Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1889: A Different League

Episode Date: August 13, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Dottie dropped the ball on purpose in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own, then (steering clear of spoilers) review and discuss the highs and lows of the new TV reboot, the first season of which debuted on Friday on Amazon Prime Video. After that (49:54), […]

This song, jazz. Jazz. Can we sing? Okay, okay, okay. Batter up, hear that call. The time has come for one and all to play ball. All right, let's play ball. All right, let's play ball. We are the members of the All-American League.

We come from cities near and far. We got Canadians, Irish, and the Swedes. We're all for one, we're one for all. We're all for one, we're one for all, we're all American. Hello and welcome to episode 1889 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. Well, I know that this week was the Field of Dreams game, but we're going to start with a different baseball movie themed discussion here. Maybe we'll get to some emails a little later in a past blast,

but we wanted to start by talking about the big new baseball show. Yeah. A League of Their Own. The reboot, remake, whatever you want to call it. It's up now,

Friday as we speak, on Amazon Prime Video. The entire first season is available for streaming. I have seen the whole thing. You have seen three quarters of it. Yeah. All but the last two episodes. That's right.

So we're going to just talk a little bit about our impressions here. We won't really get into spoiler territory, although there aren't really a lot of spoilers. I don't know what spoilers would be. This isn't exactly super suspenseful in the sense of particular plot twists or plot points. So I don't know that we could spoil it if we tried, but we will try to go a little light on details for those of you who are just deciding whether to watch. This will be a should I stream? Should I not stream? What did we make of it? Maybe we will return to it later on after people have had a chance to watch.

Maybe we'll get a guest at some point. We could revisit it. But it's a notable event when a big new piece of baseball media comes out. That doesn't happen every day. We talk about how baseball shows up in a lot of other things. There will be baseball scenes in big movies or shows. But really, even during the life of this podcast, what have we had to talk about from a baseball media perspective? I guess there's been pitch, right? Yes. That was big for us, sadly. Lasted one season.

Yeah. There was Brockmire, which I enjoyed quite a bit. And I never watched. Yeah. You got to check out Brockmire. I love Brockmire which I enjoyed quite a bit and I never watched yeah you gotta check out Brockmire I love Brockmire you know everybody says that and I'm not making a statement or anything with my lack of having checked it out it is just that

Ben there are so many things you know there really are yeah and of course there was Stove League an effectively wild favorite maybe not a mainstream favorite sadly but we did our best. We did a watch along of the Korean drama, dramedy Stove League, which is my favorite baseball show ever. But really, it hasn't been a boom time for baseball movies.

Now, there is Everybody Wants Some, which is fantastic. I think one of the best baseball movies. But it's been a while, basically. This is not necessarily the heyday of baseball major mainstream media. So to have this show come along, it is worth discussing. And, you know, Field of Dreams was supposed to get a reboot too, right? But as of now, it is in creative limbo. reboot too, right? But as of now, it is in creative limbo. It was announced late in June that that TV series was not moving forward at Peacock, which had ordered it, which was somewhat

surprising to me because Mike Schur is writing and executive producing that. And given his track record, I figured he could probably get just about anything made. And I think we had some reservations about, do we need more Field of Dreams? Does this have to be a show? Maybe Peacock had those reservations too. So that's getting shopped around. Maybe it'll end up somewhere. But for now, this is what we have. Yeah. I think that, you know, I get why it's hard to do baseball shows. I think it's just hard to do sports shows generally maybe hollywood is turned off because they know that one wrong move and we will like tom and jerry it up for a couple of episodes we have poisoned the well personally yeah it's our fault we're stymieing our own podcast

material but i think that it's a difficult thing to pull off because you have to have credible depictions of the baseball. You can't have the entire show be that. You need to have an understanding of players as people and the people who surround them as integrated into a life beyond the field. And so all of that sounds like upping your degree of difficulty. I think there are places in A League of Their Own where that was done more successfully than in others. So we'll talk about that. But I get it. It's hard. But I wish that people would try more because it ends up putting so much pressure on any one show to be

all things to all people, which I think, again, is one of the areas where A League of Their Own is maybe stymied a bit. like you know we have so many shows about doctors and lawyers and we could it's like yeah you know make make baseball players one one of those people like baseball more than they like going to the doctor or engaging with lawyers so what's the problem yeah right so we have this show to enjoy and to critique, but we will be kind. We will just discuss what we thought. And we maybe should just start this discussion. I revisited the movie, which, of course, is 30 years old this year, the 1992 Penny Marshall movie based on the documentary.

And the movie has a lot in this series, too. I mean, it's clearly honoring the documentary. And the movie has a lot in this series too. I mean, it's clearly honoring the movie. There's a lot that the series has in common with that, also a lot that it does not have in common with that. But I went back and watched it and maybe we'll share some impressions from having watched it for the first time in a while. i don't think you and i have ever had the did dotty drop the ball on purpose debate the age-old enduring debate about a leak of their own so where do you stand yes she absolutely did i like i i think she absolutely did it on purpose i think yeah i think she she chose sisterly love over you know like literal sisterly love over, you know, like literal sisterly love over the more metaphorical sisterly love that is being a teammate. And it maybe wouldn't have been the decision that I had made if it had been me. But it's one that as a sister and especially as an older sister, you know, I understand the pull.

And she has great plausible deniability, right? Like it's the perfect crime. Right. The perfect baseball crime. the pole and she has great plausible deniability right like it's the perfect crime right the perfect baseball crime because it seems like it would be really hard to hold on to the ball when you get trucked you know it just would be hard and so uh you know i think she let it go i think that it was probably not a thing she went into the game thinking she would do but in that moment felt compelled to what are your thoughts disagree oh Disagree. Oh, finally, we disagree about something. Yeah. Could not disagree more. I could disagree more. I certainly understand that interpretation

of things. And one of the great things about the movie is that it does leave it ambiguous. Yeah, right. And probably intentionally so. Penny Marshall, who died a few years ago, never said publicly whether she thought it was one way or the other. Gina Davis, I think, has said that she knows, but she's taken it to the grave. So she's not taking a side on this either. And that's why the debate is still raging, because I think you can have a great reading of it either way. But yes, I'm definitely on team. Kit scored legitimately. Dottie did not drop the

ball on purpose just based on how hyper competitive Dottie is throughout the movie. Right. I mean, yes, there are some signs, some indications that maybe she might have given her this one. But personally, I don't think she would have. I don't think she would have compromised her hyper-competitive principles. I think to the bitter end, she would have been playing to win. And also, I think that it is somewhat more satisfying for me, at least, if Kit gets the legitimate win there, if she doesn't need her big sister to just roll over for her in that moment. Now, you could say it's satisfying to have Dottie actually put her sister in that relationship in front of winning this game, right? Even though all of her teammates potentially stand to suffer from that decision.

But to me, I think it's more rewarding ultimately if Kit actually is good enough without being handed anything by Dottie, right? Because Kit, to get in the league, it was a package deal. Dottie had to go. And maybe when Kit got there, she was good enough to stay. But she needed Dottie's help to get there, right? And so for me, in this triumphant moment, I would prefer to think that Kit earned this, that it was totally on the level.

Daddy was trying her hardest and Kit just beat her in this moment. Man, maybe I am allowing my older sister bias to show a different way than I had originally anticipated. I mean, I'm open to that feedback. It's possible. Yeah, stick to your guns. We should stick to just get entrenched, just dig in deeper in our respective positions here. I mean, I don't think it's the worst thing for us to disagree every now and again. We are so amiable most of the time.

Yes. Well, interested in hearing everyone's theories, although I have considered this at some length and have reached my conclusion. Perhaps I can be swayed. But I think it was instructive to go back and rewatch the movie, which is a great movie, of course, and a deserved classic. But it is striking, I think, watching it 30 years later, what is missing from that movie, the stories that are not told in that movie. And that's what this TV show is about. That seems to be the primary reason for being for this show. So the show, which has been in the works for several years, it is created by Abbie Jacobson of Broad City, who also stars in it, and Will Graham, who has

written for some other things, Alpha House and Mozart in the Jungle, which I quite liked. And it stars Abby Jacobson, as I said, as Carson, who is a member of the Rockford Peaches. So this is taking us back to the same league, the same team, the same outfits and uniforms largely, but is deviating quite a bit in its structure and in the stories that it chooses to focus on. So this is 1943, All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Rockford Peaches. It's eight episodes, if I haven't said that already, and they're close to an hour in length. So it's a substantial time investment. As you were saying, there's just so much good TV, more good TV than ever,

and there's always an opportunity cost with everything that you do decide to stream. So it has to clear a fairly high bar, although maybe a lower bar if you're a big baseball fan and you're just happy to see a baseball show on your TV. But the structure here is unusual, I would say, and doesn't always work, has some pluses, has some minuses. So basically, whereas the original movie revolved around Dottie and Kit, the sisters on the Rockford Peaches, here I would say there are two main characters and each of those characters has their own essentially separate half of the show and so there's kind of a leading duo in each half so Jacobson plays Carson Shaw who is the catcher

for the Peaches Darcy Carden from The Good Place and Barry etc plays Greta Gill, who's the first baseman on The Peaches and also Carson's love interest. And then there is the other half of the show where Shantae Adams plays Max Chapman, who is a black woman who is prevented from playing on The Peaches. And so her whole narrative or a large part of it is about finding a way to play baseball despite being even more barred from the field than the members of the Peaches are. And then her best friend, who is not into baseball but is into comic books, is Clance, the character's name, played by Bemisola Ikumelo. And basically you follow these characters through, well, And basically you follow these characters through, well, sexual awakenings, I guess you could say, through baseball career advancement, through other off-the-field issues, through family stuff, through interpersonal stuff.

There's a lot going on in the show in both of these storylines. So sometimes it feels a tad overstuffed or like they're juggling a lot of balls and spinning a lot of plates at the same time and trying to cram it all in there. But basically, I think the driving force, the animating spirit here is that the original movie, while there are queer readings of that movie, the actual text as opposed to the subtext is extremely not gay. Yeah. It's basically. At times pointedly so. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So straight down the middle. As it were. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, like it's from 92. I mean, it feels like it almost is like closer to the world of the 40s and the Rockford Peaches than it is to today's because there are things that that movie just doesn't get into you know like Rosie O'Donnell of course one of the prominent members of the Peaches in the original and she does make a cameo as has been widely reported in the TV show too and I think like a deeply satisfying cameo to my mind. Like I really, you know, sometimes that stuff can feel kind of hacky. And I really like I appreciated their use of O'Donnell. I thought it was really well done. Right. And, you know, in the original Rosie O'Donnell's character, she's got a boyfriend back home. She's male admirers right and i've read that rosie

said to penny marshall at the time i feel like this character is gay and penny marshall was just like well we can't go there you know yeah so it's a product of its times in that way i mean rosie o'donnell did not come out publicly i think until about a decade after A League of Their Own. So it was a different world. But when you go back and watch that now, it's sort of hard to swallow. Again, you can read it as, well, it's just all kept under the surface and under wraps, but it's just not explicitly there. And that is kind of jarring just based on what we know about the league and the players in that league because that's been a big part of the narrative about that league and its players in recent years. a few years ago called The Hidden Queer History Behind a League of Their Own, which was basically about how just a lot of the players were gay and just were not able to be out publicly. And some of them came out a lot later in life.

There was the Netflix documentary a couple of years ago, A Secret Love, which was about that, about a former player who came out late in life to her family and kept the lesbian relationship. She was in secret from the family for decades and decades. And then Maybel Blair, who is the 95-year-old former A-GPBL player who served as a consultant for the series and has been doing a lot of publicity for it. She just came out this year at an event for this series. And she, I think, said that she estimates that more than half of the players in the league were gay. I mean, it's hard to pin down a number, but it was not a secret to the players in that league. It was just not outwardly shown.

And, you know, that I think is even more glaring in the original movie because the original movie is like, oh, we have to make everyone seem hyper feminine and we have to present this certain image to the world in order to make this league viable and acceptable to everyone. And so they're going to finishing school essentially and learning etiquette and manners and how to present themselves and how to dress and how to wear their hair and how to do their makeup. And the movie doesn't even get into what else maybe those characters had to hide at that time. So that's a big omission just from the story of the league in the original movie. And then there's also a notable lack of black players or non-white players, period. In that movie, there's the one kind of cringy in retrospect and perhaps at the time scene where there is one black woman who throws a ball from the sidelines to the peaches just an unspeaking part and there's just sort of like a a nod from her to the peaches you know and

it's just like yes there were black people in the world as well there were black women and it's only a little bit better probably than there being no black players in the cornfield in Field of Dreams, which you watch that now and you think, what were they thinking? Why wouldn't they be there? In retrospect, at least there's no good explanation for that. In the case of A League of Their Own, it's a tough thing because that league was not integrated. And so there was no easy way to incorporate black characters without being a historical in a sense like they they could have gone with the Bridgerton approach of colorblind casting or color conscious casting as it's sometimes called and just sort of pretended, you know, and just cast whoever without adhering to what was happening at the time. But I think that could have been possibly offensive or, you know, just to pretend that there were not those restrictions. So they had to update things and find a way to have a more diverse story and diverse casts without

basically breaking the rules of history here and pretending that anyone was allowed in that league. So that put a lot of pressure on the show and imposed some restrictions and made them do some things that I guess don't always work perfectly. But also it's hard to see another way around it without just kind of committing to, yeah, there were no black players, so we're not going to have black characters. So that wouldn't have been an ideal solution either. So it's a tough assignment in some ways. Yeah, I think that my general impression of the show went from this is fine to enjoying it much more as it progressed. Like I had originally planned to watch four episodes. And then because of how the fourth episode ends, I was like, well, I'll keep watching this. And I'm glad that I did. I think that it takes a little while to get going

and then it improves. But there is at the heart of it, this structural constraint, right? And how successfully they navigate that constraint i think varies episode to episode and i will be curious to see sort of how they navigate it going forward because this is meant to be a multi-season show right it's not like we're getting eight episodes and then the series is done you know i i don't know if we know what its renewal fate is at this point but i don't think we do yet yeah that it'll probably stick around for at least another season but you have two shows in the show right and i think that it is to the show's credit that both of those storylines feel equally realized

right i think that you know maxine's world is not given short shrift, but I think that by virtue of it being, you know, here I am saying only an hour as if that's not long enough, but it being only an hour per episode, while they are both given sort of equal weight and are, I think, as richly charactered, even if the sort of balance of the known supporting cast is tilted more heavily in one direction than the other. I don't know that they are as well realized as they could be if the series creators had just said, we're just going to tell Max's story. The story we're interested in is this one. And I can appreciate why they didn't want to say the story that we're interested in is the Rockford Peaches to the exclusion of the reality of black female ballplayers at the time. Because there is a history of that, right?

As we reconsidered, you know, and sort of reexamined the Negro Leagues, we learned about the history of women in that league after integration, right? So there are important stories to tell here. And i would hate for those stories to not be told but it does it does constrain the series to have you know these two parallel stories that are only intermittently bridged and it can lead to it feeling kind of disjointed yeah now i will say like i think that they still made the right decision to do it this way rather than have it be sort of an alternate history version of that era right because yes you know like i think people's mileage with bridgerton as an example can kind of vary right and i think that there are ways in which that show can be kind of too cute for its own good. But I also think but like are still living with the reverberations of this period of American history. And so I think it would have felt, I don't know if offensive is the right word, but like disingenuous to try to revitalize this time in a sort of a historical or, you know, alternate history model, because this is still so close for so many people. And I think that they made the right choice. And also the necessity of that choice does put a structural

sort of issue at the heart of the series that, like I said, they are sometimes, I think, more deft at navigating than others. Right. Yeah. It's kind of like when MLB finally designated or recognized Negro League stats as major league. I think one of the concerns that people had was like, well, are we blurring the distinction between them? Are we, is this revisionist history? Is this pretending as if there was no color barrier, right? Which I don't think is quite the case, but I think there is some danger of just sort of skirting that and not acknowledging that. I think the purpose was to acknowledge that these were major leaguers. This was a major league level of play.

one of the sensitivities that people were like, well, let's not let MLB pretend that its doors were wide open or that there wasn't this bright line between the two. So I think there would be the same sort of danger maybe here if you just went back, even if it was sort of in an aspirational sense, like let's imagine the world that we would have wanted to exist or something, you know, I think just to not recognize what was actually happening there as recent as it was and as resonant as it still is. Yeah, that would have been potentially a problem. So I guess they did the best they could once they had decided on this sort of split structure. And in a way, I really did find myself being more drawn to the Max side of the story than the Peaches side. And they don't interact a lot. You know, Carson and Max meet up here and then and she shows up, Max shows up to the initial tryout scene, which is very similar to the one in the movie. And, you know, she makes her very

impressive throw like that unspeaking character in the movie, but she is told to leave. And then the rest of the series is her trying to find a place to play and express herself, not just as an athlete, but as a person. And the Rockford part of the story is obviously more aligned with the movie in some ways. And Carson, for example, is sort of like Dottie in that she's the catcher. She's the team leader. She has a husband who's at war. So there are some similarities there, although in other ways, maybe Darcy Carden's character is more Dottie-like personality-wise so it's almost like they're syntheses of Dottie's character in a way but between that and just the similarities

with the baseball action Nick Offerman shows up for part of the time in the Dugan role the Tom Hanks role sort of although yeah sort of subverts that role in a way that didn't completely work for me, to be honest. But it's a little more by the book just in terms of the actual baseball. The baseball's fine, but it doesn't stray that far from your typical sort of sports movie or sports show action and your whole underdog comeback kind of narrative, I guess. And so it's all fine. But I don't think that there would be a pressing reason to reboot or remake the original if you were just sticking to the baseball stuff or to the peaches. So whereas that movie was studiously not gay, at least explicitly, this show is extremely gay. It could not be that much gayer, which I'm sure will be welcomed by a lot of people. I mean, it's definitely doing justice to the part of the story that the original totally snubbed and skirted.

So whereas seemingly no one was gay on the original Rockford Peaches of the movie, almost everyone is gay on these Rockford Peaches. There is just a lot about Carson kind of coming out to herself in a way and realizing who she is and telling others who she is. And Max is sort of going through the same process, which I guess you could say, well, it's parallel in a way. I mean, at times maybe it almost feels like redundant, like these two leads are kind of going through some aspects of the same journey, I guess. But I really like the Max Klantz relationship. And if I had to pick one actor who really stands out, I guess there are a few. I think Shantae Adams is very good, but Bemi Sola, Ikemelo is really good. I guess there are a few I think Shantae Adams is very good but Bemi Sola Icumelo is really good like yeah I don't know that I would say the show is like hilarious I mean it's kind of like smiling more than laughing most of the time for me but when she's legitimately yeah when it rises to the level of like yeah this is actually funny. She is quite funny. Yeah, right. She's really good.

And I also like Roberta Colindrez as Lupe, who is one of the peaches. She's the pitcher. And that's another thing. Like, with the peaches, you do have some more diversity, I suppose. You have, you know, Jewish characters and you have Latina characters and Cuban characters. So they did what they could there within the strictures of of the league i suppose but you know there's a lot that's just about like oh the viability of the business and of the league and you know some of those storylines that are basically pulled almost

without major changes from the original but all of the social aspects of the team and the people, that's the focus here, much more so than the baseball. The baseball is the backdrop. Obviously, these characters really care about baseball. It means a lot to them. But as it often is in baseball movies, the baseball itself is not necessarily the main draw. the main draw well and i think that one of the things that you know we we've sounded a little lukewarm to this point i think i think one of the things that the show does really well and that i really appreciated about its depiction is that and i'm gonna you know there are places where i think it can't quite decide like how how much darkness it is it is willing to show and how much darkness it is willing to show and how much it is willing to turn away from that. I mean, your colleague Alison Herman had a line in her review of it that I thought was really good, where she says the show combines depictions of injustice

with sunnier alternatives and can feel a bit arbitrary as to which is which. And I think that that is a tension that kind of can be a little disorienting in the show. But I think one of the things that it does that I really appreciated both in its depiction of these women as queer women and in its depiction of Maxine as a black queer woman is that like, there is obvious confrontation with the prejudice and struggle that you would face. this confrontation with the prejudice and struggle that you would face. And like, it allows these women to have moments of joy, right? It allows them to have moments of levity. It is engaging

with, you know, the danger that their cross-cutting identities can present to them, but it is also showing like the necessity of, and the space within yourself for a fuller life that you can have when you can experience yourself honestly, right? And demand that of other people. And I think that sometimes, you know, when shows are trying to be, or movies are trying to be socially conscious, there is an understandable instinct to like make you live in the grind of that kind of prejudice. And it's important not to turn away from that stuff and to be sort of honest about the historical realities

that women faced in this time, that black women and black people faced in this time, that queer people faced in this time. And it is like, they are also living a life, right? And they are getting to do a thing that they really love and that is fulfilling to them. And I think that there's a lot of value in having joyful depictions of a life lived, even if it is one that is constrained by societal prejudice and sort of institutional bias, right? That there is,

there is still joy. And I think that that's important because otherwise you get this very one dimensional thing and it can feel like its own, the sort of way that that stuff can grind you down can sometimes in film or TV feel like its own exploitation, right? Like there is a leering quality to it. So I, I really did appreciate that piece of it, that there is, you know, when Carson is sort of finding herself, there is understandable trepidation about what that means for her. You know, she has concern about what allowing herself this part of her self will mean and the impact it will have on her husband and the danger that it might present to her future in the league, to her future as a person, but also that like there is something, you know, exciting and alluring and undeniable about it that isn't bad, right? Like the thing

isn't bad. The reaction that society has to it is the danger that it presents to you, not the, you know, part of yourself on its own. And I think that that's really important. And, you know, this was an environment where I think, you know, whether it was their sexual identity, whether it was just their sort of a complication of their understanding of what womanhood could be. be this was an environment that was not you know it wasn't like it wasn't fraught but it also did allow for you know you to sort of understand yourself and be yourself in a way that i think was probably a really important lifeline for a lot of the women who were involved so it's good that it makes room for that it can be kind of jarring when the show sort of feels like, oh, right, like also, like, we're still in the 1940s. You know, there is like language that is used to describe queerness that is, you know, wildly antiquated. You know, there is on Maxine's part,

like an understanding that she can be rejected from the people who are meant to love her the most if she is herself. Like, you have to account for that stuff. And sometimes in much the same way that the dual narrative thing gets, I think, navigated with greater success in some moments than in others. Like, there are times where it's like, okay, they are striking the right balance here. And there are times where it feels sort of purposefully didactic in a way that is kind of like, OK.

Yeah. Right. You know, we get that you, you know, you understand the importance of doing this and you're perhaps like the dial isn't turning to quite the right level. But yeah. Anyway, I've talked a lot now. Right. Alison wrote about it and our pal, my colleague, Michael Bauman, also wrote about it at The Ringer. And I'd say that they both mixed reviews probably. And mine is too. I mean, leaning toward the better than the worse. But yeah, some notes, some flaws. And I think one of the things that they both touched on and picked up on in their pieces is that, yeah, I mean, the show is hard, is very much in the right place. Like it's a very

warm hearted show. It's a very warm-hearted show. It's a pleasant show for the most part, even though they're- It's beautiful. You can tell there was Amazon money at play in making this show. It is gorgeous to look at. It is stunning. Yeah. And so one thing Michael wrote is when there's interpersonal conflict within the team, it's not because of a clash of personalities.

It's because of unexplored trauma and societal factors, sometimes to the point of excusing some pretty awful individual behavior is trying to do the right thing. So we're left with a confusing paradox, a rotten world full of well-intentioned people. Yeah. And he ends by saying it could have been truly great if it weren't trying so hard to be good. And he ends by saying it could have been truly great if it weren't trying so hard to be good. There is something of that where, you know, like these characters encounter prejudice, but often the prejudice people are like, you know, they just needed to understand their point of view or, you know, like they're ready to come around, you know, if you say the right thing or have the right conversation. And so maybe in some senses, like the true ugliness or hatred, like there are glimpses of that. But at least with the characters that we spend time with, there's not a ton of that. It's more like just, you know, people having different perspectives or backgrounds and they can eventually come to see eye to eye or something close to it or be OK with each other. And there is sort of a strange it's way that at times I found a little distracting, like even some of the anachronistic dialogue. Like, yeah, it's not a show where they fully embrace that, like, you know, where you have a period piece that just like everyone speaks like it's today. Right. It's not the new Netflix version of Persuasion, which is a war crime.

Right. It's not the new Netflix version of Persuasion, which feels like a war crime. Right. So, you know, I mean, people can like that or not like that, but it's a choice. And here it feels like, I don't know, it's like not completely a choice. It's almost like just some lines slipped in that people say, you know it so at times I'll be like huh you know and it takes me out of it for a minute or just like the way that these characters talk about things or the attitudes that they have seems sort of like modern and enlightened in a way like even if they're not allowed to fully express those things it's like you know it's like the creators of the show sort of are expressing their viewpoints through them in a way so So again, it's a tough thing to navigate, but I didn't always feel like these are characters from 1943 necessarily. It's the world of 1943, but there's at times a tension there.

So again, like it's, I think, largely a fun and pleasant watch, even though these are not short episodes, like they went pretty quick for me. You know, it did not feel at all like a slog or anything to get through the season. And like you, I think it does get stronger as it goes on. And I think they figure some things out and knit some things together. And some of the relationships come to the fore and are a bit more fully realized as it goes on. So, yeah, if you're kind of on the fence after the first few, I would say maybe press on. You may enjoy it more as it goes on.

You know, there are some characters just because you have two shows in one and it's sort of an ensemble cast. And so some of the characters are just sort of wallpaper. Like there are some people on the team who are sort of there in the background and I don't know anything about them really. Like there's a scene you haven't seen yet, I guess, in episode seven where one of the peaches finds out something about another peach. where one of the peaches finds out something about another peach and she says who are you who are you people because she learns that this character has kids like multiple kids and it's never come up on the show before and at times i felt that too like who are you like i don't know anything about this character because certain characters are in the spotlight and others are just sort of in the background which again like it's

a lot to navigate. And maybe if there are subsequent seasons, then you can devote more time to certain people who were kind of in the background in earlier seasons. But on the whole, I would say I largely enjoyed it. And I can't give an unqualified, unreserved recommendation. But I would say that most of our listeners would probably enjoy their time with the show i think it's a it's a pretty good hang for the most part yeah i think that it definitely has moments of feeling uneven it has moments where the

either the structure or the sort of like you, the 2022 of it all is a little distracting. Or I'm like, Abby, you're not writing for you, though. Right. I think that there are times where I'm like, yeah, it feels a little Broad City to me. But I think that there were definitely things that it did better than I was maybe expecting it to. And I think that there is probably a version of this show where, and I don't know that it would have, you know, seen the light of day. I don't know if the same people would have been involved, but like, there is the sort of nostalgic pull that a lot of people have to the movie, you had just said, you know, we're going to tell Max's story and see where that takes us. And, you know, we're going to explore like what it would have meant for her to get a job in a factory during that time.

And, you know, it's like they hint at despite the legal reality that was meant to prevail in the factory, like she still had a hard time getting hired. But then everything's fine after that. So it still has growing pains. And I think that there might be people where those growing pains are distracting to the point of sort of diminishing their enjoyment of it. I think that it is like it is not a perfect show. And there are definitely missteps and false moments.

But I think that like, you know, we would give it a if you need a thing to watch. we would give it a, if you need a thing to watch, this will probably satisfy some, you know, some baseball drama needs that you have. And, you know, I'd be curious to hear from people as they watch it and experience it kind of what their mileage is, because I think that because the show is trying to be so many things for so many different kinds of people there are probably aspects of this that work for us and might not work for others and i don't know i just would be curious to see like how it's hitting folks because i think that there are good things and there are things that hopefully if it gets another season they will continue to improve upon and there are some moments that are really lovely and some moments that are like really devastating and and i haven't even finished it don't tell me what happens ben i don't know if

they won the championship i am gonna finish it i think yeah i mean i'm sure that in the way that the movie meant a lot to a lot of girls and women i had katie baker on episode 1312 of this podcast to talk about that and revisit the movie if people want to go back and listen to that. But I would imagine that there are probably also people who felt unseen by that movie who will feel much more seen by this show. So the representation aspects of it, while maybe not sufficient for everyone to find this super compelling, are good and important and I'm sure will really resonate with some viewers. At least a subset of the audience will probably feel like, oh, this show is very much for

me and I was not on the screen in the movie and I am much more on the screen in the show. So that's good. And, you know, I think that it does enough well around that to succeed, you know, as, yes, this is worth watching. You know, it doesn't necessarily jump to the top of your queue, at least if you're not a huge fan of baseball or the original. But I think it's a good time for the most part. Yeah. baseball or the original, but I think it's a good time for the most part. And yeah, I would say like the Nick Offerman part, I guess I won't give away exactly what happens there. He plays Dove Porter manager and just, I don't know, like isn't completely convincing in that role to me. I guess maybe I just have a hard time seeing Nick Offerman in the kind of Jimmy Dugan type of of character and it's sort of not fully realized the character and yeah I don't want to give away

too much I guess not that it's like some huge thing but you know like in the movie there's the the time where Dottie ends up making the lineup because Jimmy is just checked out. There's much more of that, I will say, in the show than there was in the movie. And Dove plays a lesser role than Dugan did, and I think intentionally so. There's sort of an attempt to subvert what that male character meant to a mostly female cast movie. So I'll just leave it at that, I guess. But I don't know that that was handled as elegantly as it could have. I don't know that that casting totally worked for me or that character that I understood what he was going for, what they were going for exactly with that character. But it turns out not to be that huge a part of it anyway. I mean, the focus is obviously

on the women here. So I think that on a baseball level, again, the baseball is not even necessarily the most important part or the main part of the show. But I think the only quibbles that I have with it first is that there is a PA announcer who does basically play byplay for every baseball scene and just will not stop talking. Yeah. in kind of this like hokey intrusive way I found at least that like I would have liked to just focus on the field or like hear the characters talking to each other or something more so than just this constant patter of play-by-play from the stands just like over explaining everything that is happening during the baseball scenes and also this is a tiny thing but they kept calling

the manager a coach which kind of bugged me. I don't know why that happened. I don't think the original movie really did that. The only other thing that I found distracting is, and I believe that there was some of this in Stove League as well, but there is this digital effect to the ball at times where the ball will just leap out of the player's hand, you know, in a way that it's like totally incongruous with the arm speed of the player throwing. So, you know, it'll look like just a regular person throwing a ball and then the ball will just zoom out of the hand and go way faster and farther than it looks like it should. Yeah. Which I found very distracting whenever that happens. Like sometimes they will artfully show only what they need to show to make it look convincing.

And, you know, some of the mechanics and the windups and the swings and the deliveries are quite good, I think, certainly by the standards of baseball media, which are pretty low in general. by the standards of baseball media, which are pretty low in general. So I think a lot of it looks fine or good, but there's just that one effect, which I feel like is just not done all that artfully. And every time I would see the ball just leap out of the player's hand as if it was just being pulled by some invisible force by the CGI ghost of Harry Carey or something summoning the ball from the player's hand. I found that much more distracting than just players throwing the ball like regular people. I mean, you're not recruiting professional players here. I think we understand that

actors don't always look completely convincing and we're okay with that. So it's fine if they're not throwing the ball hundreds of feet and throwing 80 miles an hour or whatever. I can deal with that. I would find that much less distracting than this digital effect that is just like juicing the speed in a way that doesn't match the arm speed at all. Yeah, yeah. It has its moments where I'm like why do you do that see this is where the amazon money gets you in a bad way yeah you're like oh boy now i if you can't afford the digital

effects you're gonna play it straight i couldn't do it that's kind of a funny way of describing something related to this series admittedly but well i would say hopefully this gives you a sense of what to expect. And I'm sure plenty of people will be even higher on it than we are. But, you know, I think even we, I certainly don't regret the time that I spent with it. And I would continue to watch if there is more. So, you know, it's a nice show. It's a pleasant show. It's an inclusive show.

I think it makes a convincing case for why this needed to be rebooted, whereas so many reboots do not, right? that was not trod previously that it made sense to do justice to. And I think that the creators and the actors, they really care and they seem invested in this. And it seems to have been a labor of love for Jacobson and others. And they really put time and attention and love into it, I think. And that is pretty apparent yeah i think that there are definitely times when the execution of that representation isn't you know isn't perfect and i think that there are you know there are some issues with it as we've raised but you can tell watching it how much like care and affection the people involved have for the characters and i think that you're right that

even though it isn't perfect it is an important corrective to a story that was literally whitewashed and certainly did not do justice to the reality of queer women in baseball at that time so i think that that is a it was a good it was good to retell for those reasons um and i think that they did it in a way that didn't feel completely pollyanna-ish even if there are times where it feels kind of uneven. So, yeah, I want to hear how people how kind of washes over people. And I hope that folks enjoy it. OK, maybe we can end with a couple of emails here.

So here's one from Kyle, Patreon supporter, who says, who wears all kinds of specialized gear to prevent, for example, a bad hop catching him flush in the face. A first baseman has none of that protection and also faces the secondary risk of limited mobility if they're going to stay out of the way of a sprinting base runner in their vicinity. Assuming this trend of increased velocity from short stops continues, how long do you think it will be before we see a first baseman wearing some kind of protective equipment? How long might it be before we see that equipment become standard or even required? That's a really good question. I think that unfortunately, the answer is probably going to be many injuries more than it should. I was watching, I know you're not a big football guy, Ben. You're not a football guy really of any stripe,

I would probably think it's safe to say. But I started the new season of Hard Knocks yesterday and they're following the Detroit Lions through their preseason activity. And they are wearing, and now I'm blanking on the name of these helmets, but they are wearing special helmets over their helmets to try to reduce the impact when you have helmet to helmet contact.

It's like a little, gosh, I'm going to try to send you a picture of this. So they have these like new helmets that go over their helmets. And they're supposed to reduce concussion rates by like 10 to 20 percent is what they say on Hard Knocks. And I don't know what the science is behind that. So I have not vetted the concussion science of these helmets, which remind me of something. What does that look like, Ben? What is that? It kind of looks like the guy, the Orange Fantastic Four guy.

Oh, yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? But so anyway, I bring this up because they're wearing them and everybody thinks that they look goofy and they feel heavy to wear because even though they aren't heavy relative to moving a giant football player, like it's on your head and stuff can feel heavy on your head

even when it's not that heavy. And I just think about how long people have played football and this is the first time that i have seen this specific thing on hard knocks and i know that they're like the big outfits to make everyone look like a bobblehead but people who play sports care about the aesthetic of them playing sports sometimes in ways that are stubborn like think about how we still don't have pitchers wearing the special hats, you know, that would presumably help to protect them from some comebackers. Right. And so I think that it will take a while.

You know, it's a little bit different than, you know, a pitcher on the mound with a comebacker even because while yes, Mason went really through that like he as we noted he like he wound up basically right he took a couple steps to to lean into that throw and so while i'm sure that the first baseman was surprised that it was that hard hitting the mitt there was time for reflex action right it wasn't like you know a comebackers coming, can I get my glove up in time to protect my face? And so I think the way that injury will unfold will be different. And I don't know how dangerous it really is. Like if you are hit with a ball that hard, and you don't see it coming, sure. But I think that the active fielding allows for you to get set more often

than not in a way that will probably protect guys from the worst of it but you know if we do see injury it'll probably take a while because they're aware of how they look and they don't want to look goofy yeah i don't think the danger is severe or acute i mean it's not like there has been a rash of serious injuries to first baseman on throws that I'm aware of. First baseman can get hurt if their arm gets in the way of a runner or let's say something like that. Yeah, we've had more of that lately than we've had of anything else. Generally, not so much just like whiffing on a throw across the diamond or a short hop that eludes the glove. It can happen. But we don't have velocity data for infield throws going way

back the way that we have even for pitches. And I'm sure that there were a lot of hard throwers. I mean, Sean Dunstan was throwing hard. You know, I would imagine it seems reasonable to assume that the outliers are throwing harder now or that the average throw is harder now. But because you're throwing from a greater distance, too, if you're throwing from third or short, there's a longer way to go. The ball is in the air longer, so it's losing speed, more speed. is to make it catchable, right? As opposed to a pitch where you're trying to miss the bat and that can also lead to missing the glove. I mean, you know, even if the catcher knows what's coming, these pitches are moving so much

and they could, you know, vary the location. I would assume that probably infielders on the whole have better accuracy, I guess, than pitchers. I don't know, although there's a longer distance. So I guess you might miss by more just because of the distance.

But like you're trying to just make it easy for the first baseman, whereas that's not what you're really trying to do as a pitcher. I mean, you're trying to make it hard for the hitter. And often that makes it hard for the catcher, too. There's going to be balls bouncing because you got to throw in the dirt sometimes. So you're never aiming to throw in the dirt as a infielder. You might sometimes skip the ball or bounce the ball, but your goal is to make it as easy to catch as possible. So between all of those things, I would not say that this is a huge concern or close to the top of the list of my concerns, even when it comes to baseball players being hit by balls thrown or

batted. But, you know, it's certainly possible because there is less protection that we could see a bad injury, you know, a bad hop. I mean, I broke my nose in eighth grade because I was just playing catch and a ball just skipped off a tree root and hit me in the face. Now, there are no tree roots on Major League Baseball fields, hopefully. So maybe the bounces are less bad. But what if there's a mound on an elevator, Ben? Yeah, or a tree on the infield. And a seam. Yeah, I mean, these things can happen.

That reminds me, by the way, that there is a no crying in baseball reference. Yeah, they couldn't help themselves, could they? storyline I guess it's just like easier to get this made and easier to sell probably and maybe easier to attract a mainstream audience if you are basing it more closely on a movie that everyone knows and a team that everyone knows and outfits that everyone knows so maybe that's part of why they decided to do that anyway that is the previous topic not the current topic but I'm just saying I'm not losing sleep over the first placement getting hit by the infield, but I'm just saying I'm not losing sleep over the first baseman getting hit by the infield throw. But I guess it's true that, yes, the risk is probably a little higher, at least than it used to be, perhaps. Yeah, but I think it'll probably be fine.

I think it'll probably be fine. Okay, question from John, who says, I recently heard some baseball analysis I hadn't come across before. One of the outstanding traits of Miguel Cabrera has been his ability to set up pitchers. The concept is to take a bad swing at a certain kind of pitch to entice the pitcher to repeat a similar one later in the at-bat or game. The commentator's sidekick chimed in that Manny Ramirez was great at this, too. I'm dubious. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

And yes, certainly have heard of it. Perhaps have discussed it at some point on the show. I don't know. But this is not new. I do still think it's somewhat dubious. But setting up Pinterest, definitely something that both Miggy and Manny have been said to do. I don't know how often they've actually done it or whether it works. It's not new. I sent John a little excerpt and some passages. So Roberto Clemente is reputed to have done this so here's a recollection Whitey Ford who pitched against Clemente twice in the series recalls that Roberto actually made himself look bad on an outside pitch to encourage Whitey to come back with it I did Ford recalls and he unloaded and Willie Mays is said to have done

this so another quote here Steve Stone says Willie Mays was the best he ever saw it intentionally looking bad on a pitcher's curve to make sure the pitcher threw him another one in a key situation. Roberto Clemente was like that too. He'd take a first pitch breaking ball and look as if he were shocked by the pitch. That was so he'd get a similar pitch from the pitcher during that at bat. And maybe Clemente learned it from Mays. There's some speculation here. There's also an excerpt from the Charles Einstein memoir, Willie's Time, that says, an occasion can be cited to when Willie Mays actually struck out on purpose. Here again, no true mystery attached to the action. Willie's case came in the first inning of a game at the old ballpark in St. Louis, and he swung and missed in order to see the same pitch later in the game when it might count for something. He did, and it did. The pitcher was Kurt Simmons on the Cardinals, and having established his out pitch with Mays in the first inning, he tried it again in the eighth, this time with the Cardinals

leading one to nothing and a giant runner on base. Will he hit it over the right field roof? And the Giants won two to one. And I'll link to some articles about Manny and Mickey supposedly doing this. I think I've heard maybe Bonds and David Ortiz are supposed to have done this too. So again, I don't know how often it happens or whether it actually makes sense, but it's not a new idea. Yeah, I think that I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical. Like, I think that there are probably individual hitters throughout the game's history who can do this successfully,

but I also wouldn't be surprised if someone was like, yeah, I meant to. Yeah, he could say that after the fact too. Yeah, I meant to do that because I'm setting him up for later, and it's like, yeah, okay, sure. I also just think that we have such a firm appreciation now of like the value of balls versus strikes yeah exactly it just seems so unlikely to me we i think we've talked about this before even that you would put yourself in a disadvantageous count purposely like i'm sure

you're aware on some level that whatever you think you're getting in terms of you know a benefit for being able to get the pitch you want later is outweighed by putting yourself in a hole i just you know yeah like especially because i imagine the guys who were skilled enough to do this were like also very keenly aware right so i don't know i just you know i'm skeptical i'm skeptical ben like that maize simmons anecdote i think that was 1964 and by that time maize had faced simmons like 120 times already yeah and so like with that sort of history could you actually change his approach with one awkward swing also if that strikeout was intentional, there was a runner on at that point. That was a poor strategic move if it's true.

Maybe hit a home run just that time instead of sandbagging and hitting a home run later. Yeah. I don't know. It also occurs to me that this might be less effective and less common in this era of just data-driven scouting reports, right? When a well-prepared pitcher and catcher can and should be studying a hitter's tendencies overall instead of just basing their strategy on what happened in their previous matchups or what happened in the previous plate appearance or on the previous swing, right?

So you probably shouldn't be basing it on that. Although, you know, there is an element of just adjusting, like, how did the hitter look on that swing? Oh, he looked like he didn't see that at all. Maybe we'll give him that again. So I see how, in theory, it could work. But yeah, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage there that I think for various reasons,

this practice would not be pervasive today. But it's hard to assess how often it has actually happened or whether it actually paid off. And I don't think it would even just be a baseball thing only. I remember Josh Levine on Hang Up and Listen talking once about Bill Russell supposedly doing something like this, the late Bill Russell. There's a 1965 Sports Illustrated feature where he says, The year before I came into the NBA, Neil Johnston was third in the league in scoring, and I was worried about him from the start. I wasn't worried about his shooting. Neil had a low trajectory, soft little hook, and I figured I could block nine out of ten of them.

But this created a new problem for me. If I did block them, Neil would surely change his style against me and come up with something I probably couldn't handle as easily. So I took the psychological route. I would let him alone just enough to keep him puzzled, block just enough so that he wouldn't get riled and try something new. I would keep a little mental box score and make sure the score came out in our favor or try anyway. So, yeah, you know, I guess like if you think this pitcher has a pitch you can hit and if you smack it now, then in a truly important moment, then he might throw you something else that you can't hit. Then maybe you could just intentionally look bad. But, yeah, I don't know.

There's a lot that would have to go into that to make it make sense, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. Sam, Patreon supporter, says, I have seen a running troll on social media where a picture of a near-empty Bush Stadium is next to the reported attendance number for the day and the field is frequently half full. The defense to this that

I've seen is that the reported attendance total is based on tickets sold, not fans in seats. Do all teams do this? Is there any evidence of which teams have the highest difference between reported sales and actual attendance? Is there any advantage or disadvantage to doing this? And I believe that everyone does this and has done this for quite some time. So yeah, whenever you see official attendance figures, it's reported it's tickets sold. It's not National League teams announced an actual turnstile count through 1992,

but the National League and American League have since consolidated business operations and Major League Baseball defines attendance as tickets sold, not tickets used. And this quote in the article says it's because of revenue sharing. That's what we use in our official count. Oh, sure. Teams contribute 34% of the revenue they generate, including most ticket and concession revenue, into a pool to be redistributed among teams that generate the fewest dollars. So, yeah, I think there may be times, I feel like there are some times maybe when you see

actual attendance. I don't know if that's in baseball or other sports or what, but at least most of the time and with the official figures, it's just going to be tickets sold, not actually who showed up necessarily. Yeah, I think that it's been like this for a very, very long time. And I don't know. I don't think that – I just mostly think that who cares? Like don't use attendance as a way to zaps fans of other teams is my mainly my takeaway well yeah that too you know there's that so yeah i i think that some leagues maybe have uh done like actual it says in the story the nba and nhl announced the

number of tickets distributed the nfl traditionally has permitted a team to announce whatever attendance figures it chose, including no shows. However, the league distributed a memo this month encouraging teams to limit their announcement to tickets sold. Again, this is from 2005. So I think maybe some teams could elect at times to announce the actual attendance. But I guess it makes sense just from a standardization sense. And maybe it's easier to keep track of how many tickets are sold than how many people actually show up. And I guess it makes you look better, right, to announce the higher number.

It's always going to be a higher number of tickets sold than actual attendance. And so if you want to pump up yourself and pump up your product, I'm sure advertisers, people who have displays in the ballpark, they might want to know how many people are actually seeing those things. But if you're the league, then I guess what incentive do you really have to say, yeah, actually fewer people are showing up to the games than we've said. So I suppose I understand why it's done this way. Yeah, I get it. But it would be nice to know.

I mean, I'd like to have that information. But yeah, well, would you? What would you do with that? I guess it would be, I mean, it's usually going to correlate probably, you know, I mean, more tickets sold, probably you're going to have more people showing up. People don't typically just buy tickets and not use them for the most part. So I guess there would be a pretty tight connection. I don't know.

I mean, it would give you greater granularity. And if you were trying to assess the effect of certain things on attendance, then I guess it would give you better data to base that on. Like signing particular free agents perhaps. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'd rather have it than not have it, but it's not something I lament not having regularly.

Right. Yeah. Okay. This is from Andrew who says, I was listening to the television broadcasts of a recent Braves-Red Sox game and then top of the sixth with rookie sensation Michael Harris II, a.k., aka MH2, at the plate with one out and a runner on first. It was suggested by a member of the Braves broadcast team that it'd be a great time to lay down a bunt to third. It's not uncommon for the radio or TV broadcast teams to articulate their desire for baseball to be played like the

day has gone by or how small ball wins games, etc. but it struck me that i honestly couldn't remember the last time the braves had bunted this season or if they had bunted at all i did some cursory searching and did find a reference to the number of batted balls with buh as a stat which i assume is a bunt for a hit i believe it is at fan crafts as well as a reference to the number of sacrifice hits which i assume is only bunts and does not account for sack flies here. I believe that is true, too. I believe so. So am I right to say the Atlanta Braves have only bunted for a hit once out of three attempts this season and have zero sack bunts?

Given the universal DH, I understand why the latter may be greatly reduced from years past, but I find it hard to believe there is but one successful bunt all year long by a National League team with some generally speedy guys in the lineup. And is this a trend league-wide, or are the Braves just a strikeout, home run, or bust anomaly? And how are bunt singles mixed into the statistic, or are they a completely separate statistic where distance traveled is less than some arbitrarily decided length that labels them a bunt attempt, etc.? Labels them a BS, and if BS isn't being used for bunt single, it should be.

Labels them a BS, and if BS isn't being used for bunt single, it should be. Anyway, he says MH2 went on to double in the at-bat where the bunt was being proposed. That'll show him. Yeah, and he did go back and find that Harris is the only Brave to have bunted successfully for a hit this season. And, yeah, I checked the numbers here, and I believe that Andrew is right. The Braves have three bunts this season, one for a hit and zero sacrifices. Now, sack bunts are quite uncommon these days and even more so thanks to the universal DH. Russell Carlton just wrote about this. It's been a constant decline in sacrifice bunting at least. And there's been another big downturn this year. Even with the persistence of the zombie runner? Yeah, right. I think even with that, that does lead to some situations that might make it make more sense. But even so, and Russell ran through the numbers in his piece and showed that it

shouldn't be completely extinct. There are certain times when you want to lay down even a sacrifice, but it's probably maybe even rarer advisedly than it is now. But there are other kinds of bunts, and I think people tend to conflate sacrifice bunting with just bunting for a hit. I like bunting for a hit. Bunting for a hit is fun. It's difficult. It doesn't always make sense either. It's difficult. It doesn't always make sense either. But there are times when that makes more sense and is an entertaining play as opposed to just giving up and out, essentially.

But to have only three bunts this season, so it looks to me, I'm just going by baseball savant here. Braves have three. The next fewest is seven by the Cardinals, and it ranges all the way up to the Diamondbacks at 57. Actually, the Angels and Diamondbacks are tied at 57. So 738 bunts in the majors of all kinds so far this year, and the Braves have but three. And that would easily be a record, I think, because I'm just looking at baseball savant since 2008, excluding 2020. It looks to me like the fewest bunts in a season was the 2018 Blue Jays with 12, and then the 2018 and 2019 A's with 15 and 16, the fewest by a National League team. I'm going to have to keep scrolling here because this has been the pitcher hitting era that I am actually searching here. But yeah, I mean, it looks like they're on track to probably blow away the record for fewest bunts in the season as far as I can tell. It looks to me actually like the fewest bunts by an NL team prior to this season was 39 by

the 2019 Braves as it happens. Interesting. Yeah, so maybe this is just an... Like an organizational philosophy kind of deal. Right. Maybe organizational philosophy, maybe Brian Snicker, maybe just the

personnel on the team. Maybe they just have a bunch of slow guys. Yeah well I mean as Andrew noted there are some speedier guys. There are guys who could bunt on this team but they are just choosing not to. But yeah Braves notable non-bunters it certainly seems as if that's the case

so that's something to watch. I mean unless they have a huge rash of bunts here in the next couple months, they are probably going to break the record. They're certainly on track to break the record for fewest bunts in a season. Huge rash of bunts. Sounds bad. All right. Last question. And this is a high question. And it's from listener Jen, who says, me and some buds were watching some baseball while high and came up with maybe an interesting scenario. What if each player had to wear the jersey that they wore in their first MLB game for every MLB game for the rest of their career. This means if your first game was an away game, only away grays from there on out. Some players might get lucky and have a fun alternate jersey as their first career jersey. Yeah. This might not be a plausible or even good idea, but hey, maybe it would be neat.

What do you guys think? Oh, man. So, yeah. Somebody would get stuck in, like, the Dodgers City Connects. That sucks. I know. Well, maybe you would, like the Dodgers City Connects. That sucks. I know. Well, maybe you would like delay your major league debut. It's like you got the call, kid.

It's like, oh, but you're wearing those today. Can I debut tomorrow? Call me up next week instead. Yeah. So this would be visually interesting, I guess. Like you'd have more diversity of uniforms, every color of the rainbow out there. I mean, my main question is, what if you switch teams? Right.

Do you have to wear your old team's uniform on your new team? Right. Because that could get confusing. That could get confusing. I think that people would probably be resistant to it for that reason. I think that people would probably be resistant to it for that reason. I mean, you could do this in baseball in a way that I think would be difficult to pull off for other sports, right? Because, you know, you're not going to get confused.

Right. Like the way that action unfolds on the field in baseball is not like you're gonna say oh that guy you know he used to play for us and then he got traded to our opponents but he's wearing our uniform again i'm assuming you just wear the uniform forever and people are like who are you we couldn't know and then you're like oh i'm gonna i'm gonna pass him the ball oh no i've given it away to the other team because that's how baseball players talk and certainly how like professional basketball players or football players would talk and you wouldn't have to worry about that quite so much like you know you're not pulling in the same direction doing both of the stuff simultaneously and so or potentially simultaneously i guess you're not ever really doing it simultaneously but you might be moving one way or the you know what i'm trying

to say yeah yeah i like that you would be able to learn a little something about that player and their career just from looking at their uniform. So that's kind of cool. Like if they had been around for a while, they would have this archaic looking uniform design. And it's like, oh, wow, that player hails from that era of uniforms. You know, you would still have someone wearing the like bloody diamondbacks uniforms after they gave those up or you know or i'd love to have just like someone who debuted on like turn the clock forward day yeah turn ahead the clock night and they just don't have sleeves their entire careers right and eventually they just play long enough that uh that the actual

clock has turned to the point where it was turned forward when they started. Whoa. I guess this is sort of similar to the debate about all-star game uniforms, right? Sure. Which I don't have a strong position on. I know a lot of people were upset that they have standardized the all-star uniforms aside from the caps, whereas they used to have every all-star representative wear the uniform of their respective team. as they used to have every All-Star representative wear the uniform of their respective team. And it seems like MLB probably largely just because they want to have new uniform designs so that they can sell more stuff.

But also it seems like Manfred maybe objects to having uniforms not be uniform and just wants it to be standardized. And a lot of people took that as further evidence that Rob Manfred hates baseball and fun. Personally, I don't care all that much, honestly. So I don't feel that strongly about that either way. But I guess you would have a similar look. So if you're into that for an all-star team, now maybe it's different for an all-star game than it would be for a regular game. But I agree it wouldn't be quite as confusing or prohibitive in baseball as it would be in other sports. So I don't know. I don't know that there's a point or a great upside to doing this. It seems

like it could be kind of confusing. And then also imagine just the extra strain on the clubbies and the uniform managers where you have to have every person or a lot of people have their own esoteric idiosyncratic uniform that dates back from whenever and so you have to keep track of that and make sure they have their right uniform like i don't know we've talked about having some way to like represent maybe on caps or uniforms like all-star appearances or award wins. You know, if you're like a reigning winner of some prominent award, maybe you get to wear something that shows off that status. So I'm up for that. I'm up for more personalized appearance, I think, by baseball players.

But I don't know that just sticking with the same uniform throughout your career is the best way to do it, especially if're saddled with a sucky uniform that stinks for that player who has to wear it forever well so i don't remember if i got worked up or not when we talked about the all-star thing so if this is an inconsistent position i'm sorry clearly i don't care enough to have remembered the only time that i have really had strong feelings about that was like there was one year where in the fall league they had them wear unis like fall league unis whereas like generally you wear the the uniform of the org you play for and then you have like a cap you know you have your team cap and that was terrible and i think my objection at the time was that, you know, these guys are not necessarily well known to the folks in attendance.

And it's like, it sucks for the scouts and for the fans. It's a problem because you're like not necessarily like visually familiar with prospects yet. But you can say, oh, well, that must be so-and-so because he's in a, you know, a Mets uniform. And so I thought that it diminished the fan experience at the same time that it was making people who work in baseball's jobs harder. And that's like a really bad combination. Like clearly Rob Manfred is fine making people who work in baseball's jobs harder if he thinks it enhances the fan experience. You know look at july as like a month and how it's scheduled but for the all-star game i don't know like do you i guess like it's fine if you care and it's fine if you don't but i think it would get kind of confusing to have multiple people on the same team in different uniforms especially especially, like I said, if you had been traded to another club

and then you play that team regularly and you're like, like imagine last trade deadline, you're Kendall Graveman. And then you go and you play in Houston and you're like, but I'm still wearing a Mariners uniform. Yeah, Freddie Freeman returns to Atlanta still wearing his Braves jersey. It would be so weird. You know, as weird as it was to see him in a different uniform, it would have been equally weird to see him back in his Braves uniform.

Like what if you get a cup of coffee with your original team and then they trade you and you spend the next 15 years with another team? Right. Is there like a plate appearance threshold that you have to clear before you're like saddled with that uniform for the rest of time? Yeah, right. Can you change your uniform number or is that locked in too? Good question.

What if you go from a team that has like names on the back or numbers or, you know, like no names, names, I mean, do you have to stick with that convention too? Everyone else gets their name and you don't get your name. Well, okay, so now we're cooking with gas because if this undid that which i think i think uniforms should have names on them i'm sorry if that offends people i'm fine with that too like i think it's just i think it's just good for players names to be on their uniforms i think it's good for yeah identify the players it's okay what are we supposed to memorize a bunch of numbers i don't remember yeah never, I know so few roster numbers, like uniform numbers.

Oh gosh. And, and, you know, you go to a ballpark and a lot of times they will have the out of town scoreboard and the way that they denote who is pitching is by the uniform number. And I'm like, am I supposed to know all, I know, look, I am. How much homework was I supposed to do before this game? Right. Like I am expected to know an appropriately deep amount about baseball because it is literally my job and even i am like what the hell are we yeah who is

that and then i just have to look at my phone i'm trying to look at my phone less so all of that to say if this stoner idea got names on all the uniforms maybe that's worth it on balance. Who can say? Okay. All right. By the way, meant to mention earlier when we were talking about the queerness, the gayness of A League of Their Own, that there was a player who came out this week, a minor leaguer, Solomon Bates, who had just been released by the Giants, and then he came out publicly as gay. He had been out to his teammates for a while

previously. He has subsequently signed, I believe, with the Sioux City Explorers of the American Association in Indie Ball. But the fact that that is still such news and still such a rarity and basically hasn't happened in quite this way in the major leagues, like that just goes to show that, hey, you know, there is still a lot of value in having a show like this that presents that, I think, as not even just like acceptable, but like the dominant norm in this league, in this show, right? Just to further normalize, further make it seem acceptable and wholesome and great and good for people to embrace their identities and everything because in baseball specifically it still can be a taboo subject 30 years after the movie and you know 80 years after the events being depicted in the series right it's not as if

we are like we are in a completely accepting and open era now you know there is still a lot of work to do so i think um you know drawing those historical parallels is useful not only for historical accuracy and to acknowledge people's experience then but also to highlight the need to like improve things still now okay quick pass blast to end this is episode 1889 so the pass blast to end. This is episode 1889. So the pass blast comes from 1889 and from Richard Hershberger, historian, saber researcher and author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. This he titles with the intriguing subject line Merkel's Boner in 1889. Boston at Philadelphia, August 26th, 1889. It is the bottom of the 12th inning with Boston at bat. The home team had the choice of innings at this time. And for reasons beyond all human understanding, some preferred to bat first.

Mike King Kelly is at second base and Dan Brothers at first with two outs. Dick Johnston comes to bat. The Boston Philadelphia newspapers disagreed on what happens next. the account in The Sporting Life of August 12th is our best bet for a neutral report. So, quote, with two men out and two men on the bases, Johnston drove the ball into center. Philly center fielder Fogarty rushed up to meet it, but it struck a rut and bounded past him to the fence. Kelly, of course, scored, and the spectators in the left field seats, as is their usual custom, jumped the three-foot fence into the enclosure, not for the purpose of engaging in any ungentlemanly conduct, but because it is the quickest way out of the grounds. But 200 or 300

got as far as the diamond when Captain Farrar, Philly's first baseman, called to Fogarty to throw the ball to him as he wished to make a claim that Johnston did not run to first base on his hit. Fogarty did throw the ball in the diamond, but Kelly picked it up and was making for the player's exit when both Farrar and Phillies left fielder Delahanty ran up to Kelly and attempted to take the ball away from him for the purpose of making the play. But Kelly refused to release his grip on the ball, it being usual for the winning team to take the ball, and he not knowing what Farrar wanted with it and the crowd, which was now thoroughly excited but unaware of what the three men were doing, rushed to the assistance of the home players, and then there was a scene of the wildest excitement. Several passes were made at Kelly, and for a time it looked squally for him.

Several of the Boston players were also struck. Finally, with the aid of officers, Kelly was hustled to the dressing room from which he was afterwards smuggled through the ticket office into a carriage and driven away from the waiting crowd. While in the dressing room, Captain Farrar said Johnston did not run as far as first base, and that was the reason he wanted the ball, to which Kelly replied that he did not know what Farrar wanted the ball for unless it was to give him an old one in place of the new, which was in play at the time the winning run was scored. He said had Farrar told him what he wanted to do with the ball, he would have given it up. Farrar did not admit that he did him this, but said that Kelly should have known what he wanted the ball for. Both umpires said they did not see the play. Curry,

who was giving base decisions, claiming that he was watching Kelly, who was very fond of cutting third base when any advantage could be gained by the trick. So did Johnston touch first base or did he veer off? The Philadelphia papers are quite sure he went nowhere near first base. The Boston papers report that Johnston claimed he had touched first, but are suspiciously unwilling to affirm it as fact. It is a pretty good bet that the video review would show he did not go to first. The Phillies protested the game, but the Boston win was upheld.

There were, unusually for the time, two umpires that day, but neither could state that Johnston had not touched first. The plate umpire was watching the ball while the base umpire was watching Kelly to make sure he touched third. So, this is nearly identical to Merkel's boner 19 years later. The two differences are that Merkel was at first, while Johnson was the batter, and where neither umpire saw the disputed play in 1889. In 1908, umpire Henko Day saw that Merkel did not touch second. In both cases, the league upheld the umpire's call. What most strikes me about this incident is that where Merkel's boner is one of the most famous plays in baseball history. This one is entirely forgotten.

I know of no mention of it, even while just 19 years later, the Merkle play was a hot topic. No one said, you know, the same thing happened back in 89. Boston was in a tight pennant race. This game mattered. Perhaps had the ruling gone the other way, we would remember it. Probably not. Baseball in 1908 had little historical memory.

The idea of baseball history developed in the 1930s. Hardly anyone remembered 19th century ball by then. This is why the Hall of Fame didn't induct any purely 19th century players until its fourth class. And to this day, 19th century baseball has an era of before times that doesn't really count. So this was the boner before the boner, forgotten boner but arguably just as big a boner i want you to leave in all of the silence okay you know it's just like when when people are remembering the size of their boners they're prone to exaggeration that's all that is true too yeah But it does go to show that the historical circumstances can dictate how these things are remembered or whether they are remembered at all. And maybe Merkel, he could have been forgotten. At least this part of his life, his boner could not have been as big an issue for him that stayed with him throughout his life.

been as big an issue for him that uh stayed with him throughout his life when do you think it flipped for him in terms of well he died at some point but i was gonna say like when when did the transition happen from like the play being the reason that people remembered it to the language being the reason that people remembered it right like because I would submit the following Ben if a mistake like that weren't called a boner we wouldn't remember it now no matter how big it were if Snodgrass is muff we're not

Snodgrass is muff and if Merkle's boner we're not Merkle's boner so I'm looking at etymology site for boner. You were going to say I'm looking at it. No. I was going to say, Ben, that sounds personal to me. Yeah.

So it says boner, noun, blunder, 1912 baseball slang, probably from bonehead, meaning erect penis is 1950s from earlier bone-on 1940s, probably a variation with connecting notion of hardness of hard-on 1893. So they had hard-ons in 1893, but boners were not known as such until the 1950s, it sounds like. So it was quite a while after Merkel's Boner that Boner became funny for that reason, I guess. Although possibly he lived to see it. He died in 1956. So I don't know if he held on long enough for the meaning of Boner to begin to change. Although I guess it would have been dismaying to him to know that the Boner was given greater life by some changing slang.

to know that the boner was given greater life by some changing slang oh boy i just you know i feel like people should be able to forget their unfortunate boners you know as long as they're not problematic like you should be able to live your life without having your worst boner put in front of you over and over again. This was like a totally normal episode. It was, yeah. And then... It's not the first time that a boner has run us off the rails. Yeah, if you search Twitter with my Twitter handle and boner, it's all in reference to our podcast, Ben.

I mean, I think that they're probably well at some point i deleted all my old tweets so the story of my mom you know anyway it's just uh i just yeah yeah we could just end with the problematic boner. That's a good place to leave it. Yeah, well, we want to leave problematic boners in the past too. Anyway, have a good weekend, everyone. You too. Bye. Well, quite a Friday news dump after we finished recording.

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for the Tigers, Tarek Skubal, a bright spot this season that we mentioned on our last episode, was transferred to the 60-day IL, and he's going to see an elbow surgeon specialist next week. Never a great sign, so he seems to be done for the season at least, as is the Astros' Michael Brantley, who is having season-ending shoulder surgery. But that was just the tip of the bad news iceberg on Friday afternoon slash evening. The worst news is that the Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr. was suspended for 80 games. Just when he was about to be back,

he had started his rehab assignment in AA last week. He was nearing a return. Of course, he's been out all season because of his motorcycle injury, fractured wrist. And now he's done for the rest of this season and maybe a month or so at the start of next season, depending on how deep the Padres go into the playoffs this year. Those games would count toward his suspension.

The Padres' statement said, We were surprised and extremely disappointed to learn today that Fernando Tatis Jr. tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in violation of Major League Baseball's Joint Prevention and Treatment Program and subsequently received an 80-game suspension without pay. We fully support the program and are hopeful that Fernando will learn from this experience. Fernando Tatis's statement says, I have been informed by MLB that a test sample I submitted returned a positive result for

Clostepol, a banned substance. It turns out that I inadvertently took a medication to treat ringworm that contained Clostepol. I should have used the resources available to me in order to ensure that no banned substances were in what I took. I failed to do so. I want to apologize to Peter, AJ, the entire Padres organization, my teammates, MLB, and fans everywhere for my mistake. I have no excuse for my error, and I would never do anything to cheat or disrespect this game I love. I have taken countless drug tests throughout my professional career, including on March 29th, 2022, all of which have returned negative results until this test.

I am completely devastated. There is nowhere else in the world I would rather be than on the field competing with my teammates. After initially appealing the suspension, I have realized that my mistake was the cause of this result, and for that reason, I have decided to start serving my suspension immediately. I look forward to rejoining my teammates on the field in 2023. So not only is he done for the regular season and the postseason this year, he is also ineligible for the World Baseball Classic next year. He is, I believe, eligible for the 2023 playoffs. But that is small consolation at the moment. This stinks.

It's an entirely lost, wasted year for Fernando Tatis, one of baseball's main characters, one of its most compelling protagonists, entirely absent from the script this season. The Padres seem to be pretty frustrated. A.J. Preller said, that's his story in response to Tatis' statement. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it yet, but ultimately that's his explanation. I think the biggest thing is there is a drug policy in place. He failed the drug screen and ultimately he's suspended and he can't play.

That's the biggest thing. It's the player's responsibility to make sure he's in compliance. He wasn't. It's very disappointing. He's somebody that from the organization standpoint we've invested time and money into. When he's on the field, he's a difference maker. You have to learn from the situations. I think we're hoping that from the offseason to now that there would be more maturity.

And obviously with the news today, it's more of a pattern and something we've got to dig a little bit more into. I'm sure he's very disappointed, but at the end of the day it's one thing to say it. You have to start by showing it with your actions. We'll start digging into the shoulder and wrist. We'll look a little bit more into that now because we'll have some more time to have some conversations there. I think what we need to get to is a point in time where we trust. Over the course of the last six or seven months, I think that's been something that we haven't really been able to have there. From our standpoint, obviously, he's a great talent.

He's a guy we have a lot of history with and do believe in. But these things only work when there's trust both ways. I think that's going to be something that we're going to have plenty of conversation and time to talk to Fernando about. That's something that clearly, if we're going to have a partnership and a real partnership, we're going to have to make sure that's strong. And it's been one thing after another, going back to the injury he suffered at the end of the 2019 season, his rookie year.

Then, of course, we had the shortened 2020 season. Then he had various shoulder-related absences last year. And then the motorcycle injury. And now the suspension. So things have not gone great since the extension he signed with the Padres last season, and we haven't really gotten to see a full, healthy, unimpeded season for Tatis. We've just had to extrapolate from his extremely impressive partial season performances. And it stinks because there's a stigma associated with PED use,

obviously. The PED he took here, Clostobol, it is an anabolic steroid, although one of the weaker ones as I understand it. D. Strange Gordon in 2016 and Freddy Galvis in 2012 also failed tests because of this substance. Points for novelty, at least, the old ringworm defense. How many times have we heard that one? Not many times that I can recall. As for whether it holds water, some people have been sharing a CDC site link to a page that says steroid creams can make ringworm worse, suggesting that not only did he fail a test here, but maybe he made his ringworm worse. Well, I believe that's a different type of steroid. That is a corticosteroid that would be used to treat ringworm. That's an anti-inflammatory. This is an anabolic. And I think what you would want for ringworm is antifungal.

It's certainly possible that other things can be contaminated with banned substances. How plausible it is that that kind of cream would have this sort of substance, I do not know. I am not a doctor. I am not a dermatologist. I am not a chemist. One source of confusion, I think, is that this is Clostobol. There's also a substance called Clobetasol. So if you go to the Wikipedia page for Clobetasol, it says not to be confused with Clostobol. Clobetasol is used to treat some skin conditions, at least, such as eczema and psoriasis. So I think despite Wikipedia saying that it's not to be confused with Clostopal, I think some people are confusing it with Clostopal. I don't know whether Fernando Tatis Jr. is in his explanation here. Obviously, some people will think the worst.

Now, this is not HGH. I don't think it's something that you would necessarily use for injury recovery. I don't think it would help your bones heal. If anything, just the opposite. Though it is derived from testosterone, it is anabolic. In theory, it could be used to build back muscle mass that was lost during a long absence from the field. So who knows? We can't know. We'll never know unless there's some sort of subsequent reporting. Sometimes these suspensions really stick to players and taint their careers. Sometimes not. Sometimes they're able to put it behind them, continue to pass drug tests, continue to play well. And obviously, I hope that that will be the case for Fernando Tatis Jr., because who does not enjoy seeing him play? It just stinks that it's going to be a while until that happens. We all had visions dancing in our heads of Juan Soto and Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis in the same lineup after the big

trades that were made about 10 days ago and now not happening. So you can't be thrilled if you're the Padres and you just traded a bunch of prospects to really go for it and now you will not have Fernando Tatis. On the other hand, I guess now that they don't have Tatis, they may be even happier to have made the deals that they did. I know you have Hasan Kim playing pretty well. You have Trent Grisham not playing so well. It's hard to say whether Fernando Tatis would have been back to full strength and playing at an MVP level, coming back off of the wrist injury this season. But it probably would have been a big boost, and now they're not going to get it.

So here's hoping he can put this and the other issues behind him, stay on the field, silence the doubters, entertain us all. The man has played at roughly a 7.5 war per 150 game pace in his early 20s, in his first exposure to the big leagues. We just haven't seen him have a 150 game season. And not only will that not happen this year, it doesn't seem like it could happen next year either. But here's hoping it does happen eventually, and repeatedly. Remember, he doesn't turn 24 until could happen next year either. But here's hoping it does happen eventually. And repeatedly. Remember, he doesn't turn 24 until January. So if he goes on to play for 15 more years, perhaps this will feel like a footnote.

But he has a lot of work to do to get to that point. Wish we could have ended by joking about boners. But this happened. And here we are. 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 yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, get themselves access to some perks, and help us stay ad-free. Evan A., Mohamed Khan, Chun-Yong Kuo, Alexandra Romanoff, and Anthony Campisi. Thanks to all of you.

You can contact me and Meg via email at podcastandfangraphs.com, or you can message us through the Patreon site if you are a supporter, which you should consider being because our Patreon supporters get lots of great perks, including access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, monthly bonus episodes of the podcast, discounts on t-shirts, playoff live streams, and more. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can 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. We hope you have a nice weekend. If you're checking out a week of their own, we hope you have a happy binge, and we will be back to talk to you next week. But I know for certain goodbye is a crime So love if you need me, suspend me in time