Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2470: The Closer Who Became an Archaeo-Lidge-ist

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon. Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether JR Ritchie should want to keep the ball that was hit for a homer on his first major league pitch, José Soriano’s season-starting hot streak, and the Yankees’ new alternate uniforms, plus follow-ups on accidental challenges, player pecks on the cheek, jersey numbers, and Nolan McLean’s apology, and a mini-Blast about the Rockies’ historically hot start (compared to last year). Then (50:36) they take a break from interviewing octagenarian former players to interview a youthful, quadragenarian former player: former All-Star Brad Lidge. An infamous manager once proclaimed, “The closer is the closer because he’s the closer.” But what if the closer becomes an archaeologist? Ben and Meg talk to Lidge at length about his post-playing pivot to archaeology: what drew him to the field, how he’s pursued a second profession (and how it differs from his first one), ancient Etruscans, misconceptions about archaeology, what he could learn from excavating a ballpark, discovering dice (note: not a gambling ad), discussing his career reinvention at cocktail parties, the pleasures and procedures of communing with the past, archaeology’s moneyball, and much more, followed by his thoughts on fellow fastball-slider artist Mason Miller. Audio intro: PJ Harding, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to The Only Rule closer line Link to line’s EW wiki entry Link to Lidge’s SABR bio Link to postseason saves leaders Link to best post-’88 RP seasons Link to Pujols homer Link to 2008 WS victory Link to Wood’s HR Link to Ritchie game story Link to Yankees jerseys report 1 Link to Yankees jerseys report 2 Link to Yankees jerseys report 3 Link to jersey number history Link to Vargas “accidental” challenge Link to Gonzales “accidental” challenge Link to Martin-Davis smooch Link to Soriano’s six-start stretches Link to Soriano’s 2025 stretch Link to Soriano’s 2026 stretch Link to exit velo responsibility Link to Soriano article 1 Link to Betteridge’s law 1 Link to Soriano article 2 Link to follow-up McLean report Link to fastest team improvements data Link to 2018 archaeoLidgey article Link to 2026 archaeoLidgey article Link to Lidge Explorers Club Link to Poggio Civitate wiki Link to Etruscan civilization wiki Link to Roman Empire meme Link to Lidge’s publications Link to Lidge’s dice paper Link to North American dice article 1 Link to North American dice article 2 Link to Ben on Detectorists  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Oh, baseball, what have you done? Something's never been seen, something factually fun. Oh, there's so much of you, but there's so little time. So thank God for Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2470 of Effectively Wild, a VanGravs, baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, Ben. How are you? I'm doing well because we've got a great guest today. Great guest. I guess we have been very excited to talk to none other than Brad Lidge, the great

Brad Lidge, is on the program. We'll talk a little bit of baseball with Brad. We'll talk about Mason Miller and how he is succeeding with a somewhat Lidgeian approach to pitching. But mostly, we're going to talk to Bradledge about being an archaeologist. Yep. Because that's what Bradledge is now. He is an archaeologist for real. And you know me. Usually I like to wait until a player is an octogenarian, a non-aginarian, before we call

them up. Brad Lidge is still a quadrigenarian. That's what we almost are. He's not seasoned enough to be an effectively wild guest. But I can't wait another 40 years to do my own excavation of living baseball history. because as the only rule readers out there, remember, the closer's the closer because he's the closer. But what if the closer is an archaeologist? I need to know what that means. So at a time of closer upheaval in Major League Baseball, we are calling in and calling up a closer. And I've wanted to talk to

him about this for a while because he's been in the process of becoming an archaeologist for some time now. And so every now and then there will be an article and there will be a check-in and someone will do an interview with him or write a piece about Bradledge becoming an archaeologist. And then I see a new wave of people discover that Bradledge is in his archaeology era. And they're all just delighted by this as I was whenever I first saw it. And there was a recent piece about this. And many more people were hip to the fact that Bradledge is now an archaeologist. And so we have him on the show. And we're going to get into that his whole second career and how he got interested in this and how it isn't like baseball. It's a great conversation. He's excellent. A lot of fun. A lot of fun.

He was also excellent at baseball. Bradledge, man, that guy was good. I mean, like really good. His 2004 season, which we will talk a bit about with him, that's got to be maybe a top five reliever season. Basically, top five, it's like tied for six. There's something in Fangraph's War in the modern reliever era, the post-Eccrously era. But, But it's up there. I mean, he was just totally, totally dominant that year. And of course, he had many other good years. And he trails only Mariano Rivera and Kenley Jansen in postseason saves. And really just about as good as any pitcher has ever been on an inning per inning basis when he was at his best. And, you know, we didn't talk to him about when he won the World Series, when he lost a World Series.

but his saber bio for which he was interviewed, it leads with this. Perhaps it is Bradledge's fate to be best remembered for two sliders. The first in 2005 hung over the plate and resulted in an Albert Poo-Hulls blast that decided an NLCS game. The second in 2008,

tailed away from Eric Hinsky and clinched a world championship. So live by the slider, die by the slider, I guess. Yep. And I feel kind of bad that when people think about Bradledge, often they think of the Poo-Holes Homer.

I understand why. I think it's a second one. Well, yeah, both. But I think the Pujols Homer, in my mind, it is talked about a bit too often relative to other notorious postseason gopher balls, given that that came in game five of a series that Lidge's team won. Yeah. So that was a big homer. And yeah, the Astros lost that game. The Cardinals won.

But then the Astros came back to win the next game and the pennant and advance to the World Series. So ultimately it wasn't that costly, and granted it was an absolute tank. So I do understand why the image of Pujol's hitting that Homer is just seared into people's retinas. But I was talking to Baumann about this, and he concurred that it's kind of overblown in its impact. And Bowman's theory, and I think he might be right, is that people assume that the Pujol's Homer happened in 2004. Yes. when the Cardinals did beat the Astros. But it didn't happen then.

It happened in 2005 when the Astros beat the Cardinals. In 2004, in the postseason, Lidge was nails. He was lights out, as his nickname said, as he was that entire season. So I think there's sort of a sequencing issue in the way that that highlight slash low light is remembered. Yeah, I think that you guys are onto something with that. I think that there's been a scramble. And so it is mischaracterizing the pool's one. And really, we should just focus on the one in 08, you know?

Yeah, why not? That was one hell of a pitch, too. It was. I sound like a suckup, but I'm just saying it was. Sure. Yeah, we don't talk about either of those at length with Bradledge because we had so much else to talk to him about. And what else is there to say about the most shared highlights of his. career.

Right. Speaking of a home run, we got a question about a more recent one from Patreon supporter Rick. And Rick wrote to say, J.R. Ritchie allowed a home run to James Wood on the first pitch of his MLB debut. J.R. Ritchie, top pitching prospect for the Braves. He just made his debut this week. And he had a strong start, but he did give up a couple dingers, including the one to James Wood on the very first pitch of Richie's MLB career.

So Rick writes, I'm sitting a section away from where the Homer landed, and an usher told me the Braves asked for the ball back. Now, it's certainly possible the team did this on its own, and Richie didn't ask for it, but would you want the ball if you were Richie? Is this he'd like that pitch back taken literally? And I remember that we answered a question on episode 2323 from one JJ who wanted to know whether we would want to save the game. the ball if the first out that we recorded as a pitcher in the big leagues was on a batted ball, not on a strikeout, because often, you know, a hitter will save the ball from their first hit and a pitcher will save the ball from their first strikeout. But we talked about, well, what about other outs, more democratic outs? Would we want to just keep the ball that led to a ground or to

second or something? And I don't remember exactly what we said. I'm pretty sure I said, I would. Why not? It's an out. That's a major milestone. But what do you think, about the gopher ball you give up on your first pitch in the big leagues, would you, would you want that one? I cannot speak to the mind of, of J.R. R. Ritchie. His psychology might be quite different from mine. But I think I would because the thing, I think the thing about that game is that they won. Exactly. And he pitched well ultimately. He did. It's a truism that is a cliche at this point, that baseball is this game of failure. And I think no one more familiar, I mean, you have more chances to fail, like day-to-day as a hitter. But the drama of your failure tends, I think, to be bigger on average as a pitcher.

I haven't done a study of that, but that's my sort of gut instinct. And no more dramatic a failure than a home run, right? But then they won, and he pitched well. And I think that having tangible reminders of the survivability of failure, that might be something I appreciated having close at hand as a young big league or even one who's, you know, who prospect evaluators have very high expectations of and think we'll do well and have a good big league career, right? I think being like, you know, I hung one and it worked out okay, actually. I was able to kind of get back in myself and do what I needed to and the offense came through and, you know, he only gave up one other run. I think I'd want it.

Yeah, I completely agree. And, yeah, even though I have argued that baseball's reputation as a game of failure is overblown, because I think most of them are games of failure. Games of success would be pretty boring. Yeah. Yeah. But I agree that, I mean, first of all, getting to the big leagues at all is quite an accomplishment. So the artifact from that moment, I think, is special, even if that moment quickly went from

wonderful to demoralizing. But also, yeah, it would be sort of self-deprecating. It would be a good conversation starter. Yeah, here's my first ball that I gave up in the big leagues. It went however many feet, James Wood just took it out. I think that would be a nice way to say from such humble beginnings. And, you know, if he goes on to have a good successful career, then it would be a good reminder, like memento-mori kind of thing.

Like, yeah, this is how it started. And, you know, freeze frame. you're probably wondering how I got there or something. But, you know, even if it's like started from the bottom and now we're here, right? It's like James Wood took me out. And then I went on to transcend that challenge, not just in my career, hopefully, but also in that start. And that setback didn't do me in. And I picked myself up and dusted myself off and continued to pitch.

So yeah, I would want that memento. I think that would be meaningful to me. Yeah, I think I would appreciate being able to look at that. on my mantle after a hard day at the ballpark and go, you know, it can be okay. Now, a couple of quick follow-ups. One, did you see the, I'm going to send it to you? It's the latest accidental challenge that you could hardly call it an accident. Oh.

Yeah. So. Come on, buddy. Yeah. Come on, right? I mean, this is a quote-unquote accidental challenge. This was from Thursday, and this was in a White Sox game. Yeah, White Sox Diamondbacks.

Yes. And it's a battered challenge by Ildemarovar Vargas. And he does the Czech challenge, basically, what we were talking about last time, how sometimes the accidental challenge, it's not really an accident. It's that you meant to challenge. And then you thought better of it. It. The little arm move is the best part. Yes.

Yes. But the signal had already been sent from your brain and you just couldn't say, oh, no, wait, stop. I didn't mean to. You couldn't hold up. And it's the best because this was called a strike. And so he thought about challenging. And then, yeah, he brings, I'll link to this for everyone, obviously. And he brings his arm up and he kind of crooks his elbow.

And did he actually touch? I think he did, but it's tough, it's tough to tell from this angle. It's hard to tell from that angle, yeah. Yeah, you need a replay review, really, to see whether he challenged. We need the shot they do over home plate when they're trying to determine if a guy has actually slid in safe under a tag. Yes, the check challenge. We've got to check the challenge. And then, so the umpire interprets this as a challenge.

Yeah. And then Vargas is like, what are you talking about? How could you possibly? What? What? Huh? And he holds up his arms and they're like, who me gesture? And he's shaking his head and he's kind of appealing to his dugout.

And clearly the Diamondbacks dugout is giving some guff to the umpire. Because the umpire then walks out from behind home plate takes his mask off and is like, he obviously he challenged. Like, it's not my fault. Like, look at what he did. And he's like gesturing to his head, like doing the tapping motion. Like, hey, I'm, I'm challenging here. And Vargas is like, ugh.

And he like slumps his shoulders. Like, I've been wronged. Like, how could you possibly? I am an innocent party. I'm the wrong man. It's a Hitchcock movie. But here's the punchline to all of this. The challenge went through and the call was overturned.

Right. And it was a ball. He was correct to challenge or non-challenge. And so ultimately, it worked out fine for him. He tried to pull back the challenge. He couldn't. And then it benefited him because it was changed from a strike to a ball. I just had a really dark thought, Ben.

You know who I'm really nervous about learning about the challenge system and moments like this? Is Malcolm Gladwell. No one tell him, okay? He's going to write a whole new blink book, you know? He's going to have a new addendum. And he's like, well, you know, their expert opinion in the moment, they should just trust themselves. So no one tell him, okay? I know that all of our listeners are like in regular correspondence with Malcolm Gladwell.

I was, and then I had to block him because he was so annoying. No, I'm kidding. But no one tell Malcolm Gladwell about this. But yeah, this is maybe the most kind of endearing one I've seen, actually. Yeah, because this one, he knew. He knew he went around. Come on. Yeah.

Yeah, this is not debatable. There was another one in this vein from earlier in the month, Gonzales of the Pirates who had a similar sort of reflexive, instinctive one, but it wasn't quite as clear cut that he went around. I'll link to both of these for people to check out, and I just sent that one to you too. In that case, the challenge was overturned too. So again, I guess it is kind of a first thought, best thought, at least in some cases. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, trust your, trust your instincts. Yes. You do, you did. You did do it, Nick. Come on. You totally did it. Yeah, you know, you're guilty.

I was just, no, you challenged. Oh, my God, that's so funny. What a weird, you know, it's, it's funny too, because Don Kelly's just like, what just happened? This is not how it was when I was playing. What a funny, this is a real funny one. This is less endearing. I guess that there's a similar amount of huffiness when it comes right down to it. But the, you don't have the like, oops a daisy kind of vibe to it.

it. What a funny little time. What a funny little time we're in. That was great. So is there room for misinterpretation and miscommunication and people who are actually not trying to challenge and just the adjustment of the helmet or whatever the habitual head touch is misinterpreted as a challenge? Yes, that has happened. But also, sometimes you were caught red-handed. You were challenging. You went around. So, yeah, in those cases, I have no sympathy. So you just got to learn to restrain. that impulse. Yeah. And segueing into our other follow-up on the mound for that Vargas, White Sox Diamondbacks incident, was Davis Martin, who will figure in this follow-up. Yes. We were notified by multiple people about players kissing because they wanted to.

And this happened on Thursday in the White Sox Diamondbacks game, the eighth inning, Davis Martin, and Grant Taylor enjoyed a little smoo. And yeah, Davis Martin was eager to plant a peck on the cheek of Grant Taylor after Taylor came in and in relief and stranded some inherited runners that were bequeathed to him. And then there was a kiss to say thank you and to express it in a very public display of affection way. Yeah, I think that he really thought about the best way to deliver it. And he arrived at that. So that's nice. I just think, look, there are a lot of ways to show your boys you love them.

You know, there's somebody ways to show your boys that you're, hey, you're my guy. And there you go. That was one of them. Little kiss, little, little, little kiss. Very nice. And, you know, people have paid a lot of attention to the start that Jose Soriano is off to for the angels. As well, they should. As well, they should.

Yeah. He has hardly allowed any runs. He is through six starts. He has a 0.24 ERA, which is about as close to Mason Miller as you can get without being Mason Miller. And this is historic. He is the first player excluding openers, at least in MLB history, to allow one run only through the first six starts of a season.

And his 0.24 ERA is the lowest in a pitcher's first six starts of a season since earned runs became official in both leagues in 1913. So this is impressive. Now, as I always stipulate with stats like that about having a certain ERA or allowing a certain number of runs through X starts, obviously guys are typically throwing fewer innings in those starts than they did in earlier era. So, you know, he's thrown 37-something innings. He's averaging a little over six per start, which is good in this era. But yeah, in an earlier. era if he had been pitching as effectively as he has, then he would have stayed in the game. And then he would have had to face guys the third or fourth time in that game. And maybe he would

have been more likely to allow runs and have a higher ERA. And so like a lot of fun facts, it lies a little bit. But it's still pretty impressive. And I've kind of been wrestling with how impressed to be by this, because I think Jose Soriano is a good pitcher. He's been a good pitcher the last couple years. And he obviously is off to a stronger start. But he had a stretch last season even when he had the same FIP that he does now. You know, not that this is like smoke and mirrors, but obviously there's a little luck going on when one has a 0.24 ERA. And so, yeah, you'd never believe it. You know, seems tough to sustain. He has a 205 BABIP. He has a 4% home run per fly ball rate.

So, you know, even the peripherals are improved relative to his full season stats. But for example, over this six start stretch, he has a 54 FIP minus. That is a park-adjusted FIP. And with FIP minus, as with ERA minus, lower is better. So 100 is average, and then the lower it is, the better you've been. So 54 FIP-MINUS, that only ties the best six game or six-start, because he was a lever when he first came up, six-start stretch of his career. Last year, from June 4th to July 3rd, he had an identical 54-fit-minus over a six-start stretch,

but it was mid-season, not at the beginning of the season. And so no one really noticed that. And also, he allowed more runs during that stretch. So he had the same fit-minus, he had a better ex-phip even. However, he had a 330 BAP-up over that span. And so he actually had a four-plus ERA. And so I wonder, because a lot of his peripherals were the same at that time. It was like same walk rate, same strikeout rate, same home run rate, lower ground ball

rate now than he had in that stretch last year. So is he a new and different and better pitcher now? or did he have a similar six-start stretch, but better luck, and also it was at the very start of the season. And so everyone noticed because your six-start stretch now is your entire season. And so he has a 0.24 ERA. So I've been wondering about that, not to set out to denigrate his performance because it's cool to see him succeed this way. But because we've moved on to a post-ERA mindset in so many aspects of the game, And guys get signed now, you know, Dylan Cs gets a massive contract with a high ERA, but a low FIP and all that.

And we barely bat an eye at that. And yet we are still thrilled by the stretch of no run prevention, right? Right. Now, Mason Miller, he is doing both. He has no out any runs. And also he has basically broken FIP and is still negative. So, like, you can't possibly come up with any way to ding him. but we are still impressed by not allowing runs,

which is after all the point of pitching ultimately. Sort of your main job is to enter with no runs and exit with no runs, or at least enter with, you know, when you're a starter, you have more control over that. It Mason Miller's case, your goal is to enter and exit with the same number of fronts that are on the board. What happens after that is none of your business. But part of why we're so excited about Jose Soriano doing,

this is that he pitches for the angels. Like, we can say that. That's okay. That's okay to note. It's exciting to see an angel doing so well. Yeah. And I don't, that sounds like I'm like negging him or the angels and I'm not. Like when teams are sort of less than good a lot of the time, which is my diplomatic way

for. It's a very generous way to put it. I have a friend who one time, one of the nicest people I know, was describing a another woman who was like not super conventionally attractive, but was a lovely person. And my friend was describing her and said, you know, she's just like not always the best looking like in the face area. Right. We're like, you're sweetie. You're trying so hard to not say one negative thing about somebody else. So part of this is like he's an angel and he's doing so well.

And that's so exciting because, you know. And some of this is like him having shown flashed. right potential uh you always are wondering like hey is hosey sriano relina put it together and and sure part of it is like he's doing this right at the beginning of the year and so his ERA starts with a zero but he's a starter that's exciting i don't think we have to like think too hard about it you know this just seems like do i expect this to continue no but i will say that like Jose seriano has who is a pitcher i thought again was promising and interesting and and maybe um would have benefited from playing in in front of a better defense at times to see him doing this

and the way he's doing it. It's changing, change in my opinion a bit of what his baseline ought to be. His baseline shouldn't be a zero to four ERA, but like it's probably not an ERA in the fours either, you know? So that's exciting. Yeah. Well, when someone starts off like this, we all scramble to find research. for it. And there's an MLB.com article with the headline, is this the major's most dominant

starter? And it's about Jose Soriano. And I guess Betteridge's law of headlines potentially applies there. Maybe the answer is no or ultimately will be no. But the story itself doesn't really throw any cold water on the idea that he's the most dominant starter. And I guess in a sense, he has been. But we're more inclined to notice these things when they happen at the start of a season. as opposed to at some other time when the stats are already established, and so it doesn't constitute your entire season. So we're all trying to figure out, well, what is he doing differently? And he's doing some things differently.

He's mixed up the pitches a bit, and perhaps that has something to do with it. The stuff ratings are pretty much the same, but the location ratings have been better. So maybe that will persist. Maybe it won't. Maybe this will be fleeting, and he'll go back to being just a pretty good pitcher, but not as incredible as he has looked thus far. But over that stretch, that six-start stretch that no one really noticed last year because he was giving up runs, even though the underlying metrics were the same, it showed that he was capable of this, I guess, and you could often kind of dig up, well, was this really unprecedented? It's like when we talked about Mike Trout's incredible series recently and all the homers he hit, and then he had a bunch of stretches of equivalent length that were roughly as hot.

Now with Trout, it was nice just to see him he harkening back to how great he had always been before. But with Soriano, it's more, is this a breakout? Is he doing something that he's never done before? And I guess we will see. But yeah, that's been in there for similar stretches of time. And maybe it will be more enduring this time. Or maybe he will morph back into not pumpkin, but just, you know, number two-ish starter, something like that. I guess the difference in the stretches,

is that when he had that six-start stretch last year with the same FIP, he did allow harder contact. He had a higher average exit velo and hard-hit percentage than he does this season. And so you might attribute that to him. You might also say, well, that's partly random and not really repeatable too, and hitters have a big impact on their exit speed, not just the pitcher. So is he inducing soft contact or has that just been happening? Anyway, I look forward to unraveling the mystery of Jose Soriano. But it is fun when someone starts a season and just says, nope, no runs for you.

No runs for you. Yeah. There is a story this week about the Yankees pertaining to their players' petition or appeal for an alternate jersey. And it all developed quite quickly. Now, you know, elsewhere in New York, the Mets are on a winning streak as we speak. So, you know, don't let them get hot. I mean, they've won two in a row. They did lose Francisco Lindor, unfortunately.

So that was maybe a Pyrrhic victory. You get Soto back from a calf strain. You lose Lindor to a more severe calf strain. But they'll take the Ws at this point. But elsewhere, I guess there was a W for the Yankees, because there was a report initially from the athletic, I believe, that the Yankees were interested in an alternate jersey, an alternate road jersey.

And, of course, the Yankees have never had such a thing as an alternate jersey. They have the home pinstripes, and they have the road grays, and that's that. There have been some players' weekend experiments, but that's it. They're one of the two teams that has not had a City Connect jersey, the other being the A's who are, you know, kind of transitory, maybe between cities, at least permanent cities, and then the Yankees.

You know, all the traditions in the Bronx are falling here, right? The tradition of banning facial hair. That fell last year. The tradition of winning the World Series. that fell 15 years or so ago. Oh my God. Wow. I just want everyone to register the voice that delivered that burn because it wasn't this one.

I just want everyone to know. Former Yankees fan here. I can say it. They're my people or they once were. Anyway, now the tradition of the Yankees not having an alternate, that is falling because there was like the initial report, which was the Yankees, you know, unsourced anonymous. Some Yankees have maybe. appealed to use the batting practice tops.

So they have batting practice jerseys that are on the road that are hung in their lockers. And John Carl Stanton had a good line about it. Like, what are we using these for? Are they to test the hangers? Or can we actually wear these things? But they just use them for batting practice. And now it went from that initial story, which was, hey, wouldn't it be nice if we could use these in an actual game, to about eight hours later a report saying,

Yeah, MLB has cleared this, and I guess the Yankees have taken it under consideration. It's an ownership-level decision. So the players are awaiting word, but there is at least a chance that soon they will be able to wear these darker batting practice tops in actual games. And so is nothing sacred anymore, the Yankees can be her suit, and they can also wear maybe an alternate jersey. Okay. Well, my initial reaction to this, if I'm being perfectly honest with you, is,

to not care about it at all. But, you know, the discourse demands its answer sometimes, and we do have to do a show here. So I'm going to muster an opinion about this, which is that I think it's fine to hold the line on the Jersey thing. I think if there is a jersey-based kerfuffle to be instigated on the part of the Yankees, it's brace yourself, okay? I don't want you to be alarmed.

It's putting the names on the back of the freaking uniforms is what the fight should be about. That's what the fight should be. They are also the only team that does not have names on the back on either their home or road jerseys in the league. So yes. And we don't need to relitigate that, although for newer listeners who have not heard this particular rant from me before, I find it dehumanizing. And I think it's anti-labor. And I think everyone should get over themselves. And if you're going to sell jerseys with retired numbers,

and the names, you can't pretend that you have a high and mighty opinion of this thing, okay? Okay. So having given the Cliff Notes version of that, I think that we don't need to be overly precious about jerseys. I like jerseys. I care about them more than you do. I don't care about them to an extreme degree. I think there are a lot of good options for, I tend to be more of an embrace the throwback.

that person then conceive of a new alternate. Many of the new alternates are disgusting. They are obvious cash grabs in a way that I find distasteful. They're neither aesthetically pleasing nor ugly in a fun way a lot of the time. And I think the city connects in particular, some of the city connects are great. You know, speaking of the angels, the angels should just wear their city connects. I love those unis. I think they're so sharp. I think they're beautiful. I long for the return of the Nationals' initial run of CityConnects with the cherry blossoms.

Those were delightful, beautiful, beautiful. Part of it is that the Nationals have, you know, one of the more boring color schemes because they, like many other teams are in the sort of generic red, white, and blue space, which I don't say as like a, you know, anti-flag thing, but just in Like there's a lot of that, right? We've seen a lot of that. But here's the problem with the direction we have gone with CityConnects. We're seeing a lot of the same stuff there too, right? I remain convinced that Nike just has a lot of that light blue line around.

And they got to move some bolts. You know, they got big bolts of fabric. They are semi-shear and they need to move them. And so they're like, guess what? You get a powder blue? Have you ever had a powder blue at any? point in your franchises history, guess what? You get a powder blue. And some of the powder blues are nice. And some of them are like the brewer's old ones. I don't like the Brewers No ones either. I really liked

the San Diego ones. So I'm just saying that I feel like we've lost our way with alternates. I feel like more often than not, teams are just better off looking at their past catalog of uniforms, finding the cutest one, and using that as an alternate, you know, and again, there are exceptions. Some of them are city connect base. Some of them are, hey, like, the Mariners are wearing steelheads uniforms on Sundays this year. They're perfect. They are pristine.

And this is something that has kind of come in and out of the franchise's history, but it's adoption by the Mariners, sort of a more recent phenomenon. perfect no-n-n-nuts. But more often than not, you're just better off looking to the past and saying, ah, that one was sharp. Let's do that. Now, no solace for the Yankees in that regard, right? Because they have just been fuddy-duddies about this stuff for as long as they've been around.

But guess what? That's okay. This one, I'm going to give you, let the boys have their beards because for reasons that we've talked about before, right? We got a lot of ways to be a person, more inclusive vibe. Shocking that they never faced a lawsuit around it candidly. But you've found your way. That's great.

Love that for you. Lean into that. Lean into having the individuality of your players sing, right? Because one thing, sure, it's boring, but it's also a neutral canvas, right? And you can just all be yourselves now, is your most. important player is your most prominent best guy seemingly pretty boring. Yeah, but guess what? Aaron just doesn't need any judging, right? He's Aaron Judge. He's 20 feet tall and one of the best players in baseball. So that's my thought. And he wanted this and what he wants, he gets for the most part.

And he has earned that. And if he wants it louder, louder in the stadium, then I guess he gets that too. And if you want to say it's a throwback, well, the New York Highlanders starting in 19, know, three wore Navy road uniforms during the early years of the franchise. So maybe it's a tribute to that. But Navy is so boring. Yeah, look, I think obviously the Yankees uniforms haven't changed that much, nor did they need to, because they're classic and they're instantly recognizable all over the world, and they're incredibly lucrative. It's not as if the Yankees have had trouble selling jerseys or anything. So I don't care very much. Generally, I'm in favor of players expressing themselves, but I guess I'd rather see that where cleats a different color or

something, some piece of flare more so than having to have an alternate uniform, although the whole point is uniform. It's supposed to be uniform. Everyone's sort of supposed to look the same. But I don't care that much, but it was amazing to me how quickly that story moved where it went from. Right. They're advocating for this to, oh, well, it sort of sounds like they might get their way. I think that the capitalist motives here, I don't know, everything's not capitalism, a lot of things are, but not everything. But one can understand how there would be a change of heart around this, right? Because it seems like an opportunity to sell more stuff. If you go on the Yankees official online store right now, every jersey in the bar at the top, find your favorite player jersey, has their names on the back.

Every single one of them, Judge 99, Chisholm Jr., 13. Also, can I be annoying for a moment? People are like, what's changing now? Guys should have whatever name they want displayed however they want it on their jersey. But I would just point out, if you are a junior, you don't have to have a junior in their back in your jersey. Unless you're playing with your dad. You don't need it. You are sufficiently differentiated.

Also, the juniors about your, it doesn't matter. It does bug me, though. It does bug me. Now, I imagine. It's your first name. Not your last. Yeah. They're like, hey, there's a lineage and I want to, I want people to know about

the lineage. And so they are making a choice grounded in family and feeling. And I'm making a distinction grounded in being the worst person at a party. Well, if the captain, Aaron Judge, gets his way and leads to this landmark change, that makes some sense. And Judge actually made a strong point, which is, well, if you're all about history and tradition, well, we did get the patches on our jerseys a couple of years ago. So you're willing to forgo tradition when you're getting a buck for it. Right. Fair. It remains funny to me that Devin Williams was the one who finally brought down the facial hair policy or was the last, you know, the straw that broke the Steinbrenner's back when it came to that because, you know, not quite as distinguished or a long

tenure to Yankee as, say, Aaron Judge, Devin Williams, who had one year with the team, which was not so roundly well-received and, you know, no love lost on his way out. And yet he left a lasting impression on the team. While we're talking about Yankees' uniforms and names on the back, though, I did want to mention because we stat blasted last time about the batting orders where the players line up slots match their uniform numbers. And we were talking about how that was much more common long ago. And I didn't specify, I perhaps should have, although maybe it was self-evident, but that was not a coincidence that in the early days of having uniform numbers at all, they sometimes did match the player's lineup slots because that was on purpose.

They were supposed to correspond. And so you had Ruth batting third and Garrig batting fourth and wearing three and four respectively. That was not an accident. It was meant to map each other, in fact. And I was reading a little bit about the history of that in the indispensable baseball book. a game of inches by Peter Morris, which gets into just how everything in baseball originated. And people had talked about having numbers on the back of jerseys. I mean, going back to the 19th century, this was debated and discussed for decades.

And it came to hockey, maybe in some ways, before baseball. And that intensified the suggestion that baseball should follow suit. And evidently in the 20s, in 1923, the Cardinals decided to do it because branch Ricky, who is then the manager said, I think we owe it to the patrons. The fans do not know all the players. Even I, a manager in the same league, went away from home, must often call an usher aside and ask him who this or that player is. And if I don't know the players, how is any ordinary person to figure it out? Because he's extraordinary, fair, I guess. But they did implement that, I guess, as an experiment in 1924 to 1925, they wore small numbers on their sleeves.

but then it really came into vogue later. 1929, the Yankees were trailblazers. And so they showed up in that stat blast for a good reason. And they did have numbers on the back that corresponded to the spot in the order. And then it spread a little bit. And the National League actually banned uniform numbers for several years after that. It's like, not for us. That's American League.

Not in the senior circuit. But by 1933, pretty much all the teams were doing it. But by 1940 or so, that correspondence had pretty much gone away. Because you can't actually maintain that because batting orders change. And also, like, guys get hurt. And so you can't possibly actually keep it matching unless you're constantly switching the uniform numbers, which would be confusing and annoying too. So it wasn't really workable.

But for a little while, that's why it was more common in that era. You can buy a Babe Ruth jersey with Ruth on the back. You can buy a Mickey Mantle jersey with Mantle on the back. You can buy a your name jersey. So I'm just saying, do you care about this? Yeah. Or do you, like, principles, you know, sometimes mean foregoing money. So I feel like I know what side they came down on.

Put the names on the backs of the jerseys. Sacrilege. Yeah. And, yeah, as long as you don't use the jersey to catch. a liner, then I guess you're good. Because Logan Gilbert, poor Logan, he didn't even get an out out of that. He got a bruise, I guess. But no, yeah, you got to use your glove, unfortunately.

I'm now forgetting who noted this on Blue Sky, but it was a post after this podcast's own heart where it's like, you know, one of the things that makes baseball great is that there is like a specific rule about that, right? This wasn't, yep, there's a rule. There's just a rule about it. Now, I do, I understand why there is a rule. And I appreciate why, like, getting, it is sort of just like a cool thing, though. And I feel like you should cover one out.

I know, I know why going in the shirt, it's like that has to be out of play. Like, because what are you going to do, you know, like the guys could run forever to do. I get it. But it's so. And it looked like it hurt, you know? It did. Yeah. Just give him the out. You don't want to take a ball to the gut? Yeah. But then people would be using their caps, their shoes, their who knows what, but

that would be entertaining too. And you can't throw your glove and catch a ball either. Sometimes this leads to confusion, but mostly you are restricted to the mitt. One other minor correction from that same stat blast about the uniform numbers. I think I said Cole Calhoun when I was talking about the Angels. And I should have said Willie Calhoun. It was Willie, not Cole, but I saw Angels and I saw Calhoun, and I assumed Cole. I leaped to conclusions, so apologies for that. And also one other, I guess, correction, but you know how we talked about the Ron Darling comment?

Yes. Nolan McLean of the Mets seeming to say my bad to Byron Buxton after throwing an inside pitch and then Buxton hitting the next pitch for a home run and Ron Darling said, ah, this is why you can't be apologetic as a pitcher because the hitter will read you and then he'll know that you're not going to come inside again and he'll sit on an outside pitch and take you deep. Well, evidently, in the next game and Wednesday's game, we were informed by Patreon Sporter Philip, who initially drew our attention to this part of the broadcast. There was a follow-up report on the Mets broadcast on SNY from roving reporter

Steve Gelbs. And it turns out that McLean was actually apologizing to his catcher, Francisco Alvarez, about missing the location. And so Ron Darling then did a maya culpa about the mayacolpa and said that he would apologize to McLean for assuming that McLean's apology was directed at Buxton because it was evidently actually directed at Alvarez. So it turns out that that whole thesis by darling in our discussion of it, it was a case of mistaken apology or mistaken apology recipient. And unless, yeah, unless Buxton also was confused and thought that McLean was apologizing to him and not Alvarez, unless this is like McLean's trying to cover up his, his oopsie apology by saying, no, actually, I was apologizing to that other guy and make Ron Darling feel bad about

criticizing him. Who knows? But evidently, it was, it was not what it seemed. And so that was not what McLean was doing. And maybe that wasn't what Buxton was doing either when he hit the home run. As we said, maybe he just hit a home run because he's a good hitter and sometimes he hits homers. Yeah, I think that we should allow for the possibility that the guy who we've all spent the last several years just bereft that he can't stay healthy enough to show what he can do for a full season. That guy might just be good at baseball, you know? Yes, yes. That'll do it for the free preview of today's Effectively Wild.

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