Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1961: Hallternative Energy

Episode Date: January 28, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Orioles owner John Angelos reneging on his offer to show reporters the team’s financial information, the O’s acquiring Cole Irvin, the Astros hiring the Braves’ Dana Brown as their new GM, and the Twins trading for Michael A. Taylor to be Byron Buxton’s backup, plus more ways in […]

I saw you with your new love, you kissed her tenderly. I heard you tell your new love the same things you told me. Oh, someday you'll weep, or as you sow you'll reap, and broken promises will break your faithless heart. Hello and welcome to episode 1961 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hey, Ben, how are you? I'm doing well. I'm more well-rested than usual. Oh, I'm less well-rested than usual.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but yeah, I've actually gotten some sleep lately. Good. I'm on leave. As I've mentioned to you, I'm on parental leave. I didn't become a parent again, still a parent of the same kid, but we have the luxury of spreading out our parental leave a little. We have nice parental benefits because The Ringer is owned by Spotify and Spotify is in Sweden and Sweden gives people nice things. So we get to spread it out in chunks a little bit over the first few years of your kid's life, if you'd like to. So it took a couple months initially, as people will recall. I was missing from the pod for a month or so, and now I'm taking a little

more. So anyone who's wondering why I haven't written or podcasted at The Ringer in a couple of weeks and probably won't for the next few weeks. That's why, obviously still doing the podcast and still doing some writing on my own time, but it's been nice. It's been restful. Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I'm just quite pleased that that is true. I helped to shepherd a raise list across the finish line yesterday, so that's why I'm not well rested, but I am you know it's not like having a child but they are kind of like my children in a weird way not the rays themselves that's a weird boundary thing but the list the list of the lists yeah often a laborious birth i would imagine in some cases um yeah it has its moments you know where you're like wow are there are are there this

many guys but the answer ben is you know yeah there are so it mostly feels um well there are a couple of times of year when it feels the most satisfying you know like the top 100 going live when the last list is done but you know the place where i really feel the satisfaction of the depth of the effort that Eric brings is around the trade deadline. Yeah. When, you know, there will be lower level guys. Guys you and I have not heard of. I mean, I have heard of but have since forgotten because there are so many of them. And, you know, it's not that there's a report on every single one of them, but there are a report on a lot of them.

And I'm like, hey, that's so nice. Yeah. Eric ranked only 48 raised prospects this year. So 59 last year. So I guess the system must be thinning out. Yeah, relatively. But also only relatively to itself relative to the rest of the league still quite deep. It's sort of like clutch, you know, where it's self-referential. and its ownership and so forth on Martin Luther King Day of all days.

And John Angelos, he got a little bit huffy about it, and he berated Dan for questioning him at that time and at that place, despite the fact that Angelos rarely makes himself available at other times and places. And, of course, he had scheduled that event for that day and their finances. In fact, I'll play a quick little clip of him extending that offer. I'm very transparent. In fact, I would invite you and all your colleagues next week, not on Martin Luther King Day. You can come back to this building. You can meet me in this office. I'll take you down on the third floor, and I'll show you the financials of the Orioles. I'll show you the governance of the Orioles.

I'll show you everything you want to know, and I'll put all your questions. But today, on MLK Day, I'm not answering any of those questions. Well, Meg, as we speak, it's about to be the end of business hours on the last business day of the week when John Angelos promised that anyone could just show up at Oriole Park and get a look at the books. And I am just shocked, shocked to report to you that that has not happened, that the Orioles and Angelos have not followed through on that offer. I really, I just, I can't believe it. I feel like my world has shifted beneath me. Yeah. Like I am unsure how to proceed.

Yeah. Confused, staggered even. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when a team owner says something, you can take that to the bank. And especially when it's related to team finances. I mean, you can set your watch by that. Like, you can just have full faith that you are just getting the straight dope there and there's no dissembling of any kind going on. And so when this offer was made, really an unprecedented promise to just open the books, which other than a couple of teams that are legally required to do that to some extent. No one ever does. And here was John Angelos just volunteering, just off the cuff, just, hey, come on down. I'll tell you anything you want to know.

Anyway, it just really has shaken my faith as well that this has not happened. I mean, I expressed some skepticism last week when we initially talked about this, about whether this supposed meeting would occur. And still, I'm just really, I don't know who to trust anymore. Yeah. If you can't trust billionaires, who can you trust then? This is the most actively tired I've sounded on the pod in a while. That's my feeling right now.

Anyway, the Orioles have just sort of stonewalled media members' requests thus far to actually make good on this meeting. The Orioles have said that there's nothing to report, which is not surprising. There's usually nothing to report when it comes to team finances, but I don't know what possessed him to make that offer at the time this is my question like why not just why not just not do that so that you aren't in a position where you look like you're going not just look like are going back on your word you know you don't have to to do this yeah i wonder if he was just flustered or he figured no one would follow up i mean you had to assume someone would follow up why would dan connelly not follow up about that Or whether he just got a little high on his own supply and he was just, you know, he was rolling and that just, that came out all of a sudden. I really don't know

what was going through his mind, but maybe he just thought he would not be accountable for that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the rationale is there, but it feels ill-considered. And it's really a shame because, you know, we have gotten – guff is too strong. We have been the recipients of exasperation in the past, Ben, when fans of teams that feel like they're finally starting to really turn the corner, right, that are emerging from a long period of being irrelevant on the competitive landscape,

like in the yellow fallow period on the Carrie Matheson. Matheson? Is her last name actually Matheson or am I thinking of the baseball player? No, that's right. Like the yellow period on her board, the big paranoid board. And the feeling that you want to access most primarily when you're a fan in that situation is excitement. And we want to acknowledge that excitement because we think that's important. But we also have to talk about the game as it is and these owners

as they are. And I would just say to the Orioles ownership group, like, let us say nice stuff about your team, how about? You know, because this is a really exciting squad. It's exciting at the big league level. They have such great young players. They have some interesting complimentary guys. They have reinforcements on the way from the minor leagues that could really, you know, vault them into a new era of Orioles baseball. But instead we're talking about this.

So, you know, just stop it. Yeah, once the season rolls around, I'm sure we'll be spending plenty of time talking about the Orioles on the field too because there's a lot to be excited about that team and that roster, as you're saying. And they really turned a corner last year. Yeah.

And hopefully they can stay around that corner this year and be even more exciting. But yeah, there's still questions about the level of investment in that roster because it's pretty inexpensive right now. And they've got a great crop of prospects here. And they've certainly had a long, more than yellow fallow period. It's been dark red times in Baltimore for years now, but they've come out of it with seemingly the foundation of a great competitive team, even in a tough division. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the Euros can do. But I think the Angelus ownership stewardship of the franchise is not one of the reasons to be excited. You can be excited in spite of that, I think, but that in itself is

not necessarily a reason. So you just have to hope that they will surround this current core that they've developed with some other supplementary players at some point as needed. Yeah, there's more work to be done here. And it would be nice if we could approach a time when we're like, and now they are setting about their work, you know, and have it be about that. And I don't say that like we will neglect talking about, you know, when the team doesn't do the stuff that they're supposed to. We're going to have to engage with that stuff too. But it's nice to be able to offer a balance to these things

because ultimately the reason we're here is because we like the play on the field and they have such exciting players. We don't want to do a disservice to their exciting young guys. Like they, you know, should get their shine. So yeah, I think Orioles fans could be excited about the players and also miffed at ownership at the same time. They did acquire Cole Irvin. So how about that?

How about that? Orioles fever, Cole Irvin. Catch the fever. It's something. How about that? I mean, if you're arbitration eligible, like you don't even have to be on the verge of free agency or anything. It's like if you're in your Arbiers, you're out of there. Like they're just cleaning house to an extent that even previous house cleanings have not cleaned quite so thoroughly. Yeah, they're like they're doing the kind of house cleaning I do after. Well, after opening day when it's like, well, I've been helping to prep opening day stuff and the house is disgusting.

Also, did you know that they managed to get another Kyle in their trade? Yeah, right. Yet another Kyle. Verbitsky. Verbitsky, yeah. They have a lot of, there are some Kyles on that roster, you know. They have a number of Kyles floating around. It's a Kyle-rich environment.

Yeah. So a couple other developments. The Astros have a GM. How about that? Yeah, how about that? That hasn't been the case for a few months, right? So after Astros owner Jim Crane essentially ran James Click out of town on the heels of winning a World Series. There was just a vacancy.

And Crane seemed to be operating on his own and with some input from Jeff Bagwell, a trusted advisor and assistant GM, Bill Furcus. Well, now they have hired an honest-to-goodness general manager, Dana Brown. So Dana Brown comes from Atlanta. And I think the interesting thing about this, I guess there are a couple interesting things. So first of all, good to have a GM, you know, probably better to have one than not have one. The Astros weren't super active this winter, and they probably wouldn't have been even if they had had a GM. But teams have generally decided that it's a good thing. It's beneficial to have someone who is actually making your decisions in the baseball operations department and is appointed to do that. And now they have that person. Dana Brown is, I believe with the Marlins and has been with MLB and also was in the running for this Astros job. But Dana Brown has been around. He's been with a few different teams. He's accomplished. He's seen as a proficient talent evaluator. I think the interesting thing, though, is that he's a scouty type, right? I mean, to the extent that it makes sense to draw these distinctions anymore and

classify people as more on the scout side of the spectrum or the statistical side of the spectrum. And it's long become a cliche to say that everyone does both and considers both. And we know all that so stipulated. But he has had very scouting specific appointments. He was the vice president of scouting for the Braves, where he oversaw a bunch of drafts that yielded excellent players, Michael Harris and Spencer Strider and Von Grissom and Shaitlank Lears with the A's now and on and on. And he's been one of the co-workers and right-hand men of Alex Anthopoulos now at a few different stops because before he was with the Braves, he was with the Blue Jays as a special assistant to the GM when Anthopoulos was there. And then prior to that, he was the director of scouting for the Expos, right? I think when they

were the Expos and then when they became the Nationals too. And so he set a long relationship with Anthopolis. I guess he hired Anthopolis initially with the Expos. And really, that's a bit of a philosophical change for the Astros probably, right? To go from the extreme of Jeff Lunau and then Ray's executive, James Click, to someone who is known as a scout in that kind of talent evaluator. So I don't know how much that reflects a shift in philosophy for the front office as a whole or not. But it's definitely a different side of the spectrum, I would say. Yeah, it's going to be it'll be interesting to see both how it I mean, obviously, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. It'll be interesting to see both how it, I mean, obviously it'll be interesting to see how it plays out, but it's also interesting to think about how obvious any changes are going to be to us from the

outside, right? Because the leadership is different and presumably he will bring in some of his own folks and was hired with a particular philosophy and direction for the team in mind. But a lot of the existing personnel and infrastructure is the same, right? It's not like they've had this huge house cleaning at the mid or lower levels of the organization. So I do wonder how much of a difference it's going to end up making and what are going to be our little signals like, oh, they're doing this thing a little bit differently than they used to. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. and then uh clicks a number two left at the same time right and then movement at the upper levels for yes right yeah patilla left and went to the giants right and and so there was some degree of house cleaning just after the sign stealing scandal

and click coming in and then a little bit when click left and evidently click and crane clashed and that's hard to say i was really i'm impressed that i pulled that off you crushed it i had to think about it i had to slow my pace for a second to make it come out okay but yeah there's been i think a bit of a shift in that you had jeff bagwell sort of spouting off late last year about the direction of the team. And I think, you know, some of his comments were reasonable and maybe even got taken out of context a little bit. I think the headline grabbing aggregated kind of comment was that he was saying that he thought the Astros had gone too far in the analytics direction. And he had some quotes about how, you know, sort of cliches about how players are people and they're not numbers and all that, which can at times be sort

of like an old school, like, I don't like numbers type of perspective, but also there's truth to it. And in fact, I think there's probably a lot of truth to the idea that the Astros under Lunal at least maybe did go too far in the direction of not treating people like people or, you know, not considering soft factors and so forth. Right. Which is why there was a lot of discontent in that front office. So I thought that some things Bagwell said, you know, while kind of cliched, probably some truth to it and maybe even a necessary corrective for that franchise. And he even acknowledged that on the pitching side in particular, there's been a lot of benefit to analytics. And he shouted out, you know, spin rate and teaching people pitches and all the things about pitching that they've learned he said had some value. But when you had Click being driven out basically by sort of an unserious offer to an executive whose team had just won the World Series, and then you had Jeff Bagwell riding in from the 90s, you know, sort of saying, well, we've gone too far in the stats direction. And then you hire Dana Brown. And I should say he goes back even further than the resume I listed because he started as a scout and a cross checker for the Pirates, I guess, in the 90s. So

he's been doing this a long time, even pre-Moneyball days. So I don't know whether that suggests that Crane thought, yeah, we need to make some kind of course correction here. Because the curious thing is that they've been extraordinarily successful yeah like even post sign stealing days i mean they just won a world series yeah and they just they are the most recent team they are the reigning they are the reigning champions yes they are and yet they've uh made sort of a shift here which, which is weird because usually it's like, don't mess with success. Obviously, this is working well for us, but it seems like some combination of Crane just meddling a bit and there was even reporting about maybe Dusty Baker won't come back, which is weird given all that we've been talking about here about treating people like people and how good Dusty Baker seemingly is at that. But it's not typically the time to pivot when you're riding high and you're winning tons of games and you're getting to the ALCS every year or winning the World Series a lot of the time.

Yeah. It's a real mixed bag. It's like, how do you assess... If we assume that this is meant to be a move towards something that is more like a more humanistic approach to running the organization which you know it also might be a more meddlesome on the part of the owner approach to running the organization we've seen evidence of that this off season too it's like can you take you know if we look at how the folks who just won a world series left the organization and think like some of that feels like it wasn't maybe the best like to give that GM an unserious offer and and have him walk out the door but then you're doing that maybe to turn to something that is a little more focused on

people I don't know it's a weird it's a really weird mix I don't know if It's a weird, it's a really weird mix. I don't know if I know what I think of them yet. You know, there have been times, you'll be shocked to discover, where I have felt like I have a really good handle on sort of the vibe of the Astros organization. I don't the departed people are maintained and whether they want to maintain them or whether they actually want to go in a different direction. And I don't mean to suggest that Dana Brown isn't fully conversant with all the new ways of evaluating players because I'm sure he is. I mean, it's a continuing education to be a baseball executive. And the Braves, as much as they value the scouting side of things. I mean, they have tons of stat people too, including former Astros stat people, you know, Mike Fast and Colin Wires are with Atlanta. So it's not an either or, obviously. Right. Yes. And I certainly don't want to imply that there's some deficiency on Brown's part in terms of his handle on that stuff. I

imagine that it's quite good, you know, so. Right. Yeah. And it's the kind of profile that probably should be hired more often. And it seems like so often it's kind of your cookie cutter, 30 something, you know, person coming from finance or some kind of quantitative field. And very often it's a white guy. And this is a different demographically speaking. I mean, race wise, age wise, background wise. So there should be all those kinds of diversity when it comes to running baseball teams, ideally. And when you can combine the sort of on the ground experience of having been a baseball person for a long time with, you know, at the very least an appreciation of and handle on the analytics side, I think that that's a really potent combination. So yeah. Too many Ivy Leaguers.

I don't know if that's true. Ivy Leaguers, they have qualifications too, but it seems like the GMs, they get pulled from the same few schools. Yeah, they're not wanting for representation, Ben. I think it's fine for us to note that. They're doing fine. It's like if you say, maybe one less, they're not going to suddenly go to have a small. Anyway, there are a lot of them.

That's the point I'm trying to make. Yes. Yeah. Dana Brown went to Seton Hall and he played baseball there and he was actually drafted as a player and played some minor league ball, too. So you have fewer and fewer executives at the top level who who played baseball professionally, too. So, yeah, a throwback in certain respects. All right. Just a couple other things. We did not mention a trade that was made earlier this week, Michael A. Taylor to the Twins. And I just wanted to point that out because it's notable, I think, that the Twins now, they have Byron Buxton and then they have Byron Buxton at home, basically. A. Taylor is anything comparable to Byron Buxton offensively, but defensively, he is among the closest comps, right, in that they are both elite center fielders. And it's been fairly rare, I think, that the Twins have had a backup for Buxton whose glove rivaled Buxton's or even came close.

And in Michael A. Taylor, they now, I mean, if you sort defensive runs saved centerfielders since 2015, which is Buxton's first season and Taylor's, I think, first full season. And there may be some qualifying issues here with you just look at centerfield. It's not necessarily always while you're playing centerfield. It's like when you were a primary centerfielder or something. But just looking over that span on the Fangrass defensive run saved leaderboard, Byron Buxton and Michael A. Taylor are third and fourth over that span in defensive run saved for primary centerfielders. So you have now to back up Buxton, you have basically the closest comp. And Taylor, his defensive skills have been quite resilient, even though he's going to be 32 in March. And as we've said, center field tends to be a young man's game. But this is pretty important because I don't know if you know this, but Byron Buxton, not exactly an Ironman. You know, you can't always count on putting his name into the lineup there. not exactly an iron man, you know, you can't always count on putting his name into the lineup there. And in fact, since 2015, I believe he has played fewer than half of the Twins' total innings

among centerfielders or primary centerfielders. And I note that over that span, he has 68 defensive runs saved, but the Twins' centerfielders credited on this list as centerfielders collectively have 57. So the non-Byron Buxton Twins centerfielders have been significantly below average defensively as a group. And now, maybe for the first time, you have someone you can pencil in there if Buxton can't go, who is really going to give you almost what Buxton gives you on one side of the ball. So that's pretty important. Like, obviously, you hope that Buxton will just play and will not get hurt and will stay healthy. And that would be ideal. But we've talked before about that stat that always makes the rounds about the Twins' record in games with and without Buxton or when Buxton

is starting or not starting. And I think part of that is that there's an offensive downgrade when he isn't in the lineup. But a big part of it too is that there's a big defensive downgrade too. So if you can get Michael A. Taylor out there when Buxton is unable to play, then that's pretty big. It's like an unsung acquisition, I think. So I'm singing it now because we didn't sing it when it actually happened. Yeah. I like this strategy that teams are employing where they're like, what if all of the outfielders were just centerfielders, though? Sure.

Like, what if, you know, what if we made the whole plane out of centerfielders? So I like it. I think it's good. You know? Yeah. It cost them a couple of prospects, Evan Sisk and Steven Cruz. Yeah, it cost them a couple of prospects, Evan Sisk and Steven Cruz. And, you know, like he's coming off his second best offensive season, Taylor is, and it was still a below average bat. Like he's not a very good hitter usually, but that's okay. If he's just a good defensive sub and backup, then I think that's a big deal. If you're a team with Byron Buxton, who everyone's just sort of waiting to have him have that full healthy season where he's an MVP caliber player, because he often is when he's on the field. But when you know that you have a player who is not always available, then it's extra important to have a quality backup,

at least defensively speaking, at a premium position. So I think they have filled that slot better than they have in the past, perhaps. Yeah, agreed. All right. And just a couple of follow-ups on our topic du jour of the ways that baseball is different from other sports. So last time we talked about one way that was submitted by a listener, which is that baseball has a song that is just about baseball and everyone sings it at an appointed time at every game. And there's a seventh inning stretch and then you get take me out to the ballgame. And we talked about how other sports, they have fight songs and team

specific songs, but not so much just a general, hey, how about this sport sort of song that everyone sings. And we got some emails from hockey fans who pointed out that there is kind of a close equivalent in hockey. It's the hockey song by Canadian stomping Tom Connors. So the hockey song, which I'll play a little clip of the hockey song. So this is a song that was originally recorded or released in the 70s, 50 years ago on the album Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song. They began to play this game before Ottawa Senators games in 1992. And then the coach of the Maple Leafs at the time, Pat Burns, he had it be played at Toronto games too. And so now it's played commonly all over the place, in the US, in Canada, in the NHL, in European hockey, et cetera. I think it's different in that there isn't always an exact set time that you play it. There are times that some teams play it, but it's not like, okay, this period is over. And so it's time for the hockey song and everyone knows.

And it's not played everywhere, but this is a fairly close equivalent this is like michael a taylor is to byron buxton as the hockey song is to take me out to the ball game so it sort of exists i feel embarrassed that we didn't know ben yeah i don't remember you know i have been to a grand total of two nhl games in my life, and I didn't hear the hockey song at those. Yeah. No, it's not ubiquitous, and I've been to hockey games, but probably at the time when I was going to them mostly, like when the Rangers were good when I was a kid, the hockey song was not being played at that time in most places. But I want to recognize the hockey song belatedly. And new nominations,

just a couple today. So here's one from Aaron, Patreon supporter, who says, thinking about another way baseball is different from other sports. This is tied to the fact that there's no clock in baseball, which we have previously discussed, but compared to other team sports, baseball is unique in its use of timeouts, both in number and duration. Basically, there is no limit and no set duration. This has changed somewhat recently with the limit of mound visits and with the upcoming pitch clock rules, the pitcher stepping off the mound to reset or the batter being much less likely to call time if a pitcher is taking too long with the pitch clock now in place. But otherwise, umpires raise both their arms to signify a timeout has been granted all the time. Base runners call timeout all the time, particularly after sliding into a base.

And unlike, say, basketball, which limits the time given to each team during the timeout, there's no set time between an umpire granting a player time and when the plate umpire points to the pitcher to resume play. Even when a plate umpire points to the pitcher to resume play. Even when a plate umpire goes to the pitcher's mound to break up a mound visit, it is at the discretion of the umpire when to do that. There are no buzzers or horns from the press box to signify the timeout is over. So I think that's a pretty good point. It's definitely conforming more closely to other sports over time with some of these rules changes. But certainly historically speaking, that is true. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a good one. Yeah. There are limits now, not just on the number of man visits, but also on the time

that they're supposed to take. So yeah, there's no buzzer from the press box. But in theory, at least I think as of 2016, it's not supposed to exceed 30 seconds on a mound visit. And then you have a certain number of mound visits. And, of course, there was always the regulation or for a long time the regulation about how you can only make one mound visit in an inning before removing the pitcher. So there have been some limitations, but especially the even less formal types of timeouts where it's just like I want to step out of the box for a second or I want to adjust my jockstrap or I want to get some rosin on my hands or whatever it is. Like, it's very kind of casual. It's just like, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, you want a timeout?

Here, take a little timeout. sort of winding down and they really ought to return to play, it takes the form of like, don't you want to be done now? I'm going to amble out here and linger in the periphery of your little group hang. And then at some point it might be like, all right, all right, let's get back to it. Yeah. So just as baseball is maybe the most profligate sport when it comes to using equipment and equipment turnover and the ball, replacing the ball so often, sort of the same with handing out timeouts. It's true. And I guess that does go hand in hand with the lack of a clock, because if there is no big countdown clock, then there's less pressure to say, no, you can to award the timeout when there's a mandate from the commissioner's office to speed things up, for instance. But often it's just kind of it's based on feel.

And sure, you merit a timeout right now. Take your time. Take your time. And the other nomination that we have, this is from one of our listeners in France, Sebastian, who says, I don't think it has been mentioned so far in your new recurring bit, but one thing that strikes me as unique is the save stat. I fail to see any other example in sports

in which creating a statistic led to a complete change of in-game tactics, especially with it sometimes being counterproductive. Zach Britton says, Salute. Hitting for a cycle or the triple-double in basketball

are quite rare and seldom backfire anyway. So he's pointing not to the save stat specifically or what it represents, but just the fact that once the save stat was introduced and popularized, it really had a dramatic effect eventually on how players were used and how games were managed and how pitching staffs were constructed. And maybe those things would have happened eventually anyway, what with the realizations about max effort pitching and times through the order and everything. But the save stat did sort of prompt a save situation, right? I mean, you bring in certain pitchers at save situations and certain pitchers at other times, and that has been very rigid during some eras. So I don't know. I welcome

suggestions from you or anyone else of something that is equivalent to this in other sports. Oh, gosh. I don't know, Ben. I don't know. I look forward to the emails giving us an obvious example, though. Right. Yeah. There are certainly times when there have been rules changes. I mean, like, there didn't used to be three-pointers, right? Right.

So now there are three-pointers, and now shooting three-pointers is all the rage, right? But that, well, it took a long time to introduce, and that's, I don't know if that's exactly the same, because that's a way you can score. I mean, that's sort of a fundamental difference in the sport, whereas a save didn't actually change anything about how the game was played, really. You could award saves retroactively or retrospectively to people who did not know a save existed because it didn't yet. And you can credit them with them if it fit the definition of a save. So it's not like the structure of the sport and the scoring rules change. It's just that we started crediting individual players with an accomplishment that previously

they had not been credited with. Right. So I'm sure there's something. I mean, I can think of rule changes, but they have like on-field, immediate on-field impact and do change the way that the game proceeds, right? to more advanced stats has led to different contributions being valued in different ways, like in football, people developing the idea that running backs are fungible, right? That kind of thing. So I guess you could say something like that, but- Right, but you don't go back in time and like, you know, era adjusts like run run yards, you know? Right. Yeah. And, hmm, I don't know that I have a perfect equivalent to this.

Yeah. But I didn't know there was a hockey song, so. Right, so. What do I know, Ben? What do I even know? Yeah, we're learning a lot during this segment. This is great. Yeah.

All right. Well, we welcome further submissions and suggestions. And lastly, I just we talked a little bit about Jeff Kent when we had Jay Jaffe on to discuss the Hall of Fame results last time. Just wanted to say a little more about Jeff Kent because Jeff Kent said a little more about Jeff Kent. Jeff Kent. And, you know, Jeff Kent, he's a little salty about how the voting went down and the fact that he was not elected and he's off the ballot now. And he got up to, what, 46.5% support and fell off. So he was well short of election, even though he had made some strides recently. And I can see why he's upset about this and why he feels like he might have deserved some support. Because, I mean, even Jay, I think, has written that when he saw Jeff Kent's Jaws score initially, he was surprised that Kent didn't come closer to the standard. And so I think if you feel like Jeff Kent is hall of famey, I think that's defensible. And as we said with Jay, there's a good chance, I think, that he'll get in via the error committee. And if he does, I won't raise a big stink relative to other candidates who have gotten in that way. I think he is more qualified than some, certainly.

Do you want to name them, Ben? I will refrain from naming them this time, but I've named some in the past. That's so diplomatic of you. He has this winning stat, like the one special stat that I think helps to get you in, which is most home runs by a second baseman. Right. And it's very specifically most home runs hit while playing second base. Right. So not most home runs hit by anyone who has ever played second base or spent

a significant amount. You have to sort of parse it specifically. But he has that. And when you hear that, you think, oh, well, how can you have the most home runs of any second baseman ever and not be in the hall? It's sort of persuasive to a lot of people. And I think he falls short, ultimately, of the statistical standards, at least, because, A, he played largely in a high offense era. So if you do do the era and park adjustments and everything, still a very good hitter, but perhaps not as elite as he might look otherwise. And then, of course, he's not given you a ton of ancillary value, right? Of course, he's not given you a ton of ancillary value, right? He's not given you a lot of value in the field or on the bases and, in fact, may have subtracted value in the field. Not that he that Joe Posnanski made in a recent edition of his newsletter is that people are sort of warping his case like you can construct a good on the level, you know, just intellectually honest, good faith case for Jeff Kent, but it gets distorted as it does for a lot of people sometimes, right? So John Marossi, for instance, called him the greatest power hitting second baseman ever.

And then others made even wackier claims, I think. Chris Carlin tweeted, might be the greatest offensive second baseman of all time and is certainly top three. Adam Schein tweeted that he's the best offensive second baseman ever. So people are extrapolating from most home runs hit as a second baseman to just best instance, or he's not a better offensive second baseman than Eddie Collins or Jackie Robinson or Joe Morgan or Nap Lajue or Bobby Gritch or even Robinson Cano or Jose Altuve, at least, there are a lot of guys who are just going by WRC Plus or era-adjusted isolated power or whatever metric you use would be well ahead of Jeff Kent. So having hit the most home runs by a second baseman, that's a nice perk. That's a good qualification. You can make a reasonable case there, but let's not take that too far and say that that means things that it doesn't mean. not take that too far and say that that means things that it doesn't mean. But, you know, he came out with some comments, Jeff Kent himself texting, I think, Susan Slusser, who wrote about this for the San Francisco Chronicle. And, you know, other people had alleged that maybe Jeff Kent didn't get more support because he was known as a prickly

personality. And so people were saying that voters potentially were withholding votes because he didn't make nice to the writers. And I doubt that that's a big factor here. You know, you can't rule out that there is not someone at some point who had a less than positive interaction with Jeff Canton decided to hold a grudge or even like just subconsciously, you know, he's a borderline guy. It could go either way. If I thought he was just a great dude and had great interactions with him, then maybe I'd be more inclined to throw him a vote than not. Like, yeah, maybe maybe that has happened. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that has happened. I think for the most part, voters are able to put those things aside when they vote, unless they're going full character clause, in which case they maybe consider them a whole lot. But I don't think that's the primary reason why he didn't get more support than he did. But he's not pleased. And here's what he said.

The voting over the years has been too much of a head-scratching embarrassment. I don't disagree with that. Baseball is losing a couple generations of great players that were the best in their era because a couple non-voting stat folks keep comparing those players to players already voted in from generations past and are influencing the votes. It's unfair to the best players in their own era and those already voted in, in my opinion. unfair to the best players in their own era, and those already voted in, in my opinion. Steroids clouded the whole system too, and with the reduction of eligibility years to clear the ballot deck, I got caught up in it all, I guess. So I don't know if he's alluding to anyone in particular there. I mean, it sounds like it's almost a Jay Jaffe Jaws reference, although Jay obviously is a voter now. But his complaint that players are being compared to players from previous eras, I mean, isn't that to some degree how it's always worked and how it should work? Right?

Like it's the Hall of Fame. It's an all eras thing. So you do sort of have some standards that are set by the group as a whole that it seems like you should be comparing players to past players too, I would think. Yeah, it's always a tricky thing because you want to... Like having the reaction of disappointment because you didn't make it into the hall, that feels... It's not like he had a bad career, right? He had a good career.

He maybe didn't have a whole fan-worthy career. I know that there, like you said, there are arguments to be made to counter that if one is inclined to make them. But how do you sit across the room from someone and be like, no, you're just not a Hall of Famer? And that doesn't mean that there aren't parts of the critique of the process that aren't valid

or that might need tweaking. We are big fans of tweaking the Hall of Fame process. But sometimes he's not a Hall of Fame fan. any other huge marks on his record. Like everyone talks about the falling off his truck and or, you know, claiming that he got hurt falling off his truck while washing it. And really, he was on his motorcycle. I mean, OK, but, you know, unless you're going to I guess you could you could count that if you want to take the character integrity clause very literally, I guess you could count that against it. But really, it pales in comparison to the other players on the ballot and their issues. Yeah, that doesn't feel like the way it is meant to be deployed, you know? No.

Yeah. Again, like I see he has a grudge. Like if, you know, he could look at Billy Wagner, who's getting more support and say, like, I was a more valuable player than Billy Wagner. I mean, we talked about relievers in the Hall of Fame last time. So maybe Billy Wagner was an even better reliever than Jeff Kent was a second baseman. But in terms of relative value, I'd take Jeff Kent any day. And even like Todd Helton, who's on the cusp of election now, Jeff Kent has a higher career

fan graphs were than Todd Helton for what it's worth. So like he's in the vicinity, right? And so I see why he is sort of upset, although he says he's moved on and he said, congrats, Scott Rowland. And I don't think he sent the text unsolicited. I'm sure he was asked for his reaction. So he's certainly entitled to share it. One thing I wanted to say about him, because one of the comments made, it seems like Rich Aurelia is often trotted out as his defensive character witness, like for his glove, for him as a fielder, because John Marossi tweeted, All-Star shortstop Rich Aurelia told me can't turn the double play as well as anyone he played beside.

So that kind of caught my eye. And Susan's article also has some defensive endorsements by Rich Aurelia, who's, you know, he played a fair amount. He was the double play partner of Kent and Rich Aurelia, Aaron Judge's favorite player growing up, which amuses me for some reason. I got curious about this contention by Aurelia that Jeff Kent was as good as any double play partner he played beside. And I asked Russell Carlton of Baseball Prospectus, friend of the show, just to run a little check on this because I was curious. So this is not a full stat blast. I don't think we need to play the song. It's a mini blast. It's not a full stat blast. I don't think we need to play the song. This is a mini blast. It's a contained blast.

It's a lower payload than usual. But Russell ran some numbers, which I will share. Oh, no. It's like a sparkler. Yeah, right. A stat sparkler. Yeah, a stat sparkler. I'm trying to think of a thing that doesn't sound like it needs the guy from the Hurt Locker.

Right. Yeah. I don't know. It's that fireworks, I guess. No one's going to get hurt here, potentially. So he was able to check on this. And the way he did it was he looked for the rates of double play completion, basically, because Aurelia was testifying to Kent's double play turning abilities specifically. And so he was able to look for times when Aurelia was on the field. So Aurelia was at shortstop, Kent was at second, and then there was a ground ball hit either to Aurelia or to the third baseman. And there was a potential double play. So it was a double play situation. And there was a ground ball hit to those people. And then it was thrown to Kent at second.

So Kent was the pivot person. And then he looked at the rate at which the double play was completed. So sometimes there would just be a force at second and there would be no out at first, but there was at least a fielder's choice. And then sometimes there would be the completed double play and they would turn the whole thing. So he looked at the rate of these opportunities where the double play was actually turned. And then he looked for situations where Aurelia was playing short and either Kent was the second baseman or someone else was the second baseman and just was able to compare basically to see whether the rate was higher with Kent at second base or other

second baseman at second base. And it basically backs up what Aurelia said here. Kent seems to have been perfectly competent, if not above average, at turning the double play. So controlling for all those things, when Aurelia was on the field, the double play happened 67.4% of the time with Kent and 63.1% of the time with some other second baseman. So there was an advantage in the Kent times. Now, I think there are a few complicating factors here. The first thing is that Kent was by far Aurelia's most common double play partner. So it's sort of a disproportionate percentage of the time. Like there's not as much without you as there is with you here. So that's part of it. Because really, you know, he didn't really play shortstop primarily after age 32 or so. And so much of his shortstop playing coincided with Kent being in San Francisco alongside him. And Kent was pretty durable and played a lot of second base.

So there's not that much of a without to compare to. So there's that caveat. And there's also the caveat, like Kent was the second baseman for like half of the opportunities, basically. And then the other caveat is that Aurelia's time without Kent was mostly very early and very late in his career. So it's possible that Aurelia was not at his best defensively during his without Kent times. And then the other thing is that J.T. Snow was the first baseman basically for the entire time that Aurelia was at short and Kent was at second. And Snow doesn't really have great modern defensive metrics, but he had a great reputation as a defensive first baseman and won a bunch of gold gloves. So, you know, the first baseman plays some part in turning the double play too. So the with Kent portion of the Aurelia career would also be with Snow a lot of the time. So some skewing,

confounding factors here. I don't actually know the precise distribution of credit among the defensive participants in a double play. Like recently, Russell determined that the breakdown of credit or responsibility when it comes to a runner being thrown at it first or beating it out is 92 to 8 in favor of the guy who fields and throws the ball and the first baseman is the 8. So what would it be on a double play? I don't know. I would guess that in descending order of responsibility, it would go from the feeder to the turner to the receiver. So the guy who gloves and feeds the ball and then the guy who gets the force at second and makes the pivot, and then the first baseman. But I don't know exactly how the credit for the feeder and turner would compare. The first baseman and pitcher and catcher also have to help hold

the runner at first so that you can force him at second. But as best as we can tell, Kent was perfectly fine at this and really as good as anyone else that Aurelia played with regularly. And so I think it's kind of true. It holds up. And the only other thing I'll say is that I asked Russell to check during those years when that trio was together, Aurelia, Kent, and Snow, for the Giants, which was 1997 to 2002. I asked him just to compare for those years, just to kind of control for the snow factor. And during those seasons, the success rate was 67.7% with Kent and 70% with other second basemen. So again, sort of small sample, it's only like 80 opportunities. And probably in some of those, Kent was the first baseman. But if you control and just limit it to that time, then it is true that other second basemen were a little bit more successful at turning the double play than Kent Like the more they play together, probably they learn each other's double play ways. Right. You know, like, you know, it's like you got to learn the dance steps, I guess.

So there's probably like an initial adjustment period before you can effectively tango together as double play partners with the right rhythm. So I don't know whether that's the case. It doesn't appear that Aurelia and Kent really got better over time. If anything, they seem to get less successful toward the end. But, you know, there's probably something to that. Anyway, I think it more or less holds up. I think Aurelia is justified in saying that Kent was as good as anyone he played with in terms of double play. Although probably Aurelia just like didn't have the best defensive second baseman during his career. So, you know,

I don't know that he's comparing it to elite gloves there because Russell said that since 1990, just looking at all second baseman, minimum 100 chances, Kent is 97th out of 211 in terms of uh double play turning success rate so he's you know kind of middle of the pack or yeah closer to the bottom than the top but he's fine he was fine he was fine you know it's like you say one thing and then a couple nerds on a podcast sit there and dissect it yeah 15 minutes wonder how it feels ben you know how does it feel great yeah no i don't know i mean maybe it's susan slesser to complain about the non-voting uh people who are who are ragging on you but maybe it's but maybe it's fine because maybe you don't even listen to the pod you know probably not yeah and and even the stats actually like total zone

baseball references pre-drs defensive metric has him during his peak years with the Giants at plus 16 overall at second base. So his big negative seasons were early in his career and late when he was like, you know, late 30s or 40s. So I think during his prime, like he was a perfectly cromulent defensive second baseman. And obviously, he was one of the better hitters at that position all time. So again, it's a reasonable Hall of Fame case. He was not like a total clunker out there. You weren't a total clunker. It's fine.

Oh, man. I come here not to bury Jeff Kent, but not even to praise him either, but just to say he was pretty okay. He was pretty okay, you know? Pretty okay at playing second base. So if he ends up in the Hall of Fame, that is fine. is fine. But really, it was Jeff Kent and Aurelia, there were like 304 opportunities with Aurelia on the field and Kent, and no one else has more than 40, which is like Ramon Martinez, or 46, I guess, Ray Durham. So he just didn't really have any other regular partners, at least at the major league level. So it's kind of faint praise, I guess, when he's saying no one was better than Jeff Kent because he didn't have that many other double play partners and they weren't

for the most part, really elite defensive second baseman. But it is still technically true. Technically true. Mm hmm. All right. And I guess we can do a pass blast now before we get to our guest. We have a guest. I haven't mentioned that, but we do.

But this is the inaugural pass blast provided by new pass blaster and perhaps final pass blaster, we will see, who will bring us up to the present day, David Lewis. So David, Jacob Pomeranke, previous pass blaster, gave us a little summary of David last time, but David would like to be credited as an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. That sort of sums it up in one line. But he's also interned for Sabre and interned for the Hall of Fame and is a big history buff in general. So here is his first submission. And he headlines it, Frick pitches the spitball. So 1961, 40 years after outlawing the spitball and 50 years prior to banning spider attack,

Major League Baseball briefly considered reinstating the spitball as a legal pitch. In 1961, Roger Marris hit a record 61 home runs while his Yankees set the single season team record with 240 homers. Following the season, Commissioner Ford C. Frick supported a proposal to reduce the frequency of the long ball. In a New York Times article published on November 7th, 1961, Frick suggests that the spitball would bring an element of surprise back to baseball while lowering home run totals. Frick continued, quote, The most effective spitball is the one that the pitcher doesn't throw. The glove in front of the face routine that a pitcher goes through preparatory to throwing a spitball is just part of the psychology of throwing the batter off stride. More often than not, in the old days, the pitcher never

threw the spitter. And David continues, later that year at baseball's annual winter meetings, the proposal to legalize the spitball was introduced to the rules committee by White And David continues, So that's interesting to me. This may have come up in a previous podcast, but it's interesting to me just because we're always such prisoners of the moment and the offensive environment. It seems we're always so reactionary. Like if a lot of homers are being hit, if there's a lot of offense, it's like, oh boy, what can we do? Should we bring back the spitball? If pitchers are too dominant, let's ban the spitball. It's always just sort of swinging wildly from one pole to another. And we never exactly decide what we want baseball to look like in any kind of formal way when it comes to the offensive environment.

So it's always sort of ad hoc. It's like, oh, we got to make an adjustment here. We got to put our thumb on the scale. Let's unban this thing we previously banned or let's ban this thing anew. And we'll just sort of somehow try to find an equilibrium here. So it's funny because, you know, it's like the spitball is perfectly fine at some times and then like the pitchers get too good or it gets dangerous or whatever. And it's like, oh, we got to ban this thing. And then the hitters have the upper hand. We got to bring back the spitball. And then right after that, of course, there was the pitchers, year of the pitcher era after they changed the strike zone and some other things.

And then it's like, oh, well, we got to change the strike zone back and we got to lower the mound. And then we get to the 2020s and it's like, oh, too much sticky stuff and the pitchers are too good. Let's ban all sorts of sticky stuff, let alone the spitball. So it's always just kind of wildly pinging back and forth, it seems like. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I don't know if there's like a more, I don't know, rigorous way that we should do this. Like we should all just decide this is the ideal way. This is what we want the sport to look like.

We'll all vote. We'll all have a say. And then we will sort of scientifically, you know, lab league and all the rest, and we'll figure out how to bring things into line with the specifications that we have decided on. I mean, I guess they're trying to do that now. But again, who knows? Offense is up, and then it's like, oh, we need to bring back the shifts. I would not be surprised if that happens at some point in the future. All right. Well, If that happens at some point in the future. Yeah. All right.

Well, you can enjoy David's pass blast stylings for the next 60 plus episodes. So 70, who knows? We'll see. And I will link to the various places that you can find him on Twitter and his website and so forth. He's on Twitter at DGarfLewis. And also he has a sub stack where he writes about baseball history, ballparks.substack.com. All right. So we've got a guest and our guest is somewhat Hall of Fame related, but very importantly different from the Hall of Fame too.

So I've mentioned on previous episodes that there are alternatives to the Hall of Fame. There are alternatives, if you will. Will you? I don't know. Some people probably will. And some of them are very statistically based and are just sort of explicitly, you know, when people say about the Hall, it's not the Hall of Stats. Well, there is a Hall of Stats, right? Hallofstats.com, which we've talked to the founder, Adam Durowski, about.

And there are things like the Hall of Merit at Baseball Think Factory, you know, sort stats, right? Hallofstats.com, which we've talked to the founder Adam Durowski about. And there are things like the Hall of Merit at Baseball Think Factory, you know, sort of more objective, statistically based ways of having a Hall of Fame and recognizing baseball greatness. Because the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, it's kind of tough to pin it down, right? Like, is it the best baseball players? And how do you define who's the best? And that changes over time. And history is messy. And if it were just tracking different eras and what people thought about who is the best baseball player in that era, that would be OK. But it's also inconsistent in other ways because there's all this cronyism and there are multiple methods and ways you can get in.

And then some people will say, well, it's the Hall of Fame. And so fame is an important criterion well, it's the Hall of Fame. And so fame is an important criterion, but it's not really. I mean, it's not explicitly like the voting instructions don't say just put in the most famous people. Right. And so it's inconsistent and it can be sort of squishy and frustrating at times. And so I like these alternatives that are very clear about what their missions are. Either we're putting in the guys with the best stats or we're not. We're going to put in the guys who are famous or legendary in some way and are folk heroes, whether or not they had the best stats. And I think prime among those is the baseball reliquary, which is one of the only alternatives with an actual physical presence like the museum in Cooperstown.

And the baseball reliquary lists these criteria for election to the Shrine of the Eternals. First, the distinctiveness of play, either good or bad, the uniqueness of character and personality. So that's kind of like the character clause, except it's not good character. It's just the uniqueness of character personality. And finally, the imprint that the individual has made upon the baseball landscape. So that's all fairly subjective, but I think it allows room for people who don't fit into the formal Hall of Fame rubric and yet are still extremely important to baseball history. And a lot of those are in the Shrine of the Eternals. So that's been around since the late 90s. And we're going to talk to the current steward of the baseball reliquary and the Shrine of

the Eternals, Professor Joe Price, who will also talk to us about his scholarship with baseball and religion and his prolific career as a national anthem singer and the Institute for Baseball Studies that he has set up at Whittier College and much more fun conversation coming right up. All right, we are back and we're welcoming our guest, Joe Price. Sometimes we say that a guest needs no introduction, but Joe needs an introduction, not because he's not well-known, but because he's just done so darn many things and still does that we have to lay them all out there. Joe is a professor emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies at Whittier College. He's the author of several books about religion or baseball or religion and baseball. He's an accomplished national anthem singer at baseball games, which he wrote about in one of his books. He's the co-director of the Institute for Baseball Studies, a name that I love, at Whittier, and most relevant of all to our conversation today. He's also the current

caretaker of the baseball reliquary. Joe, hello. Hello. It's good to be with you. Good to have you. So there's any number of places we could start given that long list of credentials there. But I guess we can begin with the Reliquary just to sort of set the scene. Could you describe what it is, what its mission is, and how you came to be involved with it and with its late founder and your friend, Terry Cannon? Yes. The simplest answer to what it is, is it's the Fans Baseball Hall of Fame. That's a phrase that Jim Bouton used once he was inducted in one of the earliest

classes of inductees. On the celebration of the 40th anniversary of his publication of Ball Four, he made a presentation for the baseball reliquary that I attended. Before that time, I had not known of the reliquary, but I fell in love with its less than serious take on life by being very serious about baseball. Terry Cannon was a genius in terms of being able to foresee how the stories about baseball and basically the events are more important than the statistics. what baseball players have exercised the greatest influence on fans' lives, on American culture. And so he founded the Baseball Reliquary as a way to enhance the storytelling of the oddities, eccentrics, the story makers of baseball. So, some of the inductees into the Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals are indeed also recognized in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But for the most part, the inductees to the Shrine of the Eternals, which is the hallmark event for the Reliquary, which is the hallmark event for the reliquary. Most of the inductees are persons whose names might not be most familiar to even well-informed fans. For instance, Nancy Faust, the organist

for the Chicago White Sox, who invented baseball walk-up music or music played during the game that reflects on what's happening in the game itself. Dr. Frank Jobe, who invented the Tommy John surgery, is an inductee into the Shrine of the Eternals. The San Diego Chicken, The San Diego Chicken, Ted Giannoukoulos, is inducted. So it's not necessarily who has excelled on the field as much as who has stories to tell about why baseball is important in their lives and how it has influenced fans and American culture in general. And in the process of doing that, it has anticipated some of the figures that the Hall of Fame would either eventually recognize with induction or would have strong debates around and perhaps see that they had made a mistake by not inducting them. They're, you know, Marvin Miller and a number of New York League players are in there. So I'm curious, how is the slate assembled? How do you think about who sort of

rises to the level of occupying that space in baseball culture that you then present to your members? Oh, various members propose possible nominees for the ballot each year. The ballot for the Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals has 50 names and brief biographies about each of the nominees, all members, all active members of the Reliquary can vote for 10 of the candidates. Each year, the top three vote-getters are inducted into the Shrine of the Eternals. That means that someone with 24% of the vote is likely to get in, in part because the number of candidates is so large, and in part because the distribution of votes then measures out in that way. Unlike the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where, of course, three-fourths of all votes must include a candidate in order for induction to take place, ours is the top three vote getters. And that means that each year there is a full class elected. And each year they are honored in the shrine induction ceremony. Yeah, I wanted to ask about that number three,

because the nice thing about this is that you never have a year where no one gets in. I mean, as long as everything is operating, there are going to be three members, but there are not going to be more than three members, right? It's like the Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the number of the counting shall be three, right? Always three. And I wondered what the thinking was there on Terry's part, and now that you're continuing it and its legacy,

because, of course, the Reliquary came about in 1999, that's 60 years after the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. And when the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown came about, I think there were five players in the initial class, and then they let a whole bunch of other people in even before those five were inducted, I believe. So they were sort of making up for lost time. And of course, there's been a lot of baseball history since that opening. So three is nice because you get to guarantee that someone will be in. But I wonder whether there's been thought of sort of letting in more people just because there have been so many over the years that there's a lot of catching up to do. I'm not sure we could afford more than three.

Each year, we attempt to honor those who are living by bringing them to the ceremony itself. This year, there was only one living person from the class of 2020, the most recent induction that we've had, and that was Bob Costas, who, because our induction ceremony was concurrent with the World Series, he was unable to attend, but he did send a video acceptance. The other two inductees were deceased. So we make an effort to bring the participants. And frankly, since we are a grassroots organization with an annual membership dues of $25, it is pressing on the budget to be able to afford more than three. I'm curious, given that reality, and I wouldn't want you to speak out of turn as a leader of the organization, but this is something that Cooperstown has dealt with also, right? The tension between wanting to honor players while they're still alive to enjoy it, but having kind of a backlog. enjoy it, but having kind of a backlog. Are there particular favorites of yours on your ballot every year who you're hoping will get in sooner rather than later?

Yes. I have a favorite that I voted for every year, Annie Savoy, a fictional character. But I imagine that we would be able to get her to be embodied in a particular way that could be fascinating. We have, of course, in the year that Charlie Brown was identified as one of the recipients, Charles Schultz's son was accepting for the award. So fictional characters have been elected to the Shrine of the Eternals. And I think Annie Savoy, the monologue that begins Bull Durham, is, I think, one of the great pieces that fuses baseball and religion in profound ways. Yes, I'm not surprised that Annie would appeal to you, given your interests and your writing

with the Church of Baseball. And I know Ron Shelton of Bull Durham, who was just on our show last week, he's been a big supporter of the Reliquary as well. So I imagine he would be there to accept on Annie's behalf, if not Susan Sarandon as well. You know, my preference would be that Ron would bring Susan and that he would introduce Susan to accept the award. Ron has been very supportive of the Reliquary and the Institute for Baseball Studies. He has participated in a couple of programs on campus for our students, and that has enriched their experience. And in the most recent induction ceremony, Max Patkin was inducted, and Ron had the best

stories about Max in very personal ways. So Ron has just been a godsend to the reliquary. Yeah. And I really like figures like that because people will say about the Cooperstown Hall of Fame sometimes, well, you've got to put this person in because you can't tell the story of baseball without so-and-so, right? And the idea is that that's the point of that institution. And it probably is to some extent with the museum, but with the people in the plaques, there's a lot of the story of baseball that's missing there. And I think a lot of the people who sort of slip through that crack end up in the Shrine of the Eternals. And so you think about Frank Jobe, as you said, or Bill James or just so many other, I mean, Kurt Flood, right? Marvin Miller was in the Shrine of the Eternals long before he was in the Hall of Fame. These really foundational formative figures who have shaped the game in just long lasting and essential ways. There may be no place for them in the Hall of Fame because they don't fit into exactly one of the categories, right?

But there's a place for them in the baseball reliquary in the Shrine of the Eternals. So they're just a lot of no-brainers, basically. How could you tell the story of baseball without this person or that person who are missing from the plaque room, at least, in Cooperstown? Other examples are Jim Abbott and William Dummy Hoy. Other examples are Jim Abbott and William Dummy Hoy. They overcame such physical difficulties to be able to play that their stories need to be told. But their statistical records are not sufficient for even warranting getting on the ballot at Cooperstown. getting on the ballot at Cooperstown. Yeah. And do you think of it typically as it would be almost redundant to put in players or people who are already in the Hall of Fame? As you said, there is some overlap and certainly there are some players who are just so culturally significant that they have to be in both. I mean, you know,

Jackie Robinson and Roberta Clemente, et cetera. But for instance, Babe Ruth is not in the Shrine of the Eternals, right? Or Mickey Mantle, these legendary sort of figures who are in the Hall of Fame. So do they do well in the voting or is it sort of like, they don't need us? They get plenty of publicity as it is. It's not clear that they have ever been on the ballot for really wow babe ruth snubbed and i for the first 10 years of the shrine of the reliquaries existence i did not see the ballots uh i do have access to them now and that's a good question i should go back and take a look at the first ballot for the, not the ballot itself, the first description of the candidates for induction in 1999. Because I'm not sure who was on it that would have been in the Hall of Fame.

That year, Doc Ellis was elected. Curt Flood was elected. Neither of them would be on the Hall of Fame ballots. So it would be interesting to see whether there was an intentional exclusion of the patriarchs of the game by Terry and others who put together the first list of 50 candidates. There's also mentioning figures related to Bull Durham. Steve Dalkowski is in the Shrine of the Eternals, right? One of the inspirations for Nucleolus. So he's a great example, just another legend who never played in the major leagues. So of course, he can't be in the Hall of Fame, another legend who never played in the major leagues. So of course, he can't be in the Hall of Fame, but he can be an eternal. He is an eternal. And I wanted to ask, sometimes when someone gets in who has been neglected by Cooperstown or doesn't typically get this type

of recognition, it can really be meaningful for them, right? You mentioned Doc Ellis. When he got in, I read at the induction ceremony, he was in tears, right, about being recognized in this way. utilized, or in his acceptance, he began to preach about the wonders of baseball and about faith and such. He was overwhelmed by being recognized, especially having overcome some of the difficulties that he had experienced, somewhat like Dalkowski or Jimmy Pearsall, somewhat like Dalkowski or Jimmy Pearsall, who is also an inductee in the Shrine of the Eternals. Those who have overcome so much to be able to continue to share their love of the game, that's what the Shrine is all about. It seems that, you know, as we have these ongoing debates about what the Hall of Fame should be and who it should recognize and with what frequency and urgency, that there might be some things that Cooperstown could learn from the Reliquary. But I'm curious if you actually prefer that they sort of have different projects, you know, is it to the Shrine of the Eternals benefit that they stand apart from Cooperstown? I like to think that we're the left coast alternative to Cooperstown.

I like that. It is true that we have different agendas. Some of the artifacts that we have have a suspicious provenance that they would not even qualify for consideration by Cooperstown. And yet these artifacts help to tell the story in vivid ways that make the story more interesting and fun. Is there ever any bad blood about who gets in and who doesn't? Or is it all very wholesome? Because of course, that's something that characterizes the Cooperstown debates. Some of them can be fun debates and useful educational debates, but often it turns into people dunking on each other's candidates and arguing why so-and-so isn't qualified. So when the results are announced, do people say, how did that person get in? Or how didn't this person get in? Or does everyone just sort of celebrate what happened? Well, Terry had long wanted Rube Foster to be inducted. He thought

that it was a tragic oversight of most of the voters to minimize the contributions that Rube Foster. So I'm not sure that Terry ever thought that there was bad blood by the members of the Reliquary for not having previously elected Rube Foster. But Rube had been on the ballot for multiple years. There's no expiration date for the number of times that a person can be on the ballot, but usually the bottom 15% of the vote-getters rotate off until there's an outcry to have them reinstated. until there's an outcry to have them reinstated. You mentioned the artifacts of the reliquary houses and how some of them are of perhaps questionable provenance or meant to be symbolic representations of events in baseball history.

We can maybe call them that rather than accusing them. And obviously the part of Cooperstown that isn't the Hall of Fame ballot is the museum. I'm curious how you guys think about the role that the reliquary can play for researchers and fans who want to learn more about the game. Well, we have currently on display one of the sacristies that was used purportedly by a priest to administer last rites to Babe Ruth. So, Babe Ruth is, to a certain extent, a part of the reliquary, but not in a way that calls for his induction into the Shrine of the Eternals. instead what's the story about his his life that would be enhanced by having the sacristy used for his last rites that appeals to students and gets them interested in Babe Ruth in a different way than watching him trot around the bases in videos of some of his home run trots.

It humanizes him. It also puts the end of his life into a different perspective, as does perhaps the partially smoked cigar that was attributed to having been left in a place where he had smoked cigars on previous occasions. Those are good storytelling about the human character of the player rather than just the on-field statistical accomplishments. than just the on-field statistical accomplishments. And of course, there are a lot of other artifacts that are not possibly apocryphal, right? There's just a lot of history that you all have collected.

And can you give some sense of where it has been displayed over time? Because there are other attempts to create different baseball halls of fame, but very few of them have some sort of physical presence as the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown does and as the Reliquary does. And currently, a lot of that collection is displayed at your school at the Institute for Baseball Studies that you helped to found. So tell us a little bit about how people have been able to or can currently access everything that the reliquary has collected. Well, we don't have the physical space to exhibit all of the materials at all times. We do have several out on display now. One of the genuine artifacts is Ralph Carhart's Hall Ball. Ralph Carhart found a ball in Cooperstown Creek

and decided that to memorialize all of the inductees into the Hall of Fame, it would be appropriate to take into the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. It would be appropriate to take that ball and have it photographed with each of the players, living players who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and to the gravesites of those who were deceased. So he took the ball to all of the living players and to the grave sites of all of the deceased, made the photographs, and once he had the ball he offered it to the Hall of Fame, but it didn't meet their their criteria for acceptance into their archives, so he gave it to the baseball reliquary, where we now have it on display among a number of art pieces and other artifacts

related to the game, including the headpiece of the San Diego Chicken. the game, including the headpiece of the San Diego Chicken. Right. Yeah. And how do people visit? I know that during the pandemic, it wasn't open to the public and you had to make appointments for some time after that. Is that still the case? Because it looks like quite an extensive collection. I mean, if you want to share a little bit about the history of the Institute for Baseball Studies, I know that there was some skepticism right on the part of the administration initially about whether this was worthy of being an institute and being studied. But it has since quite come around. Cannon approached me with the idea of Whittier College archiving the research materials that had been collected by the baseball reliquary. And I thought it was a great idea. So did two of my colleagues, Mike McBride and Charles Adams. And we pooled our interests and appealed to the administration to provide space for us to have

basically a research room where we could display items, art, and books for research by students and the public, and that the Institute could basically provide a bridge between the college and the community in effective ways. Initially, the administration thought that it was Joe Price and his wacky ideas going yet one step farther, But we persevered, and finally, the administration allowed us to utilize an out-of-the-way room that had marvelous built-in bookshelves and high ceilings, so that we're able to display art that has been contributed to the Reliquary and to the Institute, as well as now about 4,000 books, plus media guides, journals, and other bound materials related

to baseball in American culture. Are there any artifacts that folks have wanted to donate that you guys have turned away? Presently, we turn away the offer for more books. We have about 125 boxes of duplicate books at this point. So we cannot store all of the books that we presently have as duplicates. So we have to restrict the offer of donations of books to those that would fill gaps in our holdings. We've also refused some things that just didn't fit. some things that just didn't fit. We were offered a marvelous collection of baseball gloves, about 200 baseball gloves. Spanning the last century and perhaps even beyond, we didn't have the space to store 200 gloves, nor had an idea about how we could incorporate those into the mission of the

Institute, which is basically a resource center for students to study baseball in American history and society, and to extend that research opportunity to fans and to scholars elsewhere. And I know that the last couple of years have been challenging for the Reliquary. They've been challenging for a lot of people. But as you start to move into 2023, what do you hope for the Reliquary's future? Well, I hope that we are able to resume regular open hours in a scheduled way. It's still possible for people to schedule an appointment. And really, it's sort of like making a reservation at a restaurant. It's just a matter of getting on the list so that we're certain that we will be that that we will have the facility open

at that time so we're open in ways that we were not able to be open two years ago during the first shutdowns of the pandemic but we are not yet open to the extent that we can But we are not yet open to the extent that we can say our regular hours are and then have those posted so that people can drop in at their convenience. In part, that's because we have no paid staff. The two directors of the Institute are Charles Adams and myself. We're retired, and we volunteer our time. So we end up being in the Institute about 10 to 15 hours a week. So we are able to adjust our availability to people who want to attend or to view the artifacts, the art, or just do some reading in the literature that we have available. And are there plans for a new class of the Shrine? As you noted, the 2020 class was inducted. And since then, with Terry passing away in more confining than the pandemic. And that is that the host of the website for the baseball reliquary somehow closed the reliquary's account on January the 1st, 2021. And it took more than a year and a half to be able to restore the

archived copy of the website, which is not interactive at this point. So we're developing a new website. It should be up by the time that the baseball season starts. And with that, it will make membership renewal easier. At this point, we have the database for membership that had been active in the three years prior to the pandemic. So we'll be able to contact those members. But at present, current membership is less than a major league roster. So that's not adequate for voting in a new class. We need to have the 300 members or so who are usually the electors for the class to be a part of active membership for us to be able to have the next class, which I imagine will be in 2024.

Got it. I was going to ask if there were ways that people could join or support your efforts or donate things, etc. I will link to the current website, of course, but it sounds like maybe things are on hold for the moment as far as getting directly involved, or is there anything that you would like to plug while we have you? Well, it's possible to join by sending a check. I know it's out of mode, but that's, at this point, the only way that we can process memberships is for someone to send a check for their membership fee. The easiest way to do that is to perhaps contact me by my email address and then I can send the membership information and post office box information about the address. We do expect that the same URL that presently identifies the archived website will be the URL for the new website since it has been secured for the next three years. All right. I will link on our show page to your Whittier College page, which has your email address if anyone wants to reach you.

And maybe we can close with just a couple non-directly reliquary related questions, because I'm curious about your scholarship and your writing about baseball and religion. Now, Meg and I are not very religious people. Granted, we have not tried them all like Annie Savoy has. But we are in the Church of Baseball with you. So you've written about some of the maybe similar functions that baseball serves, or I suppose any sport to some extent might serve. So what parallels do you draw there? Baseball tends to shape a worldview for many. That corresponds to how a religious affiliation shapes one's life. And so that, in essence, is what I'm interested in. athlete uses his or her religion and prominence in sport as a way to offer a testimony about their religious faith. That, I understand, is being sports and religion, or religion and sports.

I'm more interested in how sports function as a religion rather than how religions influence sport or how sports are played by religious groups. The House of David, the Parkway Baptist Church softball team. So my interests are much more in the phenomenon of sports as an expression, as an experience of a religious worldview. And I guess another thing they have in common is that sometimes the leadership can be frustrating in the administration. And you have to remind yourself what you love about the actual thing, as opposed to the infrastructure of it at times. And the last thing I want to ask you about is your national anthem singing. I don't know whether you're still an active anthem singer, but you have been extremely active at times. And of course, it was 2011, right, that you

toured the country, you and your wife in an RV, just going to 100 or more minor league parks and singing as you went and then writing a book about it called Perfect Pitch, the National Anthem has a reputation as being a difficult song to sing, right? Which leads to a lot of famous and infamous missteps, right? And mistakes and people forgetting the words and so forth or not being able to hit the notes. So I'd be curious about your technique and whether you just kind of get in and get out and it's all business and you just deliver it straightforward or whether you milk it a little bit as some singers do? No, I respect the anthem as being for the people. And so it's not about whether or not I can embellish it in any particular way or add ornamentation to it. I've been blessed and trained with vocal training, and I sing it straight.

When I was in Las Vegas to sing for the Las Vegas team on the anthem tour, as I parked the car and the attendant recognized me as the anthem singer, he asked how long my anthem would be that night. And I said, well, depending upon what kind of reverberation there was from the speakers, it would be between a minute and 15 and a minute, 18 seconds. And he said, fine. He said, we have an over under bet among the staffers on how long the anthem will last each night. I'm going to win tonight. You got inside info. Yeah. The biggest challenge was perhaps the first anthem. When I was a graduate student in Chicago,

I read an article about Bill Veck fulfilling a lifelong dream of an ambidextrous pitcher to have a major league tryout. Well, I had a lifelong dream of wanting to sing the national anthem at major league games. So I wrote to Bill Veck and about six weeks later received a call from his son, Mike Veck, who was then in the front office of the White Sox. And Mike Veck said, would you like to sing on Fan Appreciation Day? And I said, fine. When do you want me to audition? He said, you're fool enough to ask. We're fool enough to let you do it. That story came back to be a part of the Anthem Tour in 2011 when Mike Vec was gracious enough to allow me to sing in three of the

ballparks where he had partial team ownership, and he enjoyed my reflecting on that initial occasion for singing. The White Sox was a challenge because I was terrified by 50,000 fans being in attendance and whether I would forget the words. So I had them written on a note card in my jacket pocket. And as I went to the microphone before the game, I indicated to the audiologist who was there that I was apprehensive about the words. And he said, if you forget them, just scat them like Nat King Cole did when he forgot them here. I said, well, I'm not Nat King Cole and I don't scat.

So it didn't quite work. colon, I don't scat, so it didn't quite work. But the range is not as much a challenge as just making sure that staying up to tempo and singing as respectfully as possible so that others who are in the stands might sing along if they so desired. Yeah, I think people appreciate a singer who just takes care of business, gets in, gets out, lets us get on with the game, play ball, right? So I think that's probably appreciated. And I don't know if this is up to date, but your Whittier page says that you've sung it for more than 125 professional baseball games in 20 major league ballparks and 100 minor league stadiums, have the butterflies gotten better over time? Oh, yes, they've gotten better. The final anthem that I sang on the anthem tour in 2011, it was the 104th performance.

the 104th performance. And as I got to singing the Land of the Free, it was sort of an other world experience. I was thinking as I got to that line, yes, I'm free. I don't have to drive the RV anymore. Which big league ballparks are you missing? Which big league ballparks are you missing? Most of the East Coast. Okay. Primarily because they think that if I'm, I must be really crazy to pay my own way to volunteer to sing. sung in Atlanta and Tampa, but I have not sung in Boston or the New York stadiums, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or Miami. Well, I hope you can cross more off the list if you'd like to, but getting the initial call from Bill Vack or at least from Mike Vack is pretty good because Bill Vack,

favorite of mine and also a member of the Shrine of the Eternals and also the Hall of Fame. So we wish you success with all of your endeavors and with the Reliquary specifically, and we will stay tuned for any updates and we will let our listeners know. And of course, on our show page, we'll include links to your books and all these other resources that we've discussed. So this was a great pleasure and I wish you the best with the Relquery and the Shrine, because I think it's serving an important purpose when it comes to preserving baseball legends and bringing them to people's attention. So thank you.

Thank you. It's been a joy to be able to talk about baseball here as we're awaiting the blooming of the grass in the spring training. Yes. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. And thanks to those of you who help support the podcast on Patreon so that we can keep making it. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Jacob Swartz, Jay Walsh, Christian Scarborough, Paul

Hendrickson, and Javad Vaziri. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, inching ever closer to 1,000 members. Highly encourage everyone to join the Discord group, even at the lowest tier of Patreon support. It is accessible to you. Patreon supporter, you can contact us via the Patreon site. If not, you can always email us at podcast at fangraphs.com. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance today and this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week.

The men have withdrawn and left me alone Left me alone in a room full of rails They had laid me down No scepter, no crown No rope, no clothing I'm jealous