Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1803: Think of the Bat Children

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about FanGraphs adding fancy “photograph” technology and whether Dick Monfort is any better at collective bargaining than he is at running the Rockies, then discuss the pioneering lives and careers of 2022 Hall of Fame inductees/honorees Bud Fowler and Jack Graney and Graney’s dog mascot Larry, with detours into […]

Cause he's a dancer in the underworld, dancer in the underworld. When will he come up for air? No, when anybody ever cares. Hello and welcome to episode 1803 of Effectively Wild, the 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. I noticed that Fangraphs ran a photo today. Yeah.

Is that a first? Ben, I have... You popped off the page. I'm not used to, I'm not accustomed to seeing such things. Well, I might be breaking very minor news that people only will care about if they are obsessive readers of the site, which I imagine many of our listeners are. But in the next couple of days, folks might notice a little refresh, a little. That's right. A little zhuzhing up I was privy to that

so in conjunction with that we're going to be a real website we have a photo license and everything quite mature, very grown up now I no longer i'm going to have to hunt for um you know graphs or screen grabs or uh or even uh quote cards the days the days of quote cards are out you know and uh photos are in so uh yeah you you had a a little

david ortiz treat. Yes, yeah. In honor of his Hall of Fame induction or election, he gets to be the first Fangraphs player page photo person. Surely the most exciting part of this process for David is learning that he is being granted this specific honor from a site I'm sure he thinks an awful lot about. So yeah, it's nice. I think it adds a little something, makes everything look all snazzy.

So hopefully folks like the redesign. It's nothing dramatic. It's okay. This isn't like when they changed Excel. You're not going to be like, where is everything? Like you did when every other website ever yeah like i'm sure no one will mind this redesign yeah i mean i'm sure that people will have um will have feedback and that's fine we welcome people's feedback but yeah i don't i

think this will just make things easier to find one hopes and uh and more inviting to new readers who are less familiar with our work while still, I think, satisfying our loyal existing reader base, which we are very grateful for. So yeah, a little spice coming your way in the next couple of days. Cool. Yeah. It's not the first Fangraphs redesign, I recall, but I guess it is the first photo. So new, exciting photographic technology here in 2022. I liked fan graphs before it had photos.

Yeah. I didn't not read the blogs because they didn't have enough photos. And often they had GIFs and they had graphs. It's in the name of the site. I mean, there were always interesting images. It's just kind of the lead, the header image. And as you were saying, I guess you need something on Soch. When you auto stat heads of having our heads in the spreadsheets and the players are just player IDs to us. Now we know what David Ortiz looks like because he has a photo on this Fangraphs blog. Yeah.

I mean, don't anyone worry. This is not a sign of like listicles to come. That's not what we're going for here. But yeah, it should add a little something. And I have had to tell you here's an unintended consequence of the lockout that i'm sure everyone thought of and decided they didn't care about which is that you know sometimes um as a canny editor will need to take a screen grab of a video in order to have a an image for social and guess what got a lot harder after they took down all the 40-man stuff? Doing that.

Doing that got harder. So this is nice because now I don't have to do that. I can just go searching for stuff. So there we are. All right. Well, we got four minutes out of Fangraphs having photos now. What else we got? As you can tell, not as much news in the last couple days as we had to discuss

last time last time it was like a throwback to when there was baseball news not so much in the last couple days but i do have a few things we can get into and also i noted did you see the the little bit of news that came out earlier this week when the bargaining committees reconvened and Dick Montfort was not there on the owner's side. And there was some consternation or people wondering where did he go or did they ban him or did he get lost or something? And Dick Montfort is the Rockies owner, of course, and he's also the chair of MLB's labor committee. And thus he is usually there and he is playing an important role in these talks with the Players Association. But he got in a little hot water earlier this week, and I don't know if this was related or not, but he did cause some controversy because there was a report. I think it was one of Evan Drellick's dispatches on the bargaining.

And Evan wrote, some on the player side were irked too by Rocky's owner, Dick Monfort, the chair of Commissioner Rob Manfred's seven-owner labor policy committee. Monfort, people with knowledge of the meeting said, complained about the difficulty at least some owners have affording teams and the ancillary costs of ownership, such as security and COVID-19 measures. And lots of people quote tweeted and played world's smallest violins for Dick Montfort, etc. And then he didn't show up at the next meeting. And don't know, could be a coincidence. Not sure if this was because of that comment, but I did see a thread by former Effectively Wild guest Eugene Friedman. He's a counsel to the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. And so he has been involved in many CPA talks on the labor side. And he's a union lawyer and has written about and podcasted about baseball labor relations. has written about and podcasted about baseball labor relations. And he had a little thread where he said, after some additional thought, it's possible Manfort was asked not to attend yesterday's negotiation because he opened management up to greater financial disclosure under the National Labor Relations Act.

Normally, employers only have to furnish basic financial information in collective bargaining. But when an employer says it cannot afford certain proposals or even existing CBA language, the obligation shifts and it may be required to open up its books to the union. It's the kind of thing you only read about in textbooks because it's so basic that employers don't make that mistake anymore. You cover it when briefing your management team. No matter what, don't say we can't afford it. Monfort may have crossed that line, though. We don't know exactly what he said or in what context, but he wasn't back on Tuesday. So I don't know whether that is true. And I am not a labor lawyer, obviously. And I don't know whether a little offhand comment like that could actually lead to books being opened that would not normally be

opened. And the Players Association does have access to some financial information as it is. But that would be very funny. I don't know if it's true. I don't know if I buy it, but it would be hilarious if Dick Monfort blundered into that because Dick Monfort, of all people, is like an important point person when it comes to the owner side of negotiations. I remember when we had Nick Groke, the Rockies athletic beat writer on last year for the Rocky season preview, and we were talking about his big feature about how incompetent Rockies ownership and the front office is and how poorly run they are. And I think we asked him, how is Dick Montfort a really important person when it comes to CPA negotiations? And is

that something that the players should be pleased about because right he is that bad at running a baseball team does that mean he will be equally bad at bargaining and i don't know if this is a manifestation of that or not but i'm just saying it would be very funny to me if that were the case it would be delightful i would find it to be delightful we spend so much time making fun of the mets you know and let's be clear the mets often deserve it right yes the bets are often banana peeling their way through their baseball existence so like i don't mean to say we can't do multiple things at once we grew up in the age of the internet and cell phones. We are nothing if not gifted multitaskers. But I think that we maybe don't make fun of the Rockies enough. And I say that as

someone whose grandparents ostensibly root for the Rockies. I think that they get off easy on a relative basis. And some of that, I'm sure, is due to the relative size of each of the markets they're involved with. And of course, like the scale and diversity of disaster that the Mets court, some of which is funny and some of which is deeply unfunny. But it strikes me that we should perhaps goof on them a little more than we do. But yeah, if we finally got like full financials because he was like mad about paying for laundry and sanitizing stuff, I don't, that would be, that'd be, that'd be like, but you know, they, as a franchise are known for overconfidence and not having a correct gauge of where they fall on the competitive spectrum. So in some ways he's just being true to himself.

And what can, what can any of us do, but be true to ourselves? You know, really? Yeah, I guess the qualities that lead one to be a bad baseball owner might not necessarily correlate with the qualities that would make one bad at running a labor negotiation, right? I mean, there could even be cases where you could be an extremely stingy and miserly and hard line owner, which might be bad for your baseball team, but could actually benefit you in negotiations. And that's not Montfort's specific problem necessarily. Exactly. You know, they haven't been the lowest spending team. one of the more inefficiently spending teams, which is maybe not entirely his fault,

although it is probably his fault that he has put the people in control of the Rockies and let them have very long leashes and just continually promoted people from inside the organization, despite the organization's record of not being very successful, etc. So it doesn't seem like he has a great management style. It's not so much that he is among the more miserly owners, but still, if I were the other owners, I mean, think about you're the owner of one of the better run baseball teams and you're thinking, the person in charge of our negotiations, one of the people who is representing my interests here is Dick Monfort. I mean, maybe he gets along well with them behind the scenes.

Maybe they respect him. Maybe it's just Rockies fans who don't. But still, it would not give me the most confidence if I were they. It's a strange thing because what we have heard, and I think this has been borne out by, you know, even if you just look at the way that the Trevor story non-trade was handled, right? But certainly if you look to the way that they dealt with Nolan Arenado, you know, whether it's within their organization and their ability to sort of communicate clearly and productively, particularly in moments of consternation and disagreement, or their inability to sort of like get over hurdles externally to take best advantage of the window for trading talent like story.

It doesn't strike me that like communication is an organizational strength. Now that is not entirely on ownership, right? Because they're not necessarily involved in all of this stuff. You know, I think several departed front office members have their fair share of blame but like it is interesting that the guy at the table is like i just we couldn't figure out how to trade trevor's story but we're gonna get this cba done you know right and that's not an entirely fair thing for me to say but it's like close enough to fair. I feel comfortable saying it. All right. Well, there have been a couple more days of Hall of Fame discourse.

I am not going to engage in any more of that at the moment. I am tapped out when it comes to the Hall of Fame, except for a few figures or really two figures that have not been discussed. a few figures or really two figures that have not been discussed. So everyone knows that you've got a bunch of inductees and some people are upset that there are this many inductees and some people are upset that there are not more inductees. But everyone has talked about David Ortiz to no end. And earlier, people talked about Jim Cott and Tony Oliva and Manny Minoso and Buck O'Neill. And we talked about Jim Cott and Tony Oliva and Manny Mignoso and Buck O'Neill. And we talked about them too. But there are a couple other figures who got in here who are not as well known and come from an earlier era of baseball history.

And I recently learned some very interesting things about them that I would like to share with you and the listeners. And that's Bud Fowler, who was inducted as a pioneer from early black baseball, and Jack Graney, who technically, I guess, is not in the Hall of Fame, but is getting the Ford Frick Award for baseball broadcasters from the Hall of Fame. And I talk often about Craig Wright's wonderful newsletter, Pages from Baseball's Past. Go to baseballspast.com. You would think this is SpawnCon, but it is not. I am just a satisfied subscriber who enjoys reading it and learns a lot from it. And he sent out a few stories recently about Fowler and Graney.

And I figured, well, we have done to death every other player who was on the ballot and was elected or was snubbed. But these two, I think we could stand to learn a little more about. So I'm going to read you a little bit of what Craig put together here. Sure. and who he was. But even so, my mind reeled just to read the details of his career and just how well he was able to perform despite all of the obstacles. So let me read a little bit from Craig's newsletter, Baseball Pioneer, Bud Fowler. And I may skip around a little bit, but Craig writes, the first official color line in baseball began in December 1867 when the National Association of Baseball Players voted unanimously to bar any club composed of one or more colored persons, quote unquote. But institutionalized segregation was a rarity in those early days of baseball. While there was clearly de facto segregation going on in the game, it was an issue generally decided team by team. So in 1878, the crack amateur team in Chelsea, Massachusetts, had a 20-year-old black player who was born John Jackson, but played under the name

Fowler. In April of 1878, Fowler was allowed to pitch for Chelsea in a preseason exhibition game against the champions of the National League, the Boston Red Stockings, and held them to three hits and beat them 2-1. Less than a month later, Fowler was invited to play for Lynn, Massachusetts in the International Association. That is the earliest known instance of an African-American playing in a professional integrated league. It was a talented team with several teammates who went on to play in the white major leagues, but that was not a path open to Fowler. Okay, so we're way back in 1878 here. And Craig says,

There were objections to having a black player in the league, and the next season, Fowler began the pattern that defined the rest of his career, a constant move from team to team, league to league, seeking out teams willing to treat him as a ballplayer rather than a black ballplayer. He played professional baseball for over 20 seasons, spread over 13 organized leagues, and for more teams than he could remember,

including five in just one season. By Fowler's own count, he played for teams in 22 states and in Canada, and there were fewer states then. Rather than constantly learning a new set of names at each stop, Fowler tended to simply call everyone Bud, which ended up becoming his own nickname. So that is why he is Bob Fowler. His name is not Bud Fowler. His name is John Jackson, and he called everyone Bud because he was constantly moving from team to team and league to league as other teams decided that they did not want to let him in anymore. So that's sort of sad and poignant, I guess, that that is how he got that nickname.

But that's an illustration of what he had to go through to play pro baseball. So now, 1883, of what he had to go through to play pro baseball. So now, 1883, Fowler is part of the effort to form the first professional Niko League. It never got off the ground, and Bud went on to minor stardom in 1884 in the Northwest League, where he was so successful on the mound that some grateful fans pooled their money and gave Fowler a $10 prize and a new suit. $10 was worth more back then. That was the year pitchers were first allowed to throw overhand and Fowler hurt his shoulder while taking advantage of the new delivery. Fortunately, he was also a fine hitter and had batted around 300 while leading the league

in hits. He went on to have a long career as a position player with second base becoming his most common position. So he was a two-way player. Yeah. Even more reason to like Bud Fowler, at least early in his career. Fowler shone as a hitter and base dealer, and it wasn't long before Sporting Life magazine was saying of Fowler, with his splendid abilities, he would long ago have been on some good club had his color been white instead of black.

Those in the know say that there is no better second baseman in the country. So, you know, we don't have the stats for Bud Fowler that we would for later players or that we would have if he had been allowed to play in the National League, let's say. But you had people saying that he was maybe the best at his position in the whole country. And these were sources that maybe would not have been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. So Craig continues. In 1887, integration in professional baseball was at its peak for the 1800s. The International League had eight black players that year, including Bud Fowler, who was the leading hitter for the Binghamton Crickets.

But in July, nine teammates turned on him and sent a telegram to the owner threatening not to play unless the team adopted a whites-only policy. Incensed, Fowler asked for and received his release. Just two weeks later, the directors of the International League ruled that they would no longer allow contracts for black players. It was the first time a whole professional league openly barred black players,

and it soon became a common practice for leagues in the East. So you can imagine that if nine of his teammates, and I don't know how many players were on that team, but presumably not a ton in those days, turned on him at that point, then I would imagine that relations probably weren't great prior to that either. And so the atmosphere that he is playing in, even when he is allowed to play in those leagues, I mean, you hear about the things that Jackie Robinson went through when he

got to the Dodgers or was playing in AAA or whatever. Well, here we are, what, 60 years earlier, and he is getting turned away from leagues sometimes in the middle of the season. I mean, you just can't really imagine what kind of atmosphere and environment that was. And imagine, like, trying to play baseball amid that. Craig continues. Most of the Black players accepted the situation And joined black touring teams that played Exhibition games but Fowler Left the east to continue to seek out

Teams in the midwest who had not Yet drawn a color line So he is not conceding That he is going to Accept these bans he's going to Go wherever we'll have him as long as he can In 1888 He sought a position with a team in Lafayette, Indiana,

by covering in a letter his extensive experience as a ballplayer, but never mentioning the color of his skin, which he felt should not be an issue. They signed him and then annulled the contract when they learned of his, quote, deceit, unquote. Fowler chewed the team out in the press, which takes some balls to do that at that time, I would think, and went on to join a team desperate for players in the Central Interstate League. That team folded at the end of July, and he moved west to play in the New Mexico League, where he created a stir by complaining to the newspapers about his being excluded from the dining room at the team hotel in Las Vegas. So he is very much outspoken about these things. He is not taking

this quietly and seemingly is pretty fearless despite the blowback that could have come his way. In 1889, Fowler returned to the Midwest to play in the newly formed Michigan State League for one of his happiest summers in baseball. He got to play in one place for the whole season, which think of how everyone else takes that for granted. I mean, that's sort of the expectation, right? That was like the outlier year for him when he didn't have to change teams or leagues. didn't have to change teams or leagues, hitting.302 and stealing 46 bases for the smallest town in the league, the white farming community of Greenville. The league disbanded in 1890, and Bud found a new team in Iowa. This time, when irked by being denied service in his hotel's dining room, he filed a civil suit against the hotel. In 1892, he was the only black player in the Nebraska State League where he led the league with 45 steals. His team eventually folded in 1893 because fans were not supporting the integrated team, and the racial tension was raised when Fowler got into a fierce fight with an opposing player who tried to intentionally spike him on a play at second base. So he's got his teammates turning on him. The fans are against

him. He's getting spiked. I mean, it's like Fowler against the world wherever he goes, seemingly. And yet he is still playing really well somehow. Fowler joined a small independent integrated team in Findlay, Ohio, where he met fellow black player Grant Homerun Johnson. The two joined forces in September of 1894 to form the Page Fence Giants from Adrian, Michigan. They quickly became known as one of the best touring black teams in the country, with Fowler serving as the player manager. In 1895, the Michigan State League was reformed as a Class B minor league and was the only integrated league at that level. In July, Fowler and some other players from the Page Fence Giants joined teams in the league,

and Bud finished out the season playing for the Lansing Senators, where he hit.331 at age 37. Regrettably, the integrated MSL failed a second time, and Fowler returned to playing primarily with black teams. In 1897, he was a leading figure in establishing the short-lived Lone Star Colored League. So he is very much an organizer, it seems also, when he is banned from playing in white teams. He gets black teams and leagues together too. So he's a pioneer in both of those respects, seemingly. Fowler would play on one more integrated team, returning again to the independent Findlay Sluggers. But even there, his white teammates finally rejected him based on his color. In 1899, they successfully petitioned the owner to create a color line

and release the 41-year-old Fowler. Budd continued to work with black touring teams as a manager and occasional player, and finally retired to frankfurt new york near his roots in upstate new york but fowler has been posthumously elected to the hall of fame for his contributions as a baseball pioneer and will be inducted in cooperstown this summer and this i did not know in a remarkable coincidence it will not be new territory for fowler but was born he was born in cooperstown yeah well he was born inain, New York, and when he was two years old, his family moved to a small village about 25 miles away, which was Cooperstown, where his father worked as a barber, and that's where he learned to play baseball.

So I knew the broad strokes of that, but not the specifics. And I think that makes it only more clear that he is incredibly deserving of being honored in any possible way because I just can't imagine having to be good at baseball while everyone is against you and is being very vocal and possibly violent about it that is just kind of incredible yeah and then to use the opportunity both during your playing career and after to try to advance opportunities for other players like you is you know it's i think that we are quick to ascribe a value judgment to that and i understand why and i also think that you know it's useful for us to remember that like surviving is its own accomplishment in circumstances like that but it does seem to take a particular kind of tenacity to meet that moment in that way

and so yeah it is it is good to see him finally recognized. And yes, that was the Cooperstown detail was one of my favorites from Jay's profile of him. You know, we were never going to like this generation of baseball writers, our generation of baseball writers, and even the most recent sort of mass induction of Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues black baseball players. We were never going to like do these guys justice in their lifetime. But that's a story that we back-burnered for too long by not having him present in Cooperstown as a story to tell and part of the baseball fabric to highlight.

So I hope that we recognize the value of that when it comes to other players as time goes on and hopefully for the ones who are still sticking around obviously from later decades than bud fowler but yes we take the opportunity to recognize them while they're alive so we can hear their stories directly because i think that if we've seen anything in the last two years it's that you know time moves in one direction and it does not pay attention to era committees. So, you know, let's make sure we don't have more guys like Dick Allen who we just lose the opportunity to recognize and hear from while they're still alive. throwing at black batters and some white runners would purposely slide hard into black infielders fowler dealt with the latter by wearing wooden shin guards so he had to wear wooden shin guards when he was playing second base so that's what he was dealing with yep and craig says there are 456

known box scores of games in which he played and he batted 306 and stole a huge number of bases so yeah really good player but beyond that just kind of an incredible soccer and yeah as craig mentions there were only 39 states when his career started he ended up playing in 22 of them so he was just all over the place and when he wasn't playing baseball he was a barber and apparently one year when he was living in Denver, he supplemented his income as a barber by doing running exhibitions where he would run a mile in under five minutes. And his best reported time was 4.56, which was pretty good at altitude because the world record at that time was 418. So yeah, he was extremely speedy. Wow. Wow. Yep.

All right. So that is Bud Fowler, or maybe we should say John Jackson. Now, Jack Graney is the one who was honored as a broadcaster, and you could probably also put him in as a pioneer because he was a pioneering broadcaster. So I'll read a little bit about his career, too, because there's quite a bit I didn't know here. So he was born and raised in Canada and he liked hockey. He liked baseball, but his father was from the U.S.

And so he started playing baseball. His father taught him to play and he started playing as a left-handed pitcher in 1905. Had a good fastball, but did not have much control. And in 1908, he was promoted to the Cleveland Naps, who at that time went by the Naps because of Nat Lajue. And he said, I threw batting practice one morning and was so wild, each batter stood up to the plate over five minutes before I served up anything in the neighborhood of a strike. When Lajue came up to the plate, I wanted to give it everything I had because he was the manager of the team and one of baseball's greatest hitters. That's all I could think about. The boys back in St. Thomas,

Ontario, sitting around the coal stove, talking about how Jack Graney struck out the great Lajue. I reared back and threw the fastest ball I had ever pitched. And instead of striking him out, I knocked him out. The ball glanced off the side of his head and bounded up into the stands. The next day, I was handed a ticket to Portland, Oregon by Mr. Lajue, who insisted that all wild men belong in the West. Oh, my gosh. Which is a great line.

That's a great line. Wow. Yeah, especially because I'm in the middle of watching 1883, the Yellowstone prequel. They're on the Oregon Trail. Lots of wild men in that show. So wait, it is related to Yellowstone with Kevin Costner? It's part of the Yellowstone shared universe. I mean, 2020 is wild, man.

Anyway, that's not the point of this segment, but gosh, is it a weird time to be alive. Sure is. In Portland in 1908 and 1909, Graney's walk rate was 4.55 free passes per nine innings, the worst rate in the Pacific Coast League. This is as a pitcher. Fortunately, he was also a good outfielder and a decent hitter, so he gave up pitching and in 1910 became a regular outfielder with Cleveland. And I guess Lajue let him back in now that he was no longer a wild man. He was a little fellow. He

is listed in most reference books as being 5'9", but there was an article published in 1915 during the heart of his career which described him as being 5'7 at the very most. Of course, a lot of players were 5'7 at the very most back then. Graney knew he was not going to be mashing the ball, and he saw a way to exploit his small size that would help his team. He remembered how frustrating and tiring it had been for him as a pitcher to walk so many batters. Frustrating and tiring it had been for him as a pitcher to walk so many batters.

So he became a maddeningly patient hitter who took the pitcher deep in the count, even if it meant taking strikes and facing a lot of two-strike counts. He explained his strategy to baseball writer and early proto-sabermetrician sort of FC Lane this way. When you hit a pitcher safely, you do not bother him a great deal unless he is trying for a no-hit game or unless there are men on bases. But if you work him for a pass, you get him up in the air. This takes his mind off his work, upsets him generally, and undermines his confidence in himself. He is burning up a lot of

strength in the old soup bone. And in spite of all his hard work, he fails in his object. See, this is why, sorry, this is as an aside. This is why I think that attributing like a walk solely to the failure of the pitcher misunderstands what's going on. That's a hobby horse of mine. I think that we need to like think more kindly on the skill of drawing the walk.

And that, you know, that's not an original thought, but it is one that I think we need to continue to advance because we often view it as a matter of your command or your control is terrible, whatever, but being able to piss someone off is like, well, I don't know that it's a skill, but it can be a talent. Is there a difference there? Anyway. Yeah, and I think we need to refer to pitcher's

arms more often as the old soup bone yeah the old soup bone in 1911 his manager encouraged grainy in this strategy telling jack to take two strikes for the team and one for himself in an era when every starting pitcher was setting out to throw a complete game and wanted batters to quickly put the ball in play he wore them down by forcing them to throw him eight or nine pitches in an at-bat. He worked the count so many times to a 3-2 count that his nickname became 3-2 Jack. Great. It's fantastic. In the 10 seasons from 1912 to 1921, Graney edged Hall of Famer Eddie Collins for the most walks per plate appearance of any player in the majors. It was a remarkable accomplishment given that the pitchers had far more reason to be careful with the hard-hitting Collins.

In that period, Graney's.361 on base percentage was the 10th best mark in the league, despite his hitting over 20 points lower than anyone else in the top 10. Due to his leadoff spot in the batting order, Graney had a couple of interesting firsts in his career. On June 11th, 1914, Cleveland faced a big rookie pitcher making his debut with Boston. He was the very first batter to face Babe Ruth. That's a nice little distinction. And on June 26th, 1916, Cleveland became the first team to experiment with wearing numbers on their uniforms so wearing the number one pin to his left sleeve Graney went to the plate

as the game's first batter to wear a uniform number so he's just adding up first here we haven't even gotten to the first that is getting him kind of into the hall here but I do love that he went from the wild pitcher to the guy who was working tons of walks.

It's like some sort of like supervillain origin story or maybe superhero origin story where he knew how annoying it was to face hitters who were patient and would draw walks. And so when he stopped pitching and he had the talent to be a batter as well, which was somewhat more common in those days. He said, well, I'm going to burn up all of their soup bones the way that hitters used to do to me. So kind of love that he was able to put that to use. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Oh, man. Now, the biggest first in his career came when his playing career was over. After retiring at age 36, Jack was a car salesman until he hit hard times during the Great Depression. In 1932, he auditioned to be the play-by-play announcer for the radio broadcasts of Cleveland

and became the first former player to fill that role. So I guess all of the players we love to complain about in the national broadcast booths, maybe we have Jack Graney to blame for setting the precedent of players in broadcast booths. But he himself was not objectionable, I can now point to a specific example of when the tide turned on this, right? It wasn't always former player folks. You can know about sports even if you didn't play them, right?

Like if you weren't a quarterback, for instance. So just to cite a recent example I'm thinking of. So, you know, it's fine. We can have all kinds of kinds up in the broadcast booth. But what was the thinking before then? Like, were they just viewed as sufficiently separate skills that one didn't seem like it could inform the other? Yeah, I mean, there wasn't that much before then, I guess. Sure, I guess that's true. You know, Ben, you make an excellent point. This is 1932. The first baseball broadcast on radio was 1921, I think. So there had been broadcasts for 10 years or so. So not every team was broadcasting every game, of course. But

yeah, I guess it was not day one that you went to the former players. And actually, Craig kind of explains one reason why that may have been here. So he was a natural for the job. He was a great storyteller with a fine sense of humor and appreciation of the fans and enthusiasm for the game. For much of Graney's radio career, the announcers only did the home games live. They did not travel with the team, just like pandemic era broadcasting. Except without being able to see what was going on. only did the home games live. They did not travel with the team, just like pandemic era broadcasting. Sure. Except without being able to see what was going on.

And they did the road games as a recreation while working from a telegraphic report. He disliked doing road games that way, as anyone would probably, finding it stressful and unnatural, but he excelled at it, largely due to his 14 years in the league as a player. He knew all the ballparks in the league from a player's perspective and became adept at adding details that made listeners believe Jack was really there as the eyes and ears of the fans. Okay, so he became quickly a skilled broadcaster, and with just two seasons under his belt, CBS asked him to be on their broadcast team for the 1934 World Series. To Graney's dismay,

baseball commissioner Kennesaw Landis barred him from the job, saying the former American leaguer might show partiality to the AL champion Tigers. That winter, he wrote Landis a letter protesting that decision and insisted, my playing days are over. I am a sportscaster and should be regarded as such. The next year, the commissioner gave his blessing for Graney to be on the CBS broadcast team for both the All-Star Game and the World Series. So that might be why. Maybe there was some initial hesitation

because there was a fear that broadcasters who had been players would be biased, would be homers. Not that non-player broadcasters have not been players would be biased, would be homers. Not that non-player broadcasters have not been homers for a long time, too. But I guess that was one potential obstacle, the idea that you needed some sort of journalistic objectivity, I guess, at that time. Wow. You know, and now Troy Aikman just calls Cowboys games and we're like, that's fine.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Smoltz calls Atlanta games in the World Series and yeah, no one bats an eye, right? He doesn't have to write a letter to the commissioner to say he's a sportscaster and he should be able to do that. Maybe that's why he takes the approach to broadcasting that he does. He's like, if I do this other stuff, people aren't even going to notice that I might like the whole team.

He's like, if I do this other stuff, people aren't even going to notice that I might like the whole team. Yes, if I lament everything and anything, then everyone, no one can accuse me of being biased. So Graney became the beloved voice of Cleveland baseball for over two decades, covering thousands of games, going through six partners in Cleveland. Everyone listened to Graney broadcast baseball, the most popular game in town. His granddaughter, Perry Smith, remembers that in the pre-television days, you could walk down the streets of Cleveland and hear Jack Graney's voice coming from every house on the block. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's like you hear about people in Dodger Stadium and they all had their transistor radios listening to Vince Scully, right?

So he retired at age 67 after the 1953 season, and by then it had become a natural part of the game for some former ballplayers to stay in the game as baseball broadcasters. And that door, for better or worse, had been opened by the success of Jack Groening. So also a pioneer. Wow. That's cool. I mean, I will say there are former players who are quite good at their jobs. So, you know, again, it takes it takes all kinds of kinds.

Yep. There's a charming story from his playing days about how kids would wait for Jack to come to the park and would then grab hold of his clothing and go through the gate with him. The gatekeeper would just smile and say, I suppose they are with you. pose they are with you that's nice too yeah but like i love this idea of a like pack of children hoisting themselves on someone they don't know being like i guess we get to go in now yep right yeah and uh craig writes in his own small way jack contributed to the successful integration of major league baseball of the three teams that were most at the forefront of integration the dodgers giants and cleveland analysis of attendance figures suggests that the fan base that was most accepting of integration were the fans of Cleveland. It no doubt helped that their popular radio announcer thought integration was good for baseball and good for the team. Years later, one Cleveland fan remembered having mixed feelings about integration, but found Graney's enthusiasm catching. This fan recalled the exact moment his ambivalence gave way. It came while listening to Satchel Paige's debut with Cleveland and the first black pitcher in the major leagues. When Graney excitedly announced pitching for Cleveland, Satchel Paige, this fan surprised himself by giving a cheer and it never bothered him again.

Larry Doby remembered, I never got booed in Cleveland. And this may have something to do with the grainy and the tone that he set for the fans. So he is also a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, but now he is getting the Ford Frick Award. And the last thing I will say about him, although it's not entirely about him, it is about maybe another pioneer who should be in the Hall of Fame if we had an animals wing, which maybe we should because there's a distinguished history of baseball animals and mascots. And one of them was very near and dear to Jack Graney. So this is a little story about Larry, the 1911 Cleveland team. This was the Naps again. And Nap Lajue was one of many animal lovers on the team. So for part of that season, they adopted a possum. They named Joey Possum as a mascot. Good luck, Charm. at a possum they named joey possum as a mascot and good luck charm i was gonna say like you know we don't have possum mascots anymore which i guess is true but there are some weird ones right what

was the the yankees had some kind of creature yeah oh gosh uh oh wait hold on oh no oh no wait hold on gosh i'm so mad i can't remember the name. It's so terrifying. Oh, wait. Ashley wrote about this at Fangraphs for Us. I'm going to find it. I'm going to find it. Do you mean Dandy? I maybe mean Dandy. Yeah. Dandy, the very scary and disturbing Yankees mascot. Was that not what you meant? That was not what I meant, although I'm always happy to talk about Dandy dandy because can we take a brief moment to talk about dandy sure so like the thing about dandy

is that it appears that his uniform is also his skin and as a result of that it appears that he has had a belt like inserted into his skin presumably surg surgically. And then, yeah, I guess that's really all I have to say about Dandy. But if anyone's like, really, Meg, how bad can it be? We've lived through the fanatic. And I would say the following. You'd be surprised. You should look it up. Got to look at Dandy because it's, you know,

I think that when they were creating the Fanatic, did the Fanatic precede Dandy or come after? I think so, yeah. It preceded it, right? So they were like, you know, you look at the Fanatic and your thought is this is not a real creature. It is like a strange alien that has come here and decided it loves Philly sports, which, you know, is a choice. It's a strange alien that has come here and decided it loves Philly sports, which is a choice.

It's a big choice. But then they made Dandy, and they were like, what if we made it kind of look like a person who has a belt surgically inserted into his skin? Yes, right. Yes. Yeah, the Fanatic came around in 1978 and Dandy. Was 79. Yes. His reign was from 79 to 81.

Oh, yeah. So clearly capitalizing on the Fanatic's popularity, but not replicating it. Yeah. And they tried to give, didn't they give Dandy a mustache and people thought that it was a play on like Thurman Munson having a mustache and then Thurman Munson died and they were like what do we do with Dandy and so they just I think they murdered him I think they murdered Dandy but Dandy went on until like 1981 or something yeah what a weird thing he has that classic pear-shaped mascot right yeah I wonder what Adam duvall's kid would make of dandy and he'd be like no this is too much for me

like i i'm afraid of this because you know the the atlanta mascot is terrifying we shouldn't have like mascots that are the color of a human's flesh like that's a mistake that just seems like an obvious no somebody was asleep at the switch in that marketing meeting. But Dandy is like pinstriped on its body. Anyway, now we've been talking about Dandy. We were worried we weren't going to have anything to talk about. What I meant to talk about was not Dandy, but Bronxie the turtle. That's what I was thinking of.

Remember the Yankees had a pet turtle for some reason? What happened to Bronxie, do we think? Probably the same thing that happened to Dandy. They murdered it? Hopefully not. I don't know. We all end up like Dandy eventually, one way or another. Murdered. Bronxie will too. Murdered with a

weird belt. But yes, there was Bronxie the turtle and Joey Possum. So, back to 1911 here. So sorry. After Joey Possum in 1911, the next year, the team got a more conventional animal mascot. In February of 1912, the team trainer Ralston Doc White won a bull terrier pup in a bet on a boxing match. He named the puppy Prince, brought him to spring training and gave him to the team

To be their new mascot The players renamed him Tighe And the pup began watching the players closely Trying to learn the baseball business And how to contribute to the team He had to learn that he should Fetch a baseball And only when told to do so

That is often a complication When you see a bat dog sometimes in the minors or sometimes they don't always draw the distinction between fetch and a baseball game that they're not a part of. Generally, they're good at that. They're still very good dogs, though. Yeah, all of the best. He also had to chase cats and goats off the practice field, very important part of his job, and guarded the player's sweaters, gloves, and bats from fans who might try to pilfer a souvenir. So during the season, our old pal Jack Graney, who is back in his three and two Jack stage

of his career here pre-broadcasting, was benched by a broken collarbone. And while recovering, he spent the time getting to know the dog better and teaching him tricks such as roll over jump and play dead the legend goes that it was lajue who recognized the bond that had grown between granny and the dog and lajue told jack take him the dog is yours so in 1913 spring training jack and tige come to spring training and it was decided to give him a name more befitting of the official mascot of the Cleveland team. Probably think he was a Tigers mascot if he's going by Tighe. So a fan named Harold Davis suggested Larry.

The team was called the Naps because of Lajue, but Lajue was known to family and friends and teammates as Larry. Therefore, the team's mascot was named after Lajue as well, which is something that we don't do so much anymore, like naming entire franchises after a player or a coach or manager or something. I mean, you can't really count on them to stay in one place long enough to do that. And there are all sorts of branding reasons why you would not necessarily want to keep changing

Your team's name but I don't know maybe Something we should bring back anyway Tighe was now Larry and he remained Larry he was described as an Exceedingly friendly dog who thrived on Affection what dog doesn't Really and loved traveling

With his teammates whether he was tooling Around with players in Shoeless Joe Jackson's new car or riding the train. He expanded his repertoire of tricks and soon became a popular pregame attraction with the fans. Besides the usual dog tricks, Graney would make a hoop with his arms and Larry would leap through the hoop. Very impressive. But the big crowd pleaser was when the players would line up, bend over, and Larry would jump up and leap from the back of one player to another. And I will link to this because there is a great picture where he is playing leap dog and the whole team is bent over and he is like on one of their backs poised to jump to the next player. to the next player. Now, even more impressive were the things that Larry learned on his own.

When the Cleveland players barked protests to an umpire, not sure if that pun is intended or not, over a questionable call, Larry learned to add his own bark. Okay, I guess it was intended. On June 20th, 1913, Cleveland's manager, Joe Birmingham,

was coaching third base, a common practice for managers in that era, and was thrown out of the game for too heatedly arguing a call, Larry realized that no one was in the coaching box to encourage the runners along, so he bounded out of the dugout to take up position as the new third base coach. He did not understand why everyone found this so funny or why the umpire ordered him back to the dugout. Larry's intelligence was just as impressive off the field. At the road hotels, Graney would introduce Larry to the elevator operator and the dugout. Larry's intelligence was just as impressive off the field. At the road hotels, Granny would introduce Larry to the elevator operator and the doorman. When Larry needed to go out, Granny just opened the door from their room and Larry would go to the elevator on his own and bark to call the elevator operator. Larry would ride down,

the doorman would let him out to do his business, and Larry would reverse the routine when he was done. Quite clever. Jack and Larry made the trip between Cleveland and his parents' home in St. Thomas, Ontario several times. When Larry needed a vacation in the middle of the season, Jack would just take him down to the ferry and drop him off. Larry would ride across Lake Erie, usually in the wheelhouse with the captain, and arriving in Port Stanley, where most folks knew him, he would be allowed on the interurban streetcar going to St. Thomas and then get off at the right stop and trot up to the Graney home.

So he's commuting, basically. He is a very independent dog, seemingly. On back-to-back days in June of 1913, Larry had his proudest and most shameful days as a member of the Cleveland baseball team. On June 18th, he became the first dog to visit the White House to be formally introduced to the President of the United States. President Woodrow Wilson had been unable to go to the ballpark and see Larry's tricks, but told Graney, My daughters tell me he is a very smart dog. I am sorry I could not have been there yesterday to see him perform.

But the next day, something upset Larry just after the conclusion of the ball game, and he bit a young man and tore his clothes. No! Yeah. Larry! This seems very out of character for Larry, but he made one mistake here, and Washington's manager, Clark Griffith, ordered Larry banned from future games at Griffith Stadium. Fortunately, there were no more such incidents in Larry's career, and he was welcome in the other major league parks for the rest of his days. So this is a one-time incident. I don't want to blame the victim here, but Larry doesn't sound like the sort of dog who would bite for no reason. So I don't know, just saying maybe he was not entirely in the wrong. Unfortunately, about three years later, he took ill with distemper and passed away on July 25th, 1917.

There has never been another like Larry, the greatest animal mascot in the history of professional baseball. So maybe Larry should be honored in the Mascot Hall of Fame. Maybe he has been for all I know. Yeah, he may well have been. the mascot hall of fame maybe he has been for all i know yeah he may well have been but at the time he was a very famous figure in sports so if you've forgotten about larry get to know larry and also craig notes that you had to be careful with straw hats around larry at some point the players taught him as a gag to snatch straw hats and tear them apart. And so a part of Larry's pregame show in Cleveland one season was to have someone hired by the team run across the field holding a straw hat. And Larry would appear to chase him before grabbing the hat and destroying it.

And I hate to bring down the happy-go-lucky Larry segment mood, but Craig continues, reflecting the racial views of the era, Continues, reflecting the racial views of the era, it was thought that it added to the humor to hire a black man to be the one chased by Larry. Kind of connects back to our Bud Fowler discussion. So it seems like we might have a milkshake duck situation on our hands here, a milkshake dog. But I don't think we have to cancel Larry. As Craig notes, it is interesting to contemplate that the one sentient being in the ballpark who did not attach meaning to that element was Larry. And really, if you're going to teach him to chase after people, not surprised he bit someone. Craig writes that during his brief big league career, Larry may have been the most photographed dog in America. In researching the story, I came across dozens of pictures and drawings of Larry. There are more surviving images of Larry's baseball career than there are of many of his human teammates.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So Larry was really famous. He had an obituary in the Cleveland Press, which called him the most famous animal mascot in the world. And Clark Griffith had it out for Larry even before the biting incident because when Larry was young, he grabbed the game ball during a timeout when Griffith was arguing with the umpire and the umpire tried to retrieve the ball and Larry growled at him and the umpire was amused, but Griffith was not amused. So Griffith's just not a big fan of dogs, I guess, but Lajue was a huge fan and Jack Rainey was a huge fan so there you have it Larry wow so

I have a couple of thoughts and I will admit that they are not really about Larry but they are about so you said like the possum mascot you are familiar with the the Arkansas Travelers possum mascot right oh that's right yes Odie okay so I was like, I'm going to Google Odie so that I can say something funny about Odie. When Ben's done telling the story about this wonderful dog that bit a guy one time. Just one time. One time, and all of a sudden,

you can't go back to the ballpark. Like you said, who knows what happened? Maybe the guy was a jerk. Maybe he had bad vibes. Yeah, he was provoked. Yeah, we don't know. He could have had real bad vibes. I was like, I'm going to Google that.

Are you aware of the buff horse that is the companion to Odie? No. Are you familiar with Ace, the horse mascot? All right, Ben, sorry. Wait, you know what? I just would like to point out to the people in the Facebook group that are attributing our off-season production to the lockout, this is just what we do this time of year.

We just aren't doing the preview pods yet. We're not really that far off script. I'm sorry. They made this horse buff, right? It is a buff horse. This is meant to be a fit. Is it a police horse? Is it a fit cop horse? Is that what we

are supposed to interpret of this? He does not have the pear-shaped mascot physique. He's pretty built. He's got calves. He does not have the pear-shaped mascot physique. He's pretty built. He's got calves. He's got the V-taper and everything. Oh, no. Anyway, we're going to get a lot of emails about mascots,

but I think it sounds like Larry had a good life. He was beloved, not just in the general way that animals are beloved at ballparks, but in a specific way by real people who cared for him and wanted him to be well and taught him to fetch things he shouldn't. So I'm happy for Larry and his life. Did they let actual literal animals into the Mascot Hall of Fame? Because there is a Mascot Hall of Fame. There's like a whole museum about mascots. I have not been to, but really want to go to.

Yeah. Does the Mascot Hall of Fame have a character clause? And if so, is it the character of the mascot or the character of the person playing the mascot? I don't know, but the Portland Pickles are in trouble because they're getting up to all kinds of shenanigans on that social media feed. You can't be sending...

I'm not even going to say the words because I don't want it to exist on the podcast. I don't want... Anyway. I'll link to it on the show page, or maybe I shouldn't, but I will. Yeah, it's in the... Yeah, you know, it's important to know that it's a mascot.

It's not real. But I don't know. I don't know if...'s a mascot it's not real but i don't know i don't know if uh do they just all get into the mascot hall of fame i feel like if you're the mascot hall of fame it's in your interest to to be a big hall right because you want to show all of the mascots that have been near and dear to people and you know what what criteria would you use to exclude a mascot unless it's like you know like some of the old-timey ones i'm sure were problematic in their own ways but apart from that like what do you what do you use this criteria to avoid a mascot like terror terror above

replacement yeah i mean mascots get into some mischief by design i mean that's kind of what they're supposed to do, right? That's what the fanatic is supposed to do. So you can't really penalize his character for that. You could, I mean, maybe the mascot character clause is like, if you're not mischievous enough, then you don't get in. If you're too well behaved. I feel like there was an era, and I'm sorry, everyone, I'm going to do a swear,

where mascots being little assholes was part of their purpose. They were supposed to, if they didn't get beat up by the opposing manager, it was like they didn't do their job, or if they didn't try to pants someone. It feels like there's a lot of clothing removal involved in mascots, and then there's whatever's going on with the Tampa mascot. I don't know what that creature is supposed to be. It's really. Yeah.

Do you keep Dinger out for provoking what sounded like a racial slur but seemingly was not? I think we just need to rename Dinger. Probably, yes. And then, you know, which I have gone to Wikivant, which is about mascots. I'm afraid of what else I might find on a site dedicated to mascots. I don't know. And this is part of Dinger's entry. In August 2020, there was a controversy when a fan who was trying to get the mascot's attention screamed his name,

and some people thought the N-word was used. Like, that's bad. It's really bad. Not Dinger's fault, necessarily, although he does go by that name. But he did not say the thing. He was the person being addressed and causing the confusion. I am seeing a story just from this past September in the Indy Star that says that Blue Butler's Live English Bulldog mascot Program has been nominated for the Mascot Hall of Fame. Blue number four has been the Bulldog's mascot since January 2020.

He would be the first live mascot in the Mascot Hall of Fame. Justice for Larry. Now, does that mean like Blue number four would be because he is still alive? Or does that just mean like any are there posthumous mascots that were alive at one point that we'll have to do some further research here also i'm sorry i'm and i know that like podcast famously not a visual medium but does the royals mascot which is a uh i think is meant to be like a jungle cat it's perhaps supposed to be a line it seems to have a head that is part line half crown like yes you know slugger slugger yeah what are we doing here i'm like who gets to you know and

then like is there gonna be a a wing of the Mascot Hall of Fame where they contemplate Mrs. Met and they're like, too sexy? Who's to say? They definitely made some choices with that mascot. You don't luck into Mrs. Met. I mean, she apparently has a first name, Jan Met. Jan? Mrs. Jan Met.

I mean, I don't know if this is a reliable source to be clear, but Mrs. Mett, or Lady Mett, is the female version of Mr. Mett, the mascot of the New York Mets. She is a baseball-headed humanoid being, has brown hair in a ponytail, and wears a Mets cap and uniform. And she's got

a hyena. I want that to be true. Her first name is Jan. Oh my god. Yeah, let's let that be true. Her first name is Jan. Oh my God. Yeah, let's let that be true. So do we bring back baseball dogs? There are minor league baseball dogs, obviously, but not really a thing in the majors these days. But why?

Who doesn't like dogs? Who doesn't want baseball dogs? I would certainly want them. I know that they sometimes steal the balls, maybe very rarely bite someone, just one time potentially. But other than that, it seems like it would not be a bad addition. I don't know who would be mad about there being more dogs around. We're so litigious, though, that I'm almost surprised that the baseball dogs are a thing

at the minor league level because you got to figure that some mishap will occur and then everybody's getting sued. And then what do they do to the dog? Also, who does the dog live with? I'm worried about the dogs. I'm worried about these baseball dogs. I think that we should stick to just like the weird stray cats that seem to love to hang out in ballparks.

They're like, there's food here. Right, yeah. Plus, I guess it's a pace of play concern maybe with the i mean maybe they speed things up because dogs run fast if they have to go get the bat or the ball but also occasionally they will just run around and frolic so i don't think we need to take the the bat you know put the bat kids out of work you know they they really hustle out there. They make sure that everything gets delivered and they can, I mean, they have thumbs. So they're at an advantage, right? Because they can carry multiple things and also they have the dexterity of having thumbs.

So I think that like you could have one. You could have a, you should have like a person in the organization who has a dog say, here is this adorable dog. You could do a different one every night. You could do all kinds of dogs and other animals too. But I don't know. It's very, well, sometimes it's not loud. But in theory, it would be loud.

I worry about the dogs being upset by that and being like, this is too much for me. I'm overwhelmed by the people here and all the smells and all these hot dogs that I cannot eat. I'm not allowed to, it seems mean. Yeah. Where do child labor laws come into play when it comes to bat children? Bat children. Is that a consideration?

I don't know the answer to that. My understanding is that the hiring process for at least some of the bat children tends to be, I am related to a person in this organization, and so I get to be the bat kid. I mean, I bet they have to be at least, I mean, how old are bat kids? It varies, but okay, I'm seeing some sources here from the Department of Labor website. Children employed as actors or performers in motion pictures, theatrical productions, radio or television, or employed as a baseball bat girl or bat boy may be employed until midnight or after midnight if a parent or guardian and the commissioner of labor have consented in writing. Wow. So there's like a carve out. There's a specific provision for bat children and you have to get various people to consent. And actually, I'm seeing that this was a source of some controversy at a certain time. I'm seeing a 1993 New York Times story headline, Bat Boy is called out by labor officials who

vow a review. And then 1994 Washington Post, US calls Bat Boy safe in a revision of child labor laws. Oh my gosh. So they apparently had to revise child labor laws to make them okay for bat boys. I know that the Mariners, so I think that the bat boys, they have bat boys and then the young people sitting down the lines tend to be really good softball players. That's the pool that they draw from. All of the young women I know who did that were state champion softball players. They have real bat to ball skills. Those young women seemed to me to always at least be in high school. Maybe the state of Washington has more rigorous bat person standards. I don't know. That's a fascinating carve out. Yeah, I was kidding. But I stumbled on a hot button issue here, at least in the early 90s.

This was a big deal right before the baseball strike. You had a possible threat to bat children. Yeah, so this started apparently in 1993 because Tommy McCoy was a bat boy for the St. Louis Cardinals farm team, the Savannah Cardinals. And he was tossed out of the game when a labor department inspector ruled he was working in violation of federal wage and hour laws. The nation's pastime lasted too long into the night, the inspector said. So just another argument about baseball games lasting too long into the night, the inspector said. So just another argument about baseball games lasting too long. However, after more than a year of study, the Labor Department proposed exempting bat boys, bat girls, and their equivalents in all professional sports from the permissible

hours and time standards for 14 and 15 year olds. The exemption would apply if the duties performed are traditional in nature and the work is outside regular school hours. A year of study by the Labor Department of this issue. What if you have really, really late extra innings games? Do they like have to send them home? Well, I think according to the Department of Labor thing, if you have consent from a parent or guardian and the commissioner of labor, then you may be employed until after midnight. Wow.

So I guess it's okay now. It would be great if they're like, hey, sorry, I got to get picked up though. Mom doesn't want to be out past midnight, so I got to go. You're going to have to carry your own stuff out to the plate there. The umps, they got to go get their own balls. Well, that was an episode of Effectively Wild. Aren't you all glad that there weren't any signings or baseball games or anything? We had a lot of news.

It was just that much like war, it wasn't evenly distributed. That's not what I want to say. We talked the other day about topics that we would have discussed ad nauseum if the podcast had existed at the time. And I think that whether bat boys and bat girls and bat people are legal probably would have been a big topic on the podcast. So there you go. So there you go. And we would ask that the, you know, teams open your bat kid process, bat young person process up to the masses. Don't just, don't just have it be, you know, someone senior in the organization's kid.

Like, you know, like make, make child labor available to all the children in your community. I love the off season. You know, I'm not panicked yet i i'd like it if um if like my little website wasn't in the news so much around the war stuff but like you know otherwise i feel like the off season is just kind of proceeding apace we're asking the hard questions like you know was that mascot pierced by a belt in the middle and was was he murdered by the Yankees? And also, are there actual live animals in the Mascot Hall of Fame? And which ones? Which iteration do we distinguish? Who's to say? Yeah. I'm reading a 1993 AP story that says,

feds back off on bat boy child labor enforcement. And the first paragraph, the lead here is, Child labor laws were written to keep kids out of sweatshops, not from tending the lumber in baseball dugouts, the government has decided. I don't know what the grounds were. Was it just that being a bat kid is fun and not soul crushing and harmful to your health, et cetera. Like, hey, kids want to be bat children, so they get to be. I don't know. But yeah, child labor laws

prohibit any child under 14 from working and stipulate that 14 and 50-year-olds must not work past 7 p.m. on school nights or 9 p.m. on other nights, that would be a problem if you were a baseball bat child. So if the feds had upheld this and had banned bat kids, then you would have had to bring back bat dogs and mascots, right? Because you would have had no choice. Yeah, because the only option is children or dogs. There are no other people that, you know, some teams employ like retirees to be, at least to be the guardians of the foul line, right? What is the technical term for that position?

I think we should go with guardians of the foul line. Yeah, it's part of the extended baseball universe. Yep. All right, I guess we should be done doing this podcast, Ben. I don't know. How do I write the description for this one? I don't know. What are you going to call it?

How am I going to call it? Oh, the pressure's on. I know. I have to say, not having to come up with episode titles or songs, that was the best part of you coming back from paternity leave. I mean, being able to talk to you again was really nice too, but the pressure I felt, it was overwhelming at times. Now I just get to look at this, you know, like ripped horse. I feel like that's something. Are you a cop? I don't know. What are you supposed to be?

Let's stop talking. Okay. Well, as best I can tell from mascothalloffame.com, Well, as best I can tell from mascothalloffame.com, there's nothing in the rules for election that forbids someone like Larry from making it except this. Just as in the MLB Hall of Fame, you have to have been active for 10 years, which would be a problem for Larry because active as a performing character in the major and minor sports of baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer as recognized in the United States, or NCAA Division I, II, or III, or NAIA, or an independently performing character. The mascot must have been active as a performing character for their team, school, or organization for the previous 10 years prior to the year being elected and be prepared to show documented proof. I don't know if Larry would have been prepared to show documented proof.

Anyway, no character clause except that you have to have been a performing character. Voting shall be based upon the mascot's record of contributions to the team, school, or organization that the mascot represents. Mascot character and program can demonstrate a major impact on their sport and or community. Mascot character and program should have performances which are considered memorable and or groundbreaking. Mascot character design is unique, fun, and memorable. Now if the mascot has to be designed, that could be a problem for a dog, and letters from community leaders and stakeholders detailing the mascot's impact on their particular community. I think Larry would

have aced that one. I mean, the president wanted to meet him. So now you know. Let's let Larry in. A big thank you to Craig Wright, who I hope will not mind my having read a few editions of his story series. Please repay him for the entertainment by signing up for it yourself at baseballspast.com. Again, I give it my highest recommendation. He writes about baseball history through an analytical lens and with great research and interesting topic selection. I've learned a lot from him and I always look forward to those emails. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or annual amount

to help keep the podcast going and help us stay ad-free while getting themselves access to some perks, such as monthly bonus episodes and access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, James Boland, Scott, Dustin, Travis Ice, and Henry O'Brien. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcastthefangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. The lockout has not taken a toll on our Patreon support or our zest for doing the show, but it has hurt our inbox a bit, so please help us replenish it. You can also follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod.

You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. And we will be back with one more show before the end of the week. And as it is already almost the end of the week, we will talk to you soon. I've been crying for you, boy, but truth is my savior. Baby, sweet baby, if it's all the same, take the glory any day over the fame, baby.

Sweet baby.