 1911 to 21 and 21 to 31 than it has of late and there were big leaps in equipment quality during that part of the 20th century.

And it could have something to do with field conditions. Maybe there aren't big boulders on the field anymore the way there once would have been, or at least little pebbles, you know? It's a reflection of grounds crews doing a better job than it is actually anything about players. Or I don't even know. There are a million other interpretations. You could say, well, maybe players are throwing the ball harder and it's leading to weaker contact. And so it's easier fielding opportunities, although you would

think that players are also hitting the ball harder because they're bigger and stronger. So it's, I think, perfect food for thought because everyone had a different thought about it and it might have nothing at all to do with players or playing conditions and it could just be official scores have just gradually over time become less likely to hand out errors so i don't know what it means but i was not aware that the trend was quite as pronounced and steady and almost linear over this century-long period so interesting stuff and i don't know how to interpret it exactly i imagine that all of the things that you just named play a role in in it and that they play different roles at different times and it makes sense to me that as you are having increasing professionalization in the game,

so guys who are really just playing baseball, that you'd have better fielding because you have better players and they are using better equipment and they are playing on more consistent surfaces. So that seems like your early explanation is both correct in itself and also helps to account for the magnitude of the increase. And then I would imagine that player conditioning is another great leap forward, right? Where you just have improved athleticism

sort of across the board. So the average fielder is a better athlete than he might have been in prior eras and that you are perhaps as an industry selecting on that as a variable more often um or with or maybe not more often but with greater precision right that we have a better understanding of the athleticism that we need and are projecting on younger athletes with greater degrees of precision as we sort of dial in scouting things, but you do also, you know, the shift is sort of a weird double-edged sword because on the one hand you're setting guys up to theoretically succeed more often, but you're also enabling a sort of intention with the general trend toward athleticism, less good athletes at a position to stay at that position because you're

kind of willing to live with the fielding they can provide because they're shift enabled and you want the bat in the lineup so i could see that kind of pushing and pulling although in balance on balance i imagine that the shift probably aids with with fielding the score piece of it i would be really curious to know i don't know that we could really study that in any kind of a rigorous way but that's an. Like, has score behavior changed in an appreciable and measurable way over time? And what direction has it moved in? And is there greater, maybe just standardization more than anything else, right? Yeah. I know there have been efforts to standardize and maybe take some of the home cooking and bias out of it by having a review process and some consistent guidelines. So that could work either way though, because you could have had some home cooking with

taking away errors or giving errors depending on whether you're trying to help a pitcher or a hitter. So I don't know how that would swing things, but yes, I'm sure that the quality and consistency of scoring have probably changed over time. Although these days, who even pays that close attention to errors? I mean, at least analysts, certainly they still matter for ERA and they still matter for some things that players care about. And players will still request reviews and object to rulings from time to time but it's definitely less important than it used to be in a general baseball sense back when batting average was everything then it was a huge deal so i don't know how that would have changed things but it's possible that that changed things yeah it's just it's an interesting it's an interesting thing to contemplate and not just because we're in

the midst of a lockout and the number of things we have that are interesting to contemplate and not just because we're in the midst of a lockout and the number of things we have that are interesting to contemplate are like uh kind of limited at times so yeah yeah and someone asked in the replies to the tweet i assume babbitt is going in the opposite direction and no not really there isn't that clear a trend there as you might superficially think and like this year babbitt was down a bit relative to recent seasons but it is far higher than it was say back in the 50s or 60s or 70s or 80s i mean it was like routinely in the 270s 280s back then and since then it has typically been in the 290s or even over 300 so there hasn't been an equal and opposite trend there and there are other things that could affect that too I guess the ball is something that I suppose could affect fielding percentage but certainly could affect

Babbitt too and there's sort of a suspicious Babbitt boost like in the early 90s back when home runs increased and this was what you would call maybe the really concerted start of the steroid era but it was also a time when it seemed like offense just picked up for maybe a lot of reasons and it may very well have had something to do with the ball because Babbitt seems to have had a big boost then that has largely lingered ever since. So these two things don't necessarily move in tandem, which seems almost paradoxical at the start, but makes some sense if you think about it. But that's why I like this stat. You really do have to think about it. And even after you think about it for a

while, you might not reach a firm conclusion. And that's what I like about baseball stats or one of the things that I like is that they are endlessly fascinating at times because there are so many ways you can think about them. And you can easily jump to the wrong conclusion and misinterpret and ignore all kinds of confounding factors that you might not be aware of if you don't have a deep familiarity with the sport and its stats and so you might see some things that seem simple on the surface and are not at all and then there are times when they might actually be simple and you're reading too much into them if you know too much so yeah this was fun fun food for thought i am full i am sated thank you matthew you don't need a season of the rumor about why fielding percentage is what it is now. I would be interested in more on this topic. So yes. And one other thing I was thinking about, have you gotten into a sport as

an adult for the first time? What a good question. I'm trying to get into hockey. Yeah. I'm trying to be enthusiastic about hockey. I don't know that I am yet. I enjoy, I went to a hockey game recently. I got to see the very, very talented Arizona Coyotes pretty bad against the Flyers who are also pretty bad. And I think that my main takeaway from that experience is that all live sports are good. Pretty much all live sports are fun, even if you don't like the sport. If you get to hang out with people you like and drink a beer and be among the feeling of sport,

you're like, yeah, sport. I don't know if I'm really going to be able to do it. I mean, Seattle has a hockey team now. People in Seattle really want to be enthusiastic about hockey and i think a lot of them are despite the fact that the the kraken are pretty terrible i'm given to understand but no i haven't had like the i haven't had the full transformation from non-fan to fan i have had experiences of fandom ebbing and flowing yeah and becoming more intense as i aged and kind of have honestly like greater control over my own media diet but it always started from a baseline of fandom that existed from from being a child so i don't know

i i mean like i haven't watched the formula one doc so i i don't know that's kind of what prompted this this topic because i have this deep-rooted skepticism about becoming a fan like a serious fan yeah of a sport that you did not grow up watching and i've been trying to interrogate why i have that skepticism and maybe part of it is just that I've never done it. Yeah. And I'm not a gatekeeper typically when it comes to these things. Sure. Like I'm certainly not when it comes to baseball. If someone starts to get into baseball, I will encourage them. I'm not going to say, oh, bandwagon fan or like it's too late for you to get into this.

Of course, I want everyone to like baseball and get into it. And it's nice when people find new things that they enjoy later in life obviously it would be a shame if all of our interests were frozen forever at an early age but i think that it's like a reflexive sort of oh you can't really like that that much though and it's like sometimes it'll be like you, a friend of mine who's like all of a sudden super into the Premier League or something. And it's like, when did that happen? I've known you your whole life. You didn't care about that. And maybe they do care about it now. They should be able to. That's fine. I should be happy for them. I don't know why I have this sort of skepticism where I refuse to believe that you can just like adopt a team in another sport and that's not to say I have no interest in other sports like I'm hockey curious for sure like I kind of grew up as a hockey fan to some extent because the Rangers were really good at that time and they were really interesting and compelling team and Messier was there and then Gretzky was

there and all those guys were really memorable and then I kind of fell away from it but I never lost the love that I have of just watching hockey as I often say like whenever I do watch it I think why am I not watching this more why am I watching anything other than this this is great but it's so so large a lift to try to get into a sport on that level not just to like okay i i want to have a passing familiarity with this or the way we are intrigued by cricket from time to time and then we try to learn about cricket but i'm not actually like watching cricket on a regular basis or like adopting a cricket team as a team that i care about so i don't know what it is like if you tell me that you just discovered a new TV show, I will say, great, I do that all the time. Or a new video game or

any other kind of hobby or interest or activity. I don't know why I am wired such that I connect sports fandom with something that just has to be ingrained in you from birth basically or it's too late yeah what about hmm what about it what maybe part of it is that fandom sports fandom centers so much around like communal ties and so we associate that being sort of most fervent and deeply rooted with familial ties. But like that isn't true for a lot of people, right? Like a lot of people end up finding much sort of deeper and more meaningful and oftentimes healthier bits of connection

in life as they progress and kind of choose the associations they want on their own. So that part of it is interesting to me. I don't know. Maybe we've just been done in by really good marketing, Ben. associations they want on their own so that part of it is interesting to me i don't know maybe it's maybe we've just been done in by really good marketing ben because so much of you know baseball wants you to believe that you gotta hook them when they're young and like right this is about i'm gonna invoke 50 of the population's favorite and least favorite phrase, having a catch, right? Like that so much of it is about that.

And so maybe we're just, we've been had. Maybe we've just been had by really effective marketing that says like if you're not able to sort of like remember, if one of your first early memories is not like the smell of the grass, then there's something sort of counterfeit about it. But you're right that we don't have that skepticism about other things.

And we like it when people kind of come late. And what's that phrase that like converts are the most about sometimes, like most fervent? And so, yeah, I don't know what it's about. Maybe part of your struggle in this current moment is that you just don't view Formula One as a sport i'm here with takes today yeah no i i will not get into the is it a sport is it not a sport discourse because i've been through that with esports and it never ends well no i just feel like and i haven't watched the netflix series and if i did maybe

i would be converted like everyone else but i'm just trying to be better about this, basically. And part of it is just like regional interest. Like I'm more suspicious somehow. It's harder for me to believe it if it is not a sport that has traditionally been popular where I am or where that person is. And partly that's just because like, well, how are you going to be a fan of that team? You've never even seen that team play in person. You can't see that team play in Right. close attention to baseball. And even when I was a fan growing up, like I'd go to some games, but I wasn't there every night. I was mostly watching on TV. And now it's so easy to watch on TV or on the internet or by whatever method that it's hardly necessary to physically be there. But I guess it is just because sports often get passed to you from parents or from people who

are close to you and you grew from people who are close to you. And you grew up rooting for that team and you were just sort of steeped in it. But it is a very parochial view that I'm trying to cure myself of. And maybe part of it is just like resenting having to know about another thing, you know? Oh, you don't have to convince me. This motivates like a lot of my decision making. I can't know about one more thing. Yeah, that's what you often say about like gambling. Yeah.

You know, crypto or whatever it is. There may be other reasons not to be on board with those things. But also it's like, what, do I have to know about this now? Yeah, part of it is definitely that. Yeah. that yeah yeah and with sports like there's so much backstory i mean if you're talking about tv or something it's like i just started reading the wheel of time series right it's a 14 book series oh my god ben i just finished the first book so that i could watch the tv show without being spoiled and thus far i'm enjoying the book or enjoyed the book far more than i'm enjoying the beginning of the tv show but that was a big investment for me. It's like, am I going to get into this? Because 14 books, I mean, best case scenario is that I really like it. And then I'm just reading Wheel of Time for the rest of your life. Yeah. And so I was apprehensive. It's like, I almost hope I don't like this so I can just

write it off. Right. And that's kind of the case. Like if you're talking about a TV show, I mean, unless it's Grey's Anatomy or The Simpsons or something like you can catch up quickly. Whereas just sticking with what I know best baseball, if I were to get into baseball today and a lot of people seem to email us now and then and say, hey, i just got into baseball or got back into baseball and the podcast has helped me get to know it and familiarize myself with it and that is wonderful i love hearing that yeah but the idea of like having to relearn what i've learned about baseball is exhausting to me oh my god yeah the idea of doing that for another sport now i don't have to learn as much about another sport as i know about baseball to follow and care and about and be entertained by that sport obviously but still there's a big barrier to entry not just when it comes to like okay how do they play this thing and what are the rules again and what's at stake but also what's the history and who are the teams and who are the

players and where do they play and what am I supposed to know about them? There's a lot that you need to know, which is easier. I mean, it's really it's like learning a language, which is easier when you have the brain plasticity to form those connections when you're like two years old. And I think it's in some ways similar with a sport. So it's not just picking up your garden variety hobby. There's so much history and specialized knowledge that comes into play. Yeah, I think that that is a good insight. And I think part of it is like, and I had this experience, like, you know, again, I

went to see the coyotes and it was like, I don't know. I mean, like, I know whone gretzky is and his name is up there but i don't know any of the names in the rafters i have this experience less now again because i had sort of a baseline understanding from being a kid but like i have that experience when i watch the nba sometimes now where it's like i don't know all of the names you know and so people will be like he's like that guy and't know all of the names, you know? And so people will be like, he's like that guy. And I was like, that doesn't mean anything to me. Like that comp is useless to me in terms of trying to situate this player in like,

not just the history of basketball, but like, what does he look like? You know, who is the other guy? I don't know if I can't evaluate the validity of this comp. I don't because I just don't know enough i i can't evaluate the validity of this comp i don't because i just don't know enough from having been out of it and i feel that barrier with hockey really keenly where it's like i know wayne gretzky and i know about the miracle on ice and then i am out like i have tapped out i know that i went to a i went on a bad first day to a devilils game one time. I did not go on a second, and I did not go to another Devils game. Did your date paint his face?

Was that the problem? Was it a putty situation? No, he was perfectly nice. It just wasn't a good fit. It wasn't like a classically, epically bad date or anything like that. It just was like, oh, this isn't a great connection. Also, I don't know anything about hockey, but it seems oh this isn't a great connection and also i don't know anything about hockey but it seems like it's not a very good hockey team everybody hates their

team is the other thing that i've realized and maybe that's part of maybe that is an important part of the fandom conversation that we're not contemplating it's like part of why the connection when you're so young is important is that you are like they're stealing from you they are stealing your capacity to stop caring because like for instance our listeners know that i am a seahawks fan and that has not been fun this year that has not been a pleasant experience they have been bad and wildly frustrating they are as your colleague kevin clark noted like incapable of playing a normal game and sometimes when they are good, that is fun. But sometimes you're just like, I have spent three hours of my life doing this and I wish

I had made a different choice. And I think that when they get you, when you're young, you struggle to flip that apathy switch when you want to. And so I think maybe part of what we understand sports fandom to be is suffering. And so part of why we are skeptical of people who come to a sport late, and again, we are pro liking what you like, and if you find deep and abiding fandom in baseball, that's rad whenever it happens.

And if you don't like baseball, it's weird you're listening to this podcast, but that's fine too. But people who come later, I think maybe not always, but often they pick teams that are fun and exciting, even if they aren't immediately good. And so they don't have the pain part, right? They don't have the pain. Because I tweeted about how moving to

arizona at the moment when the seahawks have officially transitioned to being a team that is best followed on red zone so you don't have to see the whole thing it's like really opportune timing and i i tweeted that and then my mentions were just full of people being like yes i feel that way about team x and it's like we all hate our teams we hate them unless we're like a patriots fan or a yankees fan and even they are you guys are very pained despite a lot of good stuff having happened to you and that that's fine but like it is you know sometimes good to have perspective but we all hate our teams and when we are new to the experience i think we look at them and it's like you have not suffered and what a weird understanding of the thing we like we have

maybe i don't know this might also just be the fact that i'm a mariners fan at times and so all i know is pain and like three good years right and yeah so i'm just i'm trying to be less uh insular and yeah terry and in parochial when it comes to this. And it's the sort of thing where I'm just trying to conquer my baser impulses. Sure. That's admirable. If someone starts talking to me about F1, I will say I'm so happy for you that you found a new love in life. And you're definitely not doing it because it's trendy and other people are doing it and you felt like it was the interest of the moment you are genuinely and sincerely interested in this

and even if you are getting into it because it's trendy maybe you'll like it and it'll be nice and I know that there are people who are like very into a certain sport the way that say you are with baseball or Jeff Sullivan was with baseball who will then try to follow another sport in a less engaged way. Just a more kind of casual fan way, like the difference between a SMARC and a MARC wrestling fan, basically, who's like hyper aware of the scripted nature of it or not and is following it in this almost ironic or very clued in way or just turning on raw every week just to see who wins. And that's kind of how I would probably do it, I guess, if I were going to do it. But I don't know that my nature would allow me to follow something that way. Anyway, I'm just in awe of people who actually are able to maintain some awareness and literacy of many different sports at the same time because it's not an experience that I have had.

And I am always in awe of like my friend, our friend and my colleague, Michael Bauman at The Ringer, who primarily writes about baseball when he writes about sports. But then every now and then he will write about F1. He will write about cycling. He'll bust out a soccer article. He will have a college basketball take. And it's like, how have you even heard of these players? I don't know. And if it were anyone else, I would say, oh, well, he's probably not wasting all his time watching like every Star Trek episode like I am. But it's Michael Bauman. So I know he's doing that too. every Star Trek episode like I am, but it's Michael Bauman. So I know he's doing that too. Right. And I don't know how he manages it all, but it's inspirational really. I have two thoughts. The first is that I'm so happy people are getting into Formula One because it means that fewer people are into wrestling. Again, like what you like, but we

could all, maybe the takeaway from all of this is that we could talk about what we like less. Yeah, see, I sort of like wrestling, but in a very casual way. I don't understand it. I don't understand the appeal. And you know what? That is not an invitation to convince me. I am happy.

You like what you like. I don't have to like the thing. I'm glad you take enjoyment. This is like me and food Twitter, just don't eat dolphins like the thing I'm glad you take enjoy this is like me and food twitter just don't eat dolphins and apart from that and you know there's a list of other stuff too but like don't eat dolphins and other than that eat what you like and if it tastes good to you I am so happy that you get to and I like food I am a I don't know that I like the word foodie because it comes with all kinds of other weird nonsense attached to it.

But I like I am a person who enjoys food and going out for food. Yeah, not as interested in people's preferences about food. Like I, you know, when people are like, you could you you mean that you could care less? And I'm like, I could. I don't know. I can't plumb any more depths of not caring about what you like to eat i can't do it yeah anyway i have gone down in james cameron's little sub and i have seen the bottom and now i have returned to say no more i don't know what my

second thing was oh i think that maybe what we should take away from this consideration of fandom is that we should just invite each other to when the thing stops making us happy, release ourselves from it. Maybe what we should learn from the people who come to fandom later in life, whatever it is, is that we all have the power within us to say,

that no longer serves a purpose for me. That doesn't make me happy. The nostalgia doesn't outweigh the grind of my team never being in the playoffs. There are things that these teams do rather than, not as civic institutions, but as companies that I don't like, whatever it is. Maybe the thing we should take from it is that it's fine to choose other stuff because maybe there's stuff out there you like more, or maybe you have that one year you look back on and you're like,

I was really into Formula One. That was sure weird. And then you move on to, I don't know, Beanie Babies, Pogs. Remember Pogs, Ben? Oh, I do very well. Oh, man. We're old. People don't know Pogs anymore you talk talk to a zoomer they're like i don't know what that pog business is it's odd how pogs are always like the go-to reference it's like to identify yourself as a member of an age group

or to say that you're out of touch or that someone else is out of touch with you it's pogs yeah you start talking about slammers and people either know or they don with you it's pogs yeah you start talking about slammers and people either know or they don't and it's a very in-group kind of thing or they really don't and then and then i say but you and i are wearing the same clothes that i wore in middle school so who's who's the loser now i don't know my hair just doesn't part in the middle like it just doesn't it goes on the side it's not a purposeful choice that's just where my hair just doesn't part in the middle like it just doesn't it goes on the side it's not a purposeful choice that's just where my hair goes i don't know man anyway contemplating zoomers a lot lately thinking about the zoomers yes all right well that was tangentially related to baseball

hopefully which is about the best we can hope for these days and if you have a story of how you discovered baseball late in life and you have not already shared it with us, please do. Yeah, that would be interesting. There's no need to be tribal about these things. Absolutely not. It's silly when you are born into one fan base of a certain sport and then that prevents you from enjoying the pleasures of every other fan base and all the other good players that they have and makes you inclined to hate them or to hope that they don't do well and so why would anyone feel the same way about a single sport it doesn't make sense i want people to like baseball obviously but it's not a zero

sum game i guess it's becoming a game where there are more and more and more entertainment options and so i suppose as someone who does a baseball podcast and you as someone who runs a baseball site that everyone who flocks to the formula one banner is a potential fan graphs reader who will be reading about f1 instead maybe there should be fan graphs formula one maybe that's something to think about but yeah we can like multiple things is the point. Just don't try to get me to like wrestling. Like I'm not. Sorry. Don't try.

It's okay. Although I will recommend the TV show Heels, which is a very good show. Yes, I've heard that that is wonderful. See, like that I can. Because like then it's about. Well, I guess wrestling is about a pretend story too, isn't it? Well, it depends on what kind of fan you are. All right.

Here is an email from a Patreon supporter. Oh, yeah. We were going to do an email show, and then we talked about fans for 20 minutes, and don't eat dolphins. Still a good takeaway. Yeah. This is not a question, but it is an email that is kind of related to what we were just talking about.

This is from Jeff, a Patreon supporter, who says, a question in the Discordantly Wild forum, that's the Discord group for Patreon supporters, who says, a question in the Discordantly Wild forum, that's the Discord group for Patreon supporters, about what it's like for me watching MLB games from Hong Kong reminded me of something I've been meaning to write to you about. I think it was Meg who commented at some point this season about time-shifted baseball being a terrible idea. I chuckled.

As for many years now, I only watch MLB TV archived games. Living in Hong Kong, if I wanted to watch live baseball, it would have to be in the morning. And watching baseball first thing in the morning just doesn't feel right. So like a normal fan, I watch games in the afternoons for the most part. Now here's where things get funky. I generally only watch Jay's games, a lot of Jay's games, but invariably I fall behind. So it's not unusual for me to watch games that are several days old. Then at some point I thought, why am I sitting through losses?

Sure, not all losses are bad games, just as not all wins are fun games, but odds are that overall I'm going to better enjoy the games where my team comes out on top. Now here's where things get funkier. To manage this feat of time-shifted baseball while allowing me spoiler-free watching, other than knowing it ends well, I tend to avoid the baseball internet. Other than this podcast, my main interaction with my team and baseball is through my home team's TV broadcast, and since I'm only watching wins, my Jays fandom exists in this distorted Halcyon Truman show-like bubble. Take the Jays' 2021 season. Some great starting pitching, check.

I saw a lot of tight-painted Robbie race starts. Monster offense, check. I saw a lot of offensive clobberings by the Jays, and so before their big late-season run, I'd think, why doesn't the team have a better record? A win total more in line with their huge positive run differential. I'd hear talk

of their bullpen woes and scratch my head, as my experience of the bullpen has been good. Then I realized all those losses I'm not watching is where things likely went south in the late innings. That's my time-shifted baseball experience. No questions for you, just thought you might be interested in this peculiar baseball consumption with a window into a parallel universe where one's team never loses. these dog days of the lockout if you're looking for things to talk about yes we are i would be curious if you have any philosophical musings and banter about the pros and cons of this approach i'm just trying to imagine what it

would feel like to sorry i want to make sure i understand he he picked games he knew that they had won yes he knows the outcome but not the specifics about how it happened. Not the specifics. So I wonder what your experience, like the Blue Jays were a fun team. They had a guy on their team who probably would have been the MVP if it were not for Shohei Otani.

I wonder how Otani pulled in Toronto. We only did look at the US, didn't we? Anyhow, so you had Vlad had you had vlad and you had bo bichette and you had kevin biggio and you had marcus simeon having this incredible season and you had robbie ray and his tight tight pants and you had other things besides and so like that was a good fun team now i wonder what would have happened if you had applied the same approach to the Mariners because the Mariners won a bunch of really weird one-run games. They just, they had a whole mess of games like that.

And as you are watching them in real time, like they feel taught and they have stakes. But if you know the outcome, does it matter? Like, are you just sitting there mostly marveling? Like, how are you gonna manage to make this stressful for me anyhow? Because like, I know you win. And why do you play baseball that way? Why don't you play baseball in a less stressful way?

I imagine it would be a very strange experience because you just assume that like the games you don't watch where they lose are like really debilitating, shake your confidence in the sport kind of losses? Or do you assume that like they lost a bunch of close ones? Like what would your I think that it would be a very telling exercise, like a very strange Rorschach test to fill in the contours of the games that you haven't seen. Because it might tell you a lot about what you think of yourself and baseball and the Jays and how disappointment tends to sort of like dole itself out. I don't know. It would be interesting. I think that you would learn as much about how you view the current team

and what kind of a person you are to think about the losses as much as the wins. Yeah. I don't know that I would enjoy watching baseball this way because I'm just generally pretty plot driven when it comes to my media consumption. So I'm not a prolific re-experiencer of things. I don't do a lot of rereading or re-watching for the most part. There are certain things that I will return to just because they are special to me. But for the most part, I want to know what happens next.

And that's not the only thing that I appreciate about a show, but that is something that keeps me coming back. And so if I know who wins, then it might be a bit tough for me if the only thing I don't know is how they win exactly. I would think that the 2021 Blue Jays season may have been kind of confusing, even if you were watching all of the games, including the losses, because they really should have made the playoffs if you look at just how they clobbered other teams pretty consistently, especially later in the season.

But they had the great run differential all along. And so that must've been pretty mystifying not to end up in October after all of that running up the score. But in general, I just, you could say, well, obviously a win is better than a loss. And so therefore, why would you ever want to watch the losses if you had the ability to avoid them? But I guess the question is that time. If I couldn't avoid the spoilers, then I would certainly have a harder time forcing myself to watch the losses, knowing that they were going to be losses. I might still enjoy the wins on some level, even knowing the outcome, just because, hey, my team is winning and everyone's playing well. But I don't think I would be able to bring myself to just watch a whole lot of losses,

knowing that they were going to be losses. And I guess you could say, well, this is like sports without the heartbreak. Just like cut out all the pain and suffering and disappointment and just watch the days when everything goes well. becomes a broader philosophical discussion about pain and loss and mortality and whether having the bad things or having a finite time span on earth allows you to appreciate it more and whether we were all immortal we would all just lose interest in living because there would be no time pressure associated with it i wouldn't mind having that problem and seeing how I handled it. I'd be fine with signing up for a trial run of that. But it's an interesting approach and kind of an uncommon one, I would imagine.

Yeah. I mean, and one born from a particular circumstance, right? I doubt this is, given his brothers, this would not be the way that he would necessarily watch baseball. But yeah, I don't think it would satisfy. I do think that there is something to being able to be surprised by the game that is really compelling. So that would be hard. But if you really love it and this is your only avenue, then maybe this is the best compromise position.

I don't know. Yeah. All right. Well, our plan for today, which we have completely abandoned, really it was a plan born out of desperation slash necessity to begin with. So it's okay that we didn't adhere to it. But the idea was that we were going to dive deep into the mailbag and do an email show with just old questions for the most part. Because they haven't been flying in lately at their usual rate amid the lockout. And also because there's a backlog of thousands of questions that we never answered. that we never answered.

And so getting into the spirit of the times, which is a lot of desperate baseball sites just running evergreen content or ever brown content that they are running regardless, we were going to just dive deep and see what slipped through the cracks previously. But we've managed to basically talk for an entire episode without having to do that. And now I have a giant document of emails

that we can save for a future desperate situation. See, there you go. We'll probably arrive at some point. In two weeks. Yeah, next week maybe or in January certainly. But I will read you one question, just a little taste here because it was going to lead into another little story that i wanted

to tell but this is from 2018 i was uh diving deep going back pre-pandemic back in those halcyon days everything was just perfect and fine and dandy back in 2018 2019 no cares in the world but i noticed from reading these emails that a A, we have gotten a lot of questions many, many times. There are certain questions that people have asked over and over again. We do have an emails question database, which I will link to on the show page for anyone who wants to see if a question has been asked many times before. And also, there were reasons why we didn't answer these questions at the time for the most part, but every now and then we just don't get to one. And also sometimes

there are fun ones in retrospect, like actually here's one from 2019 from listener Michael, who says, uh, Hey guys, huge fan of the podcast. I bring to you an interesting case of year to year pitching drop-off Corbin Burns for the Brewers. He tops nearly every pitch leaderboard for highest average spin rate, including four-seam fastball. However, he has given up nine home runs on that pitch just this year. I watched the tape on all the home runs he hit on four-seamers, and all were belt high or above. He has a way above average spin rate. So why is this happening? Guys with that pitch profile should be pitching up. Is it overuse of the fastball so guys are sitting on it? However, the usage rate has been down a few percentage points from last year. Last year, his expected slugging and batting average in Woba showed that the pitch overperformed and that his

slider underperformed. So is it then a case of return to the mean? What I would propose to him is trash the four seamer his slider has elite spin throw that in combination with his other three pitches i know there's a lot in here but i was wondering what your take would be on this matter and you know i gave it some thought and i think that i would support this plan i think corbin burns should probably put the four seamer in his back pocket although instead of replacing all those four seamers with sliders, I think if he were, say, to develop a cutter and if he were to throw the cutter, you know, say roughly half the time, let's say, if he were to try that, I feel like that would work out for him.

It's going out on a limb for me here on a podcast to suggest that Corbin Burns should stop throwing one pitch and just start throwing one all the time. I mean, easier said than done, obviously. But I just, I don't remember seeing this email at the time and I'm just now getting to it. And these are my thoughts, just, you know, haven't really done any research, haven't thought about it, but, you know, just just i don't make a lot of predictions but i i think it would work out well i mean it's a good idea but yeah how many innings isn't gonna allow him to throw that's the problem yeah that wasn't the one i was gonna read uh it's a good bit of theater though ben you did a nice a nice little scene. You built a diorama with your words.

Some of our listeners are pretty prescient, it turns out. Yeah, they're smart. Here's one. This is from 2018 from another Ben. Using substances like pine tar, conniving pitchers have sought ways to get advantages over hitters throughout the history of MLB. Obviously, the use of these substances is illegal and typically pretty easy to identify and punish. use of these substances is illegal and typically pretty easy to identify and punish. I've considered an idea for a pitcher to get more grip on the ball using no illegal substances, only water. So this is more relevant than ever. Now post sticky stuff ban. He continues, we've all experienced

that feeling of getting wrinkled or pruney digits after being submerged in water for some time. The reason our body reacts this way is to allow our fingers to have more gripping ability to prevent slippage from wetness because wrinkles equals more texture and surface area. Couldn't pitchers submerge their throwing hand in a bucket of water prior to a pitching appearance as well as between innings to allow their fingers to get this pruning effect and therefore get a better grip on the ball? allow their fingers to get this pruning effect and therefore get a better grip on the ball. I've tested this out myself and can confirm that pruned fingers does allow for more grip and feeling on the ball. It also seems as though this lasts for at least 15 minutes or so, which is more than enough to get through a half inning. In baseball, where the difference between a strike versus a ball or home run versus a pop-up is just a fraction of an inch couldn't this tactic prove to be pretty effective let me know what you think so pruney pitchers the new market inefficiency well i mean if batters have sometimes peed on their hands rather than wearing batting

gloves i don't see why we couldn't at least give it a shot is that really the biological reason that our fingers prune that i it could be look it could be it also feels like the kind of thing you get on like a fact of the day calendar that might not be i'll try to do some quick googling here i trust i trust the research but sure i mean i guess i guess it would be fine don't know. I haven't really thought about this. I mean, you have to submerge your hands for a while and then a game is a long time. So then do you get to re-dip? Do we have a new third time through the order penalty and it's really just the result of your hands going back to being normal fingies? Your phalanges recovering their normal amount of moisture? Your phalanges recovering their normal amount of moisture. Yeah. And would this qualify as a foreign substance?

Water? I mean, not if you're sweating it naturally. You're allowed to lick your hands. Yeah, if you get a special dispensation. And that's just a dab, right? Whereas this is immersing your finger in a bucket of water. I don't know if that's still a non-foreign substance at that point. It seems pretty, I mean, you're introducing that to your person. So I don't know. Yeah, you're altering, you're altering, albeit temporarily. So you're altering temporarily the sort of physical characteristics of your body but how is that different than athletic tape

right and you're I mean you're not allowed to have like you can't have band-aids on your fingies they tell you you can't do that and that's why that's why we had David Cronenberg movie on the

mound when Trevor Bauer sliced his hand open finger finger open, whatever. He was doing some dumb with a drone. Anyway, sorry, I did swear. But, you know, he couldn't have Band-Aids on his hand, right? Right. So there are, they do say you got to, you know, sort of be as you are. But like a fielder can have his wrist taped right as treatment for an ailment so we do

allow some intervention at times and it's temporary and um it doesn't it's not like uh steroids which in addition to having some performance enhancing effects are also bad for you generally so it's not like that so i i do think that it occupies sort of a strange territory i don't think anyone would do it i don't think there were an advantage and they could get away with it they might the problem is that you'd be easily identifiable because you'd have the pruney fingers right the whole point of the sticky stuff is that it's just supposed to blend in it's harder to see it yeah can't really hide the pruned fingers. Yeah.

I mean, so what if you had a medical condition that made you susceptible to pruning? What if you just had naturally kind of pruney fingers? I mean, some people do have more pronounced ridges on the skin on their fingers. Some people have an extra finger. Right. You're allowed to pitch that way.

They don't make you cut it off, Ben. No, they don't. This is my last show before I leave for Christmas. And I'm here to say I'm glad that we're not talking about people having to cut their fingers off. I think that Ben did have the details right, though, more or less. That's why your fingers are like that yeah wow cool there are there's a constriction in your blood vessels below the skin and that causes it and sure it's believed to perhaps enhance your grip and maybe there was an evolutionary advantage to that because uh you know all the prehistoric humans who fell in the swimming hole and their fingers did not get pruney they couldn't climb out they all died yeah they didn't pass on their genes of having pruney fingers right now we are a people of pruney fingers then i stand corrected i mean i i you can you can appreciate my

skepticism because sometimes people will be like people should try this diet it's how people lived thousands of years ago and i was like they all died at 35 why is that what we're emulating here i don't understand anyway so good we have all been vaguely amphibious for survival purposes and uh and yeah i mean like again people's hands are everybody else it's like treads on a car tire yeah it's like to grip a rainy road you know when you start driving into a sentence and you're like this is the most obvious thing imaginable it's like we all have different fingerprints and some of us have more pronounced ridges than others and i guess it's good that it could have a baseball purpose rather than just making you easier to find if you commit a crime. Yeah. I've been fascinated by that life expectancy thing that you just brought up too, the idea that how long did people used to live? It's hard to know because they didn't necessarily

keep track or if they did, we don't have their records. Often, you look at those numbers, they can be skewed by infant mortality sure lowers the averages but if you were able to make it past the baby stage you live for a little longer especially if you had naturally pruney fingers and right you were less likely to drown right if you what is this what are we doing what's the point of this question? Oh, yeah. I don't know that they would let you do it. And I don't know that it would... Well, first of all, I think the most obvious thing is how much does this really help? I don't think very much, actually.

I think it wouldn't really help as much as spider tack does. And it would wear off. And then you'd get creamed, even if it did help. So you're probably better off with a tacky ball i guess is the real takeaway here and the reason i read that is because as i was perusing these three or four year old emails i came across another one which was an installment of the great series pages from baseball's past by the writer and analyst and historian craig r, who I often

cite on this show. And I'm a subscriber to his newsletter, and I learn a lot from it. And this was a newsletter that I had forgotten and is also very relevant now in the age of sticky stuff bans and trying to figure out how to compensate for the lack of sticky stuff. And will there just be a tacky baseball? Who knows? But about a century ago, there was a war over rosin bags and the two leagues differed on what was and wasn't permitted when it came to rosin bags and at the time i think they were generally referred to as resin bags so

r-e-s-i-n instead of r-o-sI-N. And it seems like the rosin didn't take over as the dominant use until the 50s or so. But there was a big battle between the leagues in the 20s. So the spitball, as we have discussed, was outlawed in 1920. And that rule barred the pitcher from putting any foreign substance on the ball. And that did include rosin. And this was something I actually was curious about last year when we were talking about banning all foreign substances and rosin because rosin bags continued to be legal. And I wondered when they entered the picture, really, and why they were considered legal or not. And it turns out that there was a considerable debate over that at one time. So in 1925, there was the big wave of offense and the lively ball, and the National League president at the time, John Heidler, was in favor of allowing pitchers to use rosin to try to curb the rise in offense. And you'd get a better grip and you could snap off better

breaking balls and have better control all the conversations that we are familiar with from the last year or so everything old is new again and there was a worry that this would be abused and and it would help them too much and so no one wanted to go back to when the pitcher would keep some rosin or resin powder in their hip pocket and could potentially sneak something even stickier in. So they decided we will have this fine mesh bag of powdered rosin, and it will be league provided, and the umpires will supervise. And so what happened was there was a joint rules committee,

and there were three members from the NL and three from the AL and then a representative from the minor leagues and the commissioner of baseball, and they needed five of the eight people to support something to pass a new rule. So the NL reps and the minor league rep voted yes to allowing pitchers to use rosin bags. Each of the AL representatives said no, no rosin bags. And that left things up to the commissioner, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, and he said yes. So rosin bags won the day, but there was bad blood between the AL president, Van Johnson, and Commissioner Landis. And in those days, the leagues were much more autonomous and independent and powerful, and the commissioner didn't have as tight control, and MLB wasn't a big corporate decentralized entity the way that it is today.

And so Ban Johnson, the AL president, was mad because the AL reps did not want the rosin bag, and he lost some of his authority when they created the commissioner in 1920 after the Black Sox scandal. And so he was outraged because one of the major leagues was entirely dead set against having rosin bags. And yet Landis was going to impose it on them. And so Ben Johnson set out to sabotage the rule. So he got the umpire and former player George Moriarty to conduct experiments.

Wait, I'm sorry. We have a Ben Johnson and we have a Moriarty? Yes, we do. All right. I just wanted everyone to pause. And I know you were all thinking, did I hear those names right? And I'm here to say, yeah, you did. So anyway, continue, Ben.

Maybe that's where Conan Doyle got the name. I don't know. Probably not. But this was around when he was writing. So he got George Moriarty to conduct these experiments that resulted in the claim that if you let the pitchers use rosin, then they would basically be throwing spitballs again. It would be bringing back the bad old days. And so they were saying that the rosin was super effective.

And he puts out this report. And so in February of that year, the AL club presidents vote unanimously not to permit the use of the rosin bag in AL games. And Johnson goes around and he's stumping for no rosin bags and he's getting support from minor league executives. And then during spring training, seven minor leagues joined the AL in fighting the rosin bag. And then there was a dispute in an exhibition game when an NL umpire put the rosin bag on the mound. And Tris Beaker, who was the player manager for Cleveland, threw a fit, and he said his team wouldn't play unless the rosin bag was removed. He threatened a forfeit. And then about a week before the season was supposed to start, Landis sent a letter to all the leagues saying,

you have no choice here. Like it or not, you've got to use the rosin bag. And then the AL, instead of being an open revolt in late April, they voted to comply with the letter of the rule, but not the spirit of the rule. So they provided a rosin bag through the umpire for use by the pitcher, but the rule as worded did not require them actually having the bag on the field. What? So the umpires, they fulfilled the letter of the law by keeping a rosin bag on their

person so that the pitcher would have to ask the umpire to use the rosin bag if he wanted to. And at the same time, that wasn't even enough for Ben Johnson. He so hated rosin bags that he announced that he instructed managers to request that the managers not ask for the rosin bag. that the managers not ask for the rosin bag. So not only did you have to ask to use it in the AL, but you were ordered not to ask to use it, basically. So no pitcher at the time was willing to risk angering his manager or the league president or an umpire by asking to use the rosin bag.

So umpires were just carrying around rosin bags in theory, and they were never actually used so it wasn't used in the al for several years in the 1926 world series so this is the first year where you have one league that's using it in one league that is staunchly against it the commissioner had to step in and say that for the world series games they had to have the rosin bag on the back of the mound and then and then ben did he ban johnson so the al pitchers cooperated with this uh unofficial use of the rosin bag however there was some chicanery that was going on here and there were people there were people using secret rosin bags in the dugout between innings

so the pitchers would like pretend to apply rosin to their bat handles and yet they would actually be transferring the rosin to their pitching hands and like people didn't even know like a lot of sports writers at the time thought they had actually banned the rosin bag officially as opposed to just sort of unofficially banning it. So this continued. 1927, it continued. Ban Johnson resigned at the end of that season. But this persisted because some AL owners still didn't like it. So you had the new AL president who carried on this policy.

president who carried on this policy. And then it seemed in 1929, there was maybe going to be an agreement, finally end the opposition to the rosin bag beginning with the 1930 season. But ultimately, the talks broke down and there was no rosin agreement. So it persisted. In 1930, you still had the AL not using this for the fifth year in a row aside from the World Series. So finally, May 28th, 1931, there was an AL meeting. And the argument that finally carried the day is that young pitchers were accustomed to using the rosin bag in the minor leagues. And so by the time they got to the AL, they were at a disadvantage because now they were used to using the rosin bag and they were no longer allowed to use it and so finally the umpires were instructed to place the rosin bag on the mound which is sort of similar i guess to the dh argument maybe that one of the more persuasive arguments for having a universal dh now is that no one hits in the minors or even in college in some cases and

so they get to the National League and they have no idea how to hit and it's silly. So it's sort of the reverse of that or it's, you know, you're used to something and then it changes when you get to the highest level. It doesn't seem to make sense, but that's how long it took. It took about six years for the two leagues to get on the same page about this. So at one time, the rosin bag actually was controversial. And so pitchers now who say, you know, we're naked out there, we're not using anything that is helping us enhance our grips. Well, rosin, that's something that helps.

And in fact, at one time, people were so suspicious of rosin that they thought it would be too much of a performance enhancer to use. So even if you don't have the tacky baseball, you do still have rosin available on every major league mound and not just upon request. I think that mostly my takeaway is that you did really well with sporadic interjections to a complicated story just because I had to get my jokes off,

and I really appreciate that about you, Ben. I think that it's just a very human thing that we are so i don't know we're so predictable in the face of change and and prone to fussiness and uh and subterfuge and having you know there aren't enough moriartys anymore like why aren't there more people named that i mean i know that it kind of ruined the name for everyone else i guess it has a negative connotation but i don't know i think that you should embrace moreiarty as a potential name i mean there are still mycrofts and he's you know i don't know about mycroft you might not be he might not be the best many mycrofts

in my time well we don't live in i i think that there are a lot of mycrofts in the uk there are at least two yeah oh boy you know yeah see professor moriarty he first appeared in 1893 and george moriarty first appeared in 1884 so george predated the nemesis of the nemesis okay well you know i guess i guess that you gotta bob and weave like they're probably i don't know probably not gonna be a lot of karens for a while so it's just we gotta adapt to the times yep well that's my rosin story and you know if you consider this craig noted this too but we talk a lot about how players in that era, the caliber of competition wasn't the same. It was pre-integration. You know, Babe Ruth was hitting all of his home runs in a white league. Well, Babe Ruth was also hitting almost all of his home runs in a non-Rosen situation.

So, you know, you have to apply a further penalty here. So, you know, you have to apply a further penalty here. So according to Craig's calculations, 524 of Babe Ruth's home runs were hit in the years when one was using the rosin bag and one was not. You have a good little natural controlled experiment there. And he found to his surprise that there was, quote, no impact of statistical significance in any category, including the control categories of walks, hit batters and wild pitches. Including the control categories of walks, hit batters, and wild pitches That doesn't deny the advantage of having a good drag grip on the ball But it does suggest the edge in accomplishing that by ready access to a rosin bag is negligible So maybe we don't have to further penalize Babe Ruth But that is also interesting in light of what we saw last season Which was maybe a slight uptick in offense after the sticky stuff ban

But not as significant an uptick in offense after the sticky stuff ban but not as significant an uptick as many imagined that we might see so my my whole theory it's like consistent with my overarching theory that cheating in baseball is overrated because it generally doesn't work as well as people believe it does i kind of feel the same way about grip like i know that uh the spin rate started ticking up again at the end of the season as maybe the inspections got a little lax and maybe that's an argument in favor of having the tacky ball so that we don't have to worry about this anymore but ultimately i'm not sure how much grip matters either for safety or performance related reasons yeah well or at least

if not more cursory at least more predictable predictable, right? The checks, that was part of the idea there. You know, I think that for an episode that we were kind of had some trepidations about in terms of being able to fill time, we did just fine. I think that people will find this enjoyable and they will not feel like their time was wasted and they can judge my jokes and be impressed by your ability to carry on with the story just because i was like man johnson man that's a name we don't take advantage of the good names as much as we should there are so many good names we should have more good names like yeah i think it's partly an error effect i think that a lot of these things

sound quaint in retrospect sure so the names of today will sound better to the people of tomorrow right i mean and and then they'll look back and be like there's so many x people writing about about baseball if only one of them was named ben right yeah the last thing i meant to mention about the rosin bag saga is that one concern that people had about having the rosin bag at the back of the mound is that it would cause injuries and that fielders would slip on it and fall and hurt themselves. And that's another constant. I think whenever it comes to proposing a rule change, I think one of the instinctual reactions to that is, no, it will lead to more injuries. And granted, like that is a concern that we should have. Yeah. But that's something that comes up, you know, when it's talking about moving the mound back or whatever it is, anything. Pitch clock, right?

And talking about, oh, is that going to hurt pitchers because they won't have as much recovery time between pitches? Like always a constant. That's a concern. Will people hurt themselves now fielders slipping on the rosin bag and hurting themselves maybe one of the sillier ones i don't think that happens often i can't recall seeing it craig wright said he only ever saw it happen once and the player wasn't actually hurt he does relate that he knows of one injury story related to the rosin bag, which was that a claim in spring training in 1979 that the pitcher John Matlack hurt his elbow

picking up the rosin bag. But it turned out that he already had bone chips in his elbow. And so they were just barking more, I guess, when he picked up the rosin bag. It was not caused by the rosin bag. But that's something you hear all the time. It's like, you know, when fielders used to leave their gloves in the field between innings and people would worry about like, are they going to hurt themselves falling on the gloves?

So there's a lot of real estate out there. They're probably not going to slip on the rosin pack. Yeah, seemingly not. I mean, I think it's good for us to ask the question, does this have the potential to lead to more injuries because we don't want you know we don't want guys careers to get derailed because we were careless or didn't ask the requisite questions but i would have said i think they'll be fine yep if someone had brought that concern to me and also like how heavy do people think

the rosin bags are that that was gonna be enough to you know it's like if you're getting hurt doing that i think a safe assumption is that there were underlying factors that were just waiting to be exasperated um exasper exacerbated is the word i wanted not i've had like food and coffee and absolutely no beer at all today. So I don't know. Some of these are just gems. We're pretty punch drunk today, but it's a lockout episode and it's the end of the week. And the other constant whenever there's a rules change is will it make the game longer? And to be fair, the answer is often yes. But that was a concern with the rosin war as well, that people thought it would delay the game because pitchers would keep having to go back and have rosin on their hand and find the bag. And there was one reporter in 1926 who kept track

and he found that pitchers went to the new bag a little more than 20 times during the game. Sounds like a lot, but he said it added maybe two or three minutes to the game. So it's something. Of course, the games were like an hour and a half at that point. I mean, not quite, but it wasn't quite as big a concern. Or it was because people talked about it just as much, even though the problem was not nearly as acute. But this is just another illustration of the fact that every baseball conversation has been had before and will be had again, including this one so yeah thanks for joining us everyone i hope i hope uh i hope everyone has a good holiday if if christmas is your thing i hope

you all have a merry christmas if it's not i hope you get to rest and have some time with uh with with family and in a safe way and uh yeah, everybody stay safe and healthy. And yeah, that's end of year Meg. I mean, we'll be back, but I just am going to go to the mountains where it is literally impossible for me to podcast. So this will be all you hear from me for a minute. You'll be out of my reach. Yeah.

And we'll leave you with a recommendation that someone made to us, which is on the baseball subreddit, r slash baseball. There is a user there who is drawing Mike Trout every day that someone made to us, which is on the baseball subreddit, r slash baseball. There is a user there who is drawing Mike Trout every day until the lockout is over. So they have done 12 sketches of Mike Trout thus far as we speak. I will link to this. But what amuses me about it is how quickly they got weird, which every Effectively Wild email show would tell you that this was what was

bound to happen inevitable for the first few days it was like you know action shots of mike trout he's like standing there with a bat he's uh doing a diving catch he's sliding and stealing a base he's robbing a home run he is following through in his swing and then like day eight, it's like Mike Trout as a baby holding a harpoon or something. And then like it's Mike Trout drinking some sort of beverage or milk called Michael's Secret Stuff. And then it gets weirder and weirder from there. And on day 11, he is a fish. It's a fish wearing a trout jersey who is fishing for the human Mike Trout. And it's continuing to descend from there. That's only day 12, and we might have months of lockout remaining. So I look forward to seeing where this goes. I mean, it could get kind of dark. The potential exists for that.

But it might also bring about world peace. So we'll just have to see where it goes. Yes. Kudos to user diditforthestory for entertaining us with travel. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. I am planning to be here next week.

Meg will be away, and then she will rejoin me the following week. So we will probably not miss a beat around here so we can keep you company during your holiday travels or your holiday sitting around at home listening to baseball podcasts either one works for us this means that we'll have to wait for our discussion of the final four stove league episodes until meg returns so sorry to keep you waiting but you're free to finish of course whatever you want and hopefully this will give some of you more time to catch up if you have a little holiday downtime and you're free to finish, of course, whenever you want. And hopefully this will give some of you more time to catch up. If you have a little holiday downtime and you're looking for something to stream, check out Stove League on Viki.

It's linked on the show page as usual. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount or a larger monthly amount or an annual amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks and also help keep the podcast ad-free, which is also a perk for everyone. Elizabeth Baldwin, John Maslin, Jeffrey Hochstein, Benjamin Haywood, and Anthony Campisi. Thanks to all of you. If you are a Patreon supporter and a member of the Effectively Wild Discord group, you could join the upcoming trivia night that will be conducted by other Patreon supporters on the evening of December 29th. I will link to that on the show page as well. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. If you'd like to give

us a free gift for the holidays, leave us a positive review on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. If you'd like to give us a free gift for the holidays, leave us a positive review on iTunes or your platform of choice. That will bring us some cheer. You can contact us via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. There's an Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend, it's so hard to be true. It's not fair. It's not fair. I sat at home almost every night waiting for you to call. All of my friends told me I was right. It didn't matter at all.