Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2517: You Can’t Give Them Extra Outs

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB franchise appreciation, Stat Blast about what the resurgence of three-inning saves and the expanding distribution of saves say about pitcher usage, and learn about a new baseball injury. Then (43:28) they bring on Lindsay Imber of Close Call Sports and the official scorer behind the MLB Scoring Changes account to explain the “fourth-out” rule that confused fans and players this week and to pick nits with the MLB rulebook. Finally (1:30:50), Ben brings back former major leaguer John Poff to read from his new book, reflect on his use of “greenies” and players’ political differences, and share a new fundraising initiative for the Standing Rock Reservation, followed (2:13:45) by a few updates. Audio intro: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio interstitial: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Ted O., “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Yankees “capital infusion” Link to story about Yankees valuation Link to story about Lakers sale Link to impending Padres sale Link to FIFA takeover attempt Link to Infantino wiki Link to Littleton save Link to save rule Link to pope hat giveaway Link to Latz stats Link to Atlanta’s three-out savers Link to data on three-out saves Link to data on save-getters by season Link to multi-inning RP outings data Link to Herfindahl–Hirschman index wiki Link to annual HHI data Link to HHI graph Link to Inverse Participation Ratio Link to THT on three-inning saves Link to SB Nation on three-inning saves Link to Medium post on three-inning saves Link to WSJ closers story Link to Ben on saves slipping in 2017 Link to Betteridge’s law wiki Link to parakeet bounceback news Link to Goodhart’s law wiki Link to league SP splits Link to league RP splits Link to FG post on Goodhart’s law Link to other FG post on Goodhart’s law Link to Arrigheti report Link to more on Arrigheti Link to Morton’s neuroma wiki Link to Morton’s neuroma causes Link to Mayo Clinic on Morton’s neuroma Link to more on Morton’s neuroma Link to even more on Morton’s neuroma Link to Ben on the 2015 ALDS game Link to Ben on confused counts Link to @ScoringChanges Link to @ScoringChanges fourth-out tweet Link to @CloseCallSports Link to Close Call Sports website Link to Close Call Sports YouTube channel Link to Lindsay wiki Link to Lindsay’s fourth-out video Link to Lindsay’s Sale video Link to Lindsay’s Wheeler video Link to fourth out wiki Link to fourth-out story 1 Link to fourth-out story 2 Link to SABR on fourth outs Link to The Athletic fourth-out explainer Link to Bois on balks Link to Sam on balks Link to xkcd comic Link to Schneider quote Link to Strike Four Link to Poff Stat Blast Link to first Poff appearance Link to second Poff appearance Link to Halls of Fame discussion Link to Poff’s first Hall of Fame Link to Poff’s second Hall of Fame Link to Poff’s book Link to Carlin routine Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki Link to greenies info Link to Ben on PEDs and the ball Link to “Buffalo Bill ‘s” poem Link to Standing Rock wiki Link to Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy art Link to John’s fundraiser Link to Scherzer’s piano-playing Link to Kendrick cameo story Link to Skenes velo graph Link to Skenes game story Link to Liquid I.V. powder Link to Rocker pickle-juice game Link to Stanton yoga report Link to Foulke wife tweet Link to Foulke firing report  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

Hello, I'm okay, we got so much to do today. Breaking balls and blaking snows, and those stats won't blast themselves. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2517 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of VanGrafs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. Sometimes I think I should have bought an MLB team that that would have been a wise investment for me to make. Because looking at some of these sale prices and valuations, you know, these assets appreciate. They really do. This is not news to anyone, but it has been a bit of news this week because the Yankees just got an injection of a couple of bill from a private equity venture that valued that organization at around 10 billion bucks. And also the Lakers, the Los Angeles Lakers, just sold last year, getting sold again. They are being flipped by Mark Walter, sports mogul and Los Angeles Dodgers owner.

He's flipping the Lakers for a $2 billion profit or so, bought the team for $10 billion last year, moving it now for $12 billion. and I was entertained by the quote where he said, owning the Los Angeles Lakers has been one of the great honors of my life. Since last October, I guess. Sure. It was quite a wonderful time, I suppose. And it does, I guess, maybe add some fuel to the fire of what's going on with Mark Walter these days, right?

Because I have not stat-blasted franchise sales, but that's got to be one of the quickest turnarounds. I mean, to be approved as. the owner last October and now here in August, you're already selling. I mean, it's not a casual transaction when you buy or sell a $10 to $12 billion sports franchise. So everything we've talked about lately about the federal investigation of Walter and some questions about accounting practices and also his health. I guess if he is in any hot water, $12 billion might get him out of it, but it does maybe a little credence or make you wonder what's happening there, because usually you buy and hold for some time before you sell.

And of course, I don't know, man, I don't know, man. Here's one thing I do know. You need to see who he's selling to? Oh, yes. Of course, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger. Yeah, Josh being Jared's brother. Right. The non-Trump.

Kushner, which will let people make their own judgments about. Brother of the son-in-law of the president. Correct. And then Bob Eiger, who, you know. So I don't know. I think that two things need to be clarified that I don't. I don't know what the truth of the situation is. And I don't know what will come of it.

And those might be discouragingly decoupled from one another, given the current political environment. I would say that, like, if you're trying not to look suspicious that you maybe don't sell the team after a year to a literal Cushner. But, yeah, no, I'm not a rich guy, you know, Ben. I don't know how rich guys do it. They, they tend to do it in ways that I would find shady. You know, if I were a rich guy, I'd be like, that's the little shady.

You're making the rich guys a little shady. Well, Josh Kushner has also invested in Patreon, I believe. So are our hands clean? Can you escape? Is there any ethical consumption or podcasting? capitalism, perhaps not. Anyway, that was noteworthy, and if you are a Dodgers hater, and I know there are a few of you out there, and you want to try to read the tea leaves and wonder, what could ever do

in the Dodgers? Well, if there is something happening with Walter's organization here, and if there is, maybe selling the Lakers for $12 billion takes care of it to a Kushner, two boots. But if he were forced to sell the Dodgers too, well, his tenure has been quite successful as owner of that franchise. So maybe that would be a downgrade potentially. Or, I guess, failing that, the Dodgers TV deal is up in 2038. Is that what it is?

So, you know, a mere dozen years or so. And that problem will be solved for everyone. So just be patient. You know, that's all it'll take. It's so interesting because they do, I'm sorry, I'm being distracted by the questioner of all. Like, he is so keen to be in the sports biz. Because wasn't he trying to do stuff with FIFA?

Wasn't there like a FIFA thing with him? Wasn't there FIFA? There's always a FIFA thing. Wasn't there some FIFA corruption thing with? Wasn't there some FIFA corruption? I think the answer is always yes. He was part of the like investment plan. Yes, he was involved in that attempted takeover.

The guy, Infantino. What a weird looking guy. You know, one of the worst things about fascism, Ben, and corruption is that like to be a nice person, you're supposed to not comment on how someone. of these guys are like the weirdest looking little guys. And some of them were such weird-looking little guys. And I don't, I don't want to judge other people by their appearance. It doesn't say anything about their moral worth, their dignity as human beings. But also, some of these guys are weird, they're weird-looking little guys, you know? And Inventino, he's, he's a really

weird-looking little guy. I can say that because I'm Italian. Isn't you Italian? Infantino, he has to be, right? That puts you in the clear. Right. I'm allowed to say that this, this, Look, there are some very handsome Italian men, and then there's this guy. I regret to inform you. He's actually Swiss? So now you have to retract your comment. He's actually quite a handsome gent anyway. With a name like Infantino, he's Swiss?

I mean, I don't know his exact makeup. It's just like when you learn that Miele is a German company and you're like, surely this little espresso machine is so temperamental. It has to be Italian. He is the son of Italian immigrants. You're back to being okay. Thank God. You can't say anything about him, but I can.

I'm the only one who's allowed to say that Infantino is a weird-looking little dude. He's not even the Kushner in this scenario. And of all the Kushners, I would say that Joshua, one of the less weird-looking Kushners, because some of them are quite strange. Well, Walter bought the Dodgers in 2012 for $2.15 billion, or a little less than half of what the Padres are officially. selling for this week. And sure, inflation and opportunity cost and you could always invest in other things when you're a rich person. But that's not a bad rate of return. And I was thinking about that

because, you know, I co-started this podcast in 2012. So we each, me and Mark Walter, we each launched some significant baseball related business ventures that year. And I'm, you know, I'm happy that I went this way instead of that way. But I am just thinking, you know, as a percentage, I suppose, probably the rate of return has improved with effectively wild more than it has with the Dodgers, just because effectively wild had zero value and zero revenue in 2012. And now it has some, thanks to our Patreon supporters. So that's... We appreciate very much.

Yes. But also, perhaps I should have just bought the Dodgers back then. Right. And then I'd really be sitting pretty. But I'm not sure that option was available to me. Yeah, I was going to say, did you have like $2 billion dollars laying around? Yeah, I'm not sure I could have scraped up the capital at that point. You know, now it's a different story.

But back then. Right, right. If you revealed yourself to be in possession of $2 billion, I would say, we got to roll back that free me a model, man. We can't be asking people for money. I think that would be justified. Yes, it's true. I want our listeners to know how deranged I am and how concerned I am about things that

will never happen. Sort of like how I feel sad when houses I really like on Zillow that I can't afford and are in cities I'll never live in get sold. And I'm like, but what if I wanted that one day? I had a dream the other day that I won the lottery and then was really worried about how to tell our Patreon supporters. Because I was like, well, I guess if I'm worth a billion dollars, I can just fund the podcast. Yeah, if you share the wealth. Yeah.

Because I was like, I can't ask people for $10 a month. I have a billion dollars now. So, and then I woke up. when I was like, you need to work less. I think that's the takeaways that I need to work a little bit less. Perhaps that was a presentiment. Maybe that will come to pass at some point.

That would be so nice. If so. But part of my dilemma was that I was like, I don't necessarily want people to know if won the lottery. So what, how do we explain to people that we are still doing the podcast and they don't need to worry about the Patreon anymore? And I was,

you know, I didn't come up with an answer in my dream. So, you know, well, we'll work on that. Yeah. Yeah, when we need to. So we've got a full agenda today. At the end of the episode, I will be talking to returning guest, effectively wild legend, John Poff, former major leaguer.

There's a lot of lore surrounding John Puff because he was originally the subject of a stat blast back in 2019, a Sam blast. And Sam determined that John Poff was the player in major league history who had had the most playing time exclusively in September. I think that was how it was framed because John Poff's major league career consists of two cups of coffee, one with the 1979 Phillies and one with the 1980 Brewer. So he never played in the bigs outside of September. And I think maybe Fernando Pera is another multi-time, effectively wild guest.

He maybe had the most starts in September, but he also played a little bit in October and was in the playoffs. So I think Poff still reigns supreme. And then it turned out that he was a poet and we didn't even know it. And we discovered that he's a real cerebral fellow and a literary type. And so he came on the podcast a couple of times and it was great. And he also has done a lot of work at the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas, some baseball related, some not.

And has solicited some donations and crowd support for those community efforts. And effectively, while listeners have been very generous. generous in the past. And so he is launching a new initiative, an art project, and he will be here to tell you about it. And I hope you'll consider helping him out because he hasn't won the lottery either. And also, he is the author of a brand new book called Out of My Life and Two Visions, which is half about baseball. And that book came to be because of effectively wild also because the first time he was on, he was contacted by an editor who ultimately commissioned this book. So it's all coming full circle now and I'll talk to them about the book and the new fundraising campaign.

And before that, we will be joined by two other guests. We will be graced with the presence of Lindsay Inber, who runs close call sports and the anonymous, pseudonymous proprietor of the MLB scoring changes accounts online because they have been much in demand this week to explain the hellmouth that opened on Monday in Toronto. where a fourth out situation arose in the Red Sox Blue Jays game. And many people were confused, and we've all been learning a lot about the rulebook. And Lindsay and Mr. Scoring Changes have been very integral to my understanding of these rules and to everyone else's. So they're going to be here to walk us through what happened and what could have happened.

And also some of the other intricacies of the rulebook and some of the. the weird things that happen in baseball games sometimes. So that will also be an entertaining topic. The only thing I wanted to tell you about before then is something that I have discovered this week, which is very exciting, which is the resurgence of the three-inning save. Speaking of strange rules. So as people may be aware, there are a number of ways one can record a save. And I'll just read from the MLB.com glossary here, a relief pitcher recording a save must preserve his team's lead while doing one of the following. Enter the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitch at least one inning. Enter the game with the tying run in the

on-deck circle at the plate or on the bases or pitch at least three innings. And if you do that last one, it doesn't matter what the score is. So this is the rarest way to get a save, but it's a little less rare than it was in recent years. And I was clued into this by a couple of effectively wild listener emails. So we got an email last week. from listener, Patreon supporter Bobby, who informed us that Brian Bayo of the Red Sox had recorded a three-inning save, scratched my head seeing a save in a 14-2 route. And of course, I informed him that this was not the biggest blowout

to result in a three-inning save. Famously, West Littleton recorded a save in the 2007-30-3 Rangers win, which I will remember to my dying day. I wonder how often Wes Littleton gets asked about that or has caused to recall that because he didn't have a very long distinguished major league career. And I would say that's his claim to fame more than anything else as he got the save in the 30 to 3 game. So if you're going to remember Wes Wittleton for anything, it may be that. But then we got another email from Patreon supporter Webster, also Red Sox related, also three-in-save-related.

And this message was sent on Saturday. after last night's game, the Red Sox have had four pitchers. Ryan Watson, Brian Beyo, Alec Gamboa, and Raymond Burgos record a save, the old-fashioned way of three innings to end a game. This seems like it might be the record for most different pitchers on a team getting a save this way, at least for the 21st century. And that sounded plausible, perhaps. Sure. So cue the stat blast theme. They'll take a data set sort of.

something like three are a minus or OBS plus. And then they'll tease out some interest to take the disgusted at length and analyze it for us in amazing to taste a blast. I was delighted to inform Webster, and I had not known this before I stat-headed it myself. But not only is this not a record for the most distinct pitchers on a team to get a three-in-ing save in the season in the 21st century. It's not even the record this season. Oh. Yeah, because the Red Sox have had four of these guys do it. The Atlanta Braves have had five. So Eliezer Hernandez, J.R. R. R. Ritchie, Jose Suarez, Dylan Dodd, and Osvaldo Bido. Each of those guys has recorded a three-inning save as well.

And this seems significant to me that Webster was was cluing into something significant here, that, oh, this seems like a lot for four pitchers to do that on one team. And then it turns out that that's not even the most on any team this year. I wonder if something is happening with three-inning saves. And having done a bunch of blasting and also solicited some assistance from Michael Mountain, I'm pleased to report that, in fact, that is the case that something is happening here. And what it is, I think, actually is exactly clear. And I will try to explain it.

So there has been a bounce back in three-inning saves, which had really bottomed out in recent years. And this season, there have been 42 thus far, which might not sound like that many, but it actually is in the grand scheme of things. 42 would be the most in any season since 1999, save for last year when there were 49. So we're on pace to break last year's mark and maybe 1999s too and maybe have to go back to, well, 1991. There were 93 of these things. There used to be many, many more, but it looks like we're in for the most in decades this season. And so I was curious about the significance of this. And of course, the save rule itself was codified in 1969.

And it had been floating around a bit before that. was sort of laid down by Jerome Holtzman before that. It was kind of colloquial that people had talked about pitchers getting the save, but it became an official tract stat in 1969. And it has flowed and ebbed and now is sort of flowing again. So the peak for most three-inning saves was when there were fewer games and fewer teams, but there were just more of these things happening. And I guess the most in any season was 1982 when there were 189 three plus innings saves. So I'm wondering what's happening here. Why are there more? Because we bottomed out, well, putting aside 2020, actually we don't have to put aside 2020 because that wasn't even the

low. In 2010, there were four, there were four three innings saves that whole season. And now we're we're up to 42 and counting this season. So that seems somewhat significant, even though we're nowhere near the highs. And I was thinking of this in relation to parakeets. And why would I think about parakeets? Because the New Zealand native Kakariki Karaka, or orange-fronted parakeet I was reading about recently,

people thought it was extinct. People thought maybe twice that it had gone extinct. And it turns out that, no, they have been brought back to life, and there are now about 450 of them. So there probably used to be many, many more orange-fronted parakeets than there are today, but there are many more than there were as of recently. So for now, at least the species has been saved, and they've been preserved in sanctuaries and predator-free islands. In large part, thanks to Nacho and Trixie. Nacho and Trixie? Yes, they have been fruit full and have multiplied.

They have been going at it. I guess usually we say like rabbits, but in this case, like orange-fronted parakeets. Nacho and Trixie, they were paired up in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2024. And evidently, it was just a perfect match because you can't keep them apart. And they have since produced 55 chicks, including 33 this year alone. I mean, credit to Trixie. Like, that's, who, you've put your... yourself through a lot. So they have, I guess, double-handedly almost brought back their species to some

extent here, but they're not solely responsible. They don't have hands. Yeah, I guess true. I don't know. Double-beakedly, whatever is. Yeah, I mean, I guess they're using other parts of their anatomy probably to actually make this happen, but we won't go into that. Anyway, credit to Nacho and Trixie, and the three-in-save has enjoyed a similar resurgence here. And I don't know who the nacho and trixie of the three-inning save are, but it has come back from the brinket was nearly extinct. And now it's not common, but it's back to being endangered, at least, and is on the upswing. And I think there are a couple reasons for this. And I think probably the primary reason is that, well, you know how I coined the saying,

you can never have enough pitching? Yep. I think that applies yet again here, because I think that even though we have pitch design and pitch labs and there's a perception that you can just kind of churn out an infinite number of hard throwing relievers, teams are sort of stretched in the bullpen. And they brought that on themselves to some extent because they've restricted starter usage. And then they've also restricted reliever usage, both in terms of length and frequency of appearances. and so the soft underbelly of the bullpens has been exposed. And that comes into play in a narrowing of the reliever starter gap. Relievers pretty deep into the season had actually been worse than starters. And that's flipped now.

And relievers do have better numbers, but barely. So that gap has really closed because relievers are shouldering more of the load. And it's not just high leverage, guys. You need a little length. You need mop-up men. And yes, you also need position player pitchers sometimes, but even that has been somewhat suppressed. And so you do sometimes need guys to take the ball. And so I think that has really sort of squeezed the relievers.

And sometimes teams just leave guys out there. And maybe it's a blowout or whatever. They just need them to eat innings. And therefore, you end up with a lot of those Ryan Bayo, West Littleton type saves. And I haven't looked into this, but I would guess that maybe the average leverage index of those outings has decreased probably. I mean, it certainly has since its heyday when you had like actual closers and firemen getting three innings saves. They just come in and finish the game. That's not really happening now.

It's just, you know, it's your non-leverage guys typically who are going to come out and eat a few innings and sometimes get a save in the process. And so we're now seeing this come back to the point where Webster was thinking, wow, this must be some sort of record. It's actually not really, but relative to recent years, it is pretty darn noteworthy. And this is sort of a symptom, I think, of larger trends in pitcher usage. I think that that's right. A couple other little wrinkles here. So I think probably part of it also is that there's just less cachet with the closer. And people just, there's not as much prestige associated with saves and there's not as much

mythology about the closer mentality. And if it's the ninth and if it's a save situation, you've got to go to this guy. There was a Wall Street Journal article the other day. Baseball closers are on the verge of extinction. So I guess they need the orange fronted parakeet, nacho and trixie kind of come back too. But basically the idea that saves are just more widely democratically distributed now because there's not so much, oh, you're the designated save getter. It's more about matchups and who has a fresh arm and who's available. And so perhaps some of these three innings saves, again, a lot of them are blowouts where you wouldn't get the traditional save situation anyway. But some of them, maybe the margin got close enough that in the past you might have lifted that guy. And then it would have been a regular save for someone else.

but now people don't care about that so much. And we are heading for another record here so far this year. Actually, this is already a record. 230 pitchers in Major League Baseball have recorded a save this season. And I was thinking of this because on Tuesday, the White Sox had a sellout crowd on Pope Hat Night, of course. Great giveaway. Of course. Yes.

And even the Pope's intervention could not help them. And ultimately, they lost. in extra innings. That's what makes him a good Pope. He's focused on other stuff. That's true. You know, he's not putting his thumb on the scale for the White Sox. Or given the White Sox season at large, maybe he is.

But in this, it would have been too conspicuous for him to intercede in this game. Yeah. So he's kind of keeping it a little lower profile. But they lost this game in extras. And of all people, an opposing pitcher named Pagan got the save in the Pope game, which felt That's funny. Very appropriate or appropriately inappropriate, Emilio, that is. And a lot of guys get saves now.

And this wasn't his first save or anything for the Reds. But you see now, like, teams are setting records left and right with, like, most pitchers to get a save in a season because people just aren't really hung up on who's getting them anymore. And there are good things and bad things about this from a labor economic perspective, as the Wall Street Journal article noted, some. relievers, closers are concerned about this because comps in arbitration are partly saved spaced. And so if you're not getting those saves totals and you're being compared to an earlier era of closers, it doesn't seem like we're going to see, not only are we not going to see another Mario Rivera performance-wise, but save total wise or even Kenley Jansen or Craig Kimbril, for that matter, just individual guys, much like wins or whatever, we're probably not going to see them accruing

those totals. So last year, there were 215 save-getters in MLB all season, and this year we're already at 230. So it's already a record, and we're just racking up the score now. And this is really, even in 1998 or 2000, let's say, it was 135 guys or 2001, 130 guys. Same number of teams, same number of games, and we've added 100 extra guys or more getting saves in a season. So it's a little less special, perhaps. But I think that's probably part of why this is happening as well and why there's a little less novelty, perhaps, to the three-inning save now. So I think it's emblematic of bullpen use.

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think there are other good things in that we have seen a resurgence of multi-inning relief outings, which was another thing I looked up. And we haven't really talked about him, but Jacob Lats for the Rangers, he has been a standout in that regard. And I saw Jared Sandler share these stats the other day. I think they're still accurate. He has six saves of two innings, the most in MLB, that had doubled Louis Varlane's total in second at the time. No one has had as many two-inning saves since 2019 when Josh Hader had nine. Lats has 10 saves of four or more outs, the most in MLB.

No one has had as many four plus out saves since, again, 2019, with Hayter and Taylor Rogers, who had 15 and 12 respectively. So he has kind of brought back the era-adjusted fireman role a little bit. And I wonder whether we will start seeing this more, because as there is this sort of skrimping and saving, where are we going to get innings, then maybe if you have a guy who can go multiple innings, then. And it would behoove you and him to do that probably more often. So, I mean, Sabermetric sorts have talked about this forever. Like, are we evolving towards some sort of system where we don't have traditional starter, reliever distinctions anymore, man, you know, you don't have to put the bullpen guys in a box, and we don't have to label anyone, and it's all just amorphous,

and everyone's just kind of going three innings, and we have some sort of piggyback system. I don't know if we'll ever get to that point, because there are still pitchers who are better than other pitchers, and you do want them to pitch a lot more than the other guys. But maybe we're evolving a little bit back in that direction where we're getting a little more length. I'd like to see that because, you know, the robotic kind of push button, everyone goes one inning, and then they get lifted. It's a little bit boring, right?

It can be boring. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So this year, 4.5% of all saves have been three or more innings, which is. is again, not close to a lot compared to earlier eras, but the most in decades. And then the percentage of games also with a three or more inning save, that's 2.3%. That is also spiking. And it's not that there are fewer saves, like the percentage of games with a save of some sort, that hasn't really changed.

It's just the type and the guys who were getting them, really, that has shifted. And Michael Mountain frequented that last correspondent, his contribution to the save studies here. And, you know, to toot my own horn a little bit, this seems to have changed or reversed around 2017 or so, maybe after the Andrew Miller phenomenon of 2016 and how we were all talking about sort of, you know, you can just bring in relievers whenever and, you know, high leverage and everything. And I wrote an article that may, for the ringer with the headline, is the save finally slipping? And Betteridge's law be damned. It was, actually. And it continued to slip.

So who knew? I was early on that. So I feel good about that. And, you know, you can kind of just eyeball this and see it. But Michael brought a higher caliber statistical tool to bear here, which is something that has been cited, I believe, by Ryan Nelson in previous stateless. And it is, of course, the hard. Herfendahl Hirschman Index. What?

Yeah, or the HHHSI to those in the know. Oh, yeah. And it's a measurement of how concentrated something is, essentially. And if the number is low, there's a wide distribution. And if the number is high, then it's a very concentrated distribution. And when I asked Michael to explain this, amusingly, he said, it's the same formula as the inverse participation ratio in quantum mechanics. which describes how localized a particle's wave function is over some domain.

And, you know, as I said to him, a lot of listeners are just nodding along here and say, oh, okay. Well, in that case, it's just, yeah, it's the inverse participation ratio, basically. I mean, yeah. You've all heard of that. The household Herfendahl Hirschman Index. It does sound made up. Herfindoll Hirschman. Yeah.

And it's on a zero to one scale. And so the closer to zero, the wider the distribution and the higher, the more concentrated it is. And the more the save getters would be getting the saves, essentially. And so the all-time high was 2002. That was when it was the most concentrated. That stayed the same for a decade or so after that, 2013, 2011. The numbers were close to 0.7 or so at that point. and now this has flipped to the point where we're now down to 0.38.

So it has been halved essentially in the past 15 years or so. And, you know, it fluctuates a little bit, but it hasn't consistently been that low since the 80s when you did have guys who were routinely doing that when it was sort of the peak, I guess. And it was more common for people to have longer outings, even though you did have some. some of the designated firemen. So, yeah, it's, anything goes these days. The bullpen hierarchies, they are not set in cement. They are malleable. Anyone can get a save.

Back in the early days of this pod, when we used to track the leaders in career games finished without a save, and Ryan Webb and Matt Albers back in those days, that wouldn't fly today because no one can really rack up a lot of games finished without a save because you're always going to get one. Basically, at this point, you'll just sort of luck into, you'll stumble into a save at some point if you are in a big league bullpen. So everyone gets to experience the wonder, the majesty of the safe. So that's exciting.

Anyway, we can all refamiliarize ourselves with the three-inning save because it's a little less rare. And the FFM. Yes, of course, that too. That too. Yeah. And there is a little bit of, you know, we've talked about Goodhart's law. before, which is when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. We were talking about that earlier this year with barrels, for instance, and there's such an emphasis on barrels. Well, maybe

are guys just trying to hit barrels as opposed to why a barrel is good? Because a hard hit ball leads to good outcomes. If you start aiming to score well in that metric, then that might become decoupled from what the metric was originally measuring. And then it's no longer such a good measure. And so I wonder whether this happened to some extent with the save too, because maybe originally a save in a lot of cases really meant something. Like you really had saved the game. And then once saves in the Eckersy, LaRusa late 80s era on, it kind of morphed into, okay, the way you get saves is you come in for one inning with a, you know, one to three run lead or whatever. And you just nail that down. And the degree of difficulty was a little lower. And, you know, teams to some extent and

pitchers were kind of managing to the save in a way that made it a little less telling, I guess. Like, everyone sort of had a save fetish. And in some of those cases, it didn't really feel like, oh, the game was saved. You bailed us out. It was like, you went through the motions and you did the thing in order to record a save. But the game wasn't really in that much danger, I suppose. And that's still true. It's just that the measure has become devalued now because.

Because anyone can do it. Literally anyone. We could probably get a save at this point. Well, and like you said, everybody's on to new kinks. They don't have a safe fetish anymore. Yeah, yeah. Well, we're saved positive now on this podcast, I suppose. There you know, because we used to be aggrieved about saves.

And now we can just kind of let that go. It's like no one cares anymore, you know, all the battles about saves and wins and RBI. Now it's just sort of a useful tool that you can use to calibrate across eras. see how things have changed, and no one gets that fuss about who's getting them anymore, although maybe if you are entering arbitration and you're a reliever, you might be a bit fussed about that, but that's because arbitrators are still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to using stats, strangely. The rate of two or multi-inning relief outings, as I mentioned, that has increased. I tried to break this down a number of ways because it's tough with

openers being a confounding factor, but I looked at it just pure. the percentage of two-inning outings for relievers as a percentage of all relief outings, or two-to-three inning outings or two-to-four inning outings. Because usually if you're a bulk guy following an opener, you're going to go longer than, well, two or three, certainly, or maybe even four. However you slice it, though, those rates have increased. And they're the highest since maybe 2019. And before that, you have to go back almost 20 years.

So something's in the air here. Something's in the water. The save done changed. That's what's happening here. Yeah. Okay. So all the three-inning save celebrators out there can be happy about that. Rejoice.

Yeah. And we can celebrate from that sort of strange rule to another here. And the three-inning save, that's a little less rare than it used to be. But the fourth out, well, that's still quite rare, though we will be better equipped to explain it and recognize it when we see it here. And wasn't the only thing I learned that was prompted by a Blue Jays game this year or a Blue Jays player this week, actually, because I did want to mention, are you familiar with Morton's neuroma? What? Yeah, I'm telling you all sorts of terms and names. Morton's neuroma?

Yes, so Spencer Araggetti, who was... Oh, yeah, he has like a weird nerve thing, right? Namely, Morton's neuroma. Oh, boy, I walked right into that. Yeah, he was just acquired by... the Blue Jays, but he has a foot issue. He came over in the Dalton Varsho trade, and this was diagnosed as Morton's neuroma.

And I'll let Dr. John Schneider explain the diagnosis here. Not the last time we will invoke his name on this episode. Content warning here if you're at all squeamish. I mean, I don't know where this rates on the squeamishness scale. And now I got to. All right, go. You have to listen, unfortunately, but everyone else. It's not that bad.

I don't have a problem with this, but it is basically a skin buildup around the nerve in your foot, leading it to feel like you have a rock in your shoe. Oh, how odd. So it's like having a pebble in your shoe except it's actually... It's skin? On your foot. Yeah.

It's foot skin? Yeah. And he's going to try to pitch through it while this is treated, but... Is blooper made entirely of Morton's normalness? That's... That is possible. Is that what... Can we finally understand that?

Fleshy monstrosity. Yeah. And Morton's neuroma, I'm sure all the foot people, well, wait, I should specify. Yeah, watch out, buddy. Speaking of kinks, but again, to each their own, as long as we're all consenting. They are, right. As long as everybody's saying yes and having fun, it's fine, I will say. And I'm not the first person to make note of this, but foot people don't have any trouble

telling you their foot people. They're pretty, they're not bashful about it. I'm saying it should be bashful. You should be a little more bashful when you come into my Instagram DMs and ask for pictures of my feet. You're going to say no every time. Yeah. I feel like, you know, if it's volunteered, that's one thing. But requesting it is another.

It was a very civil request, but I was still like, I know what you're going to do with the pictures of my feet. Right. I understand this. Of course, names for American surgeon Thomas George Morton, who first described it in the literature in 1876. This is a fairly common complaint in some kind. I take it. So if you're a podiatrist or whatever, another type of footperson, you're probably thinking, oh, yeah, Morton's neuroma. See that all the time. Obviously, yeah. It's one of the more famous neuromas. It's a well-known neuroma. But I appreciate this because I've learned a lot about

anatomy and ailments from following baseball and sports in general. This is one of the ways that I still, to this day, and sometimes against my will, but I still learn a lot about the wonders of the human body by following baseball and becoming familiar with unusual physical complaints. And I'm glad that we have this specificity as opposed to if Spencer Ergetty were an NHL player, they probably just would have said lower body injury and left it at that. And now we know about Morton's neuroma, which I've read can be caused, can be more common in women because it's sometimes caused by high-heeled shoes. Oh, interesting.

Which subjects your feet to all sorts of stress, but also physical activities that stress the feet such as running or racket sports and maybe also baseball. Is it in his landing foot or his plant foot? Good question. Yeah, I would guess landing foot. Yeah, it's like the act of it. Right. Or I guess it could be the pushing off.

Right, yeah. Yeah, it's treatable. It's not a crisis. So they cut it out? Yeah. This is where maybe my interest in knowing more about Mortis neuroma. I mean, yeah. I appreciate you demonstrating restraint because typically I'm sitting here going, dear God, please stop.

Why do I need to know this much? I think they start with non-surgical methods and they try to just reduce the pressure and the inflammation on the nerve. And you can change your footwear. I mean, maybe Spencer Erigetti can't when he's playing baseball, but you can use orthotics or pads or anti-inflammatories. Yeah. Hoka enthusiasts. Ice stretching. Maybe there's a certain sort of stretching.

that even I would approve of, I don't know. But if that fails, then there's a surgical recourse at which point he probably would not be able to pitch through that. But I just appreciate that even now after following baseball my whole life, I'm still, maybe I should have known about Morton's neuroma before, but I don't think I did. The name didn't really ring a bell. I'm not aware of other baseball players who have had this specific complaining. And now I know something I didn't.

So thanks, Spencer. Yeah, I wonder, like, can they, like, kind of. Like, can they, like, massage it to make it, like, dissipate the fleshy buildup? Is it, it's on the inside? It's not like an exterior fleshy buildup, right? It's like internal. It's an excellent question. It seems like it would be because if you had, like, an external fleshy buildup, they probably just like.

If it were around the nerve, yeah. Right. They just lance it off or something. Yes. Okay. The more you know. He should try hokas. I have two pairs of hokas.

I'm 40 now. I have those too. Yeah. I love my hokas. I've never had an aroma. They're not cheap, but they are way more comfortable than high heels. I'll tell you that. I'm sure.

It's Aragetti's right foot, by the way, which I suppose would be his push-out foot, just in case anyone was wondering. Let's take a quick break. And then we will talk about more things that many people didn't know. And you make the call. How do you call a fourth out situation? We will hear now from Lindsay Imber and MLB scoring changes. Scutioni going to announce?

I hope they do. There's so much confusion. Yes. Tell us what's going on. They really ought to. Who's Scutcheone, the crew chief. Okay. So what we have here is we have a time play,

meaning when the third play, when the third out was made at first base, with the runner not tagging up, the runner that was on third base also did not tag. But crossed hold. plate before the third out was made at first base. The run's going to count. So that is a time play.

We're going to New York to check, do a rules check. Fourth out rule. Well, there seems to be something about seventh in Toronto. We all remember ALDS Game 5 in 2015 and the wildness that was unleashed in that game. something, well, not exactly similar, but similarly unhinged, happened in the seventh inning in Toronto on Monday. And I suppose I will try to set the scene just a little bit here, although the scene quickly just spiraled out of control. But what happened here is that with runners on first and second, no outs, Nick Sogard hits a low liner in the direction of Vlad Guerrero Jr. at first base. Vlad doesn't catch it on the fly.

The ball hits the ground, and Vlad gloves it. He throws to Andres Jimenez at second base to get the first out of the inning. Sogard is on first. Anthony Siegler is on third. So the situation is first and third with one out. Very importantly, only one out. Just the one. Not everyone was aware of that fact.

And the Red Sox were trailing two to nothing at that point. And then some stuff happens. Seidon, Rafaela, flew out to centerfielder Brett Bateman, and just about everybody got confused about whether that was the second or third out, including, crucially, the scoreboard operator. Some people have remained confused for the ensuing couple of days. And whenever I am confused about a ruling in baseball, there are two sources I like to go to. One is Lindsay Inber who runs close-call sports and created close-call sports. The other is, well, shall I call you Mr. Scoring Changes? The pseudonymous operator of the MLB Scoring Changes account at Scoring Changes on Twitter primarily,

I consult these two authoritative, expert sources, and for this particular play, we have brought them both on for a double-barreled rules-explanet. episodes. So Lindsay, creator of close-call sports, also organist for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, which sure am. That's a separate segment in itself. But Lindsay, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. You made an excellent video on this subject and many others that helped clarify this for me. And, well, however you would care to identify yourself, proprietor of the at Scoring Changes account, whatever you'd care to share. You are an official scorer, but I will leave it to you to divulge whichever

details you'd care to. Yeah, I am. I do official scoring currently in AAA, and then I do a lot of stuff in the minor leagues, doing some, they call it support for various teams and just overseeing some scoring and things of that nature. So this is

the scoring aspect is kind of my realm, and that's where Lindsay's site is amazing, because generally speaking, when weirdness happens, weirdness happens in a rule sense, and a scoring sense. So we're sort of like brother-sister organizations here. And you're not using voice masking technology here. So this is full confidentiality.

Presumably, some of your AAA colleagues could perhaps recognize your voice. There are people that know who I am. I basically try and keep the two lives, my actual life and this separate. I just keep them separate for my own reasons. I'm sure a lot of people know who I am, but we'll just leave it at that. Yeah. So for you two, I want to say this is your Super Bowl. I don't know why we rush to the non-baseball. This is your World Series, maybe, because this is where you shine and where we need you

both to issue rulings or explain rulings. And I wonder how you are informed of these things and how you jump into action. So I'm sure that people ask you and notify you if you're not watching one of these things live. But Lindsay, for example, how did you be? become aware that this had happened. Close Call Sports has a Discord server in which we discuss plays. There are a bunch of umpiring people and fans and anyone who's interested in the rules,

really. Links are available in every video that we do in the description. So a lot of people joined through that. And this was just one of those plays that was discussed. And Secret Score, was this just something that came across your mentions? Yeah. So the moment it happened, the first DM I got, because I just get DMs. My DMs are open.

And, you know, at one time I had like 3,000 followers and I was all excited. Now it's like 31,000. So when something happens, inevitably, I get 20, 30, 40 DMs. And the only day, the first DM I got was Toronto, huh? And I was just like, what? And I was actually at my other job. So I was working and I was trying to take care of stuff. And I'm like, what happened?

And I looked at the box score, you know, the play by play. And I was like, oh, I bet you it's a weird timing play. And people don't understand that the run scored. I just figured that's what it was. And then when I actually saw the play, I was like, oh, my gosh, fourth out, fourth out, fourth out. I got really excited. And I looked at someone and I was like, oh, this is going to be a big one. This is going to be big on social.

And it was because it was a fourth out. I think it's the fifth one. It's the fifth one I know of that could have possibly happened. in a major league baseball. Yeah. So this is, the bat signal goes up and you hopped on it quickly. And yeah, it's a little bit of everything. It's timing. It's appeal. It's fourth out. And that is such a provocative term, I think, the fourth out. And, you know, a lot of the inviolable baseball rules and numbers. It's like, you know, three strikes and three outs and nine innings. And all of those are somewhat malleable and negotiable, you know, three strikes, unless people lose track of how

many strikes there are, and then sometimes there are more or fewer, and nine innings unless there are more or fewer, you know, so it's always, you explain the baseball rule and then you say, except, although in this case, and there are certain exceptions, and that also applies to three outs, sort of, although they're taking liberties a little bit with how many outs there are. There are still three, but it's sort of a conceptual framework for four. So, Lindsay, would you care to explain what happened here and just sort of lay out the play-by-play, the blow-by-blow, and then SC can jump in wherever needed? For sure. Sucinctly, with runners on first and third and one out, Red Sox batter Raphaela hit a fly ball to Blue J's centerfielder Bateman as base runners, the R1, which is our colloquialism for the runner who starts on first base, Sogarde, and R3, that's the runner who starts at third base.

Eagler, ran the basis as if there were two outs, failing to tag up. Neither of the runners tagged up. Toronto appealed R1, Sogarde's failure to touch at first base and ran off the field as the inning ended on the fly-out appeal double play. Now, what that effectively means is, and I'm not even getting into the scoreboard being wrong yet, because as far as all of the scoreboard, on-field personnel, umpires, players, etc. are concerned. That scoreboard should not bear any influence on what we're doing on the field. It is there as a guide, but it is not official, so to

speak. The actual instruction in the MLB umpire manual is that MLB umpires should be focused on every pitch of every game without regard to factors such as score inning, whether or standing of the teams involved. So they're not supposed to know that, but at the same time, they are expected to have full knowledge of the score, inning, weather, or standings of the teams involved. So it's kind of a conundrum. But anywho, getting back to the play itself, umpires determined that, yes, the runner from third Siegler's run will count, despite him failing to tag up or retouch third base, which is generally required on a caught fly ball. Now, the thing is that if a runner fails to tag up timely and the defensive team fails to appeal that tag up, then

the failure to tag up becomes a legal failure to tag up, so to speak. In other words, the base running is legalized as soon as the defensive team fails to appeal as of the next pitch, play, attempted play, or in the case of the end of the inning, all infielders plus the catcher walking off of the fair territory, so crossing the foul line, which is what happened here. So as soon as Toronto crossed the foul line, they lost their opportunity to appeal the fourth out, so to speak, at third base. A fourth out is effectively an option for the defensive team. If there are multiple base runners, for instance, to have an appeal on whatever runner they deem would be most advantageous, which is usually the lead runner, in this case, the runner at third base,

R3. If they had appealed that runner under the fourth out rule, then that out would effectively, for scoring purposes become the third out of the inning. And because that is the third out of the inning on R3, R3's run would not count. So all of this could have been avoided, well, in any number of ways. Yeah, right. I mean, so would you care to add anything to that account, SC? No, I think that's, I mean, that pretty much covers it. It was interesting watching the pitcher and catcher not realizing the outs either. Everyone talks about R1. on an R3 for getting how many outsower. If you watch the replay, as soon as the ball's caught in center, the pitcher and catcher

kind of fist bump and walk off the field. And then when you see on the high home, once they appeal and get the guy at first, the pitcher stands and kind of points like, oh, yeah, yeah, get that guy too. I don't think he knew what was going on. And he can't see the scoreboard. Like the pitcher's not looking at the scoreboard. So I don't know how he got messed up. And there was only the fourth batter of the inning.

So that's where part of this is really screwy, that just so many multiple people got messed up by the number of outs. I think that another factor that we have to talk about is the play immediately preceding this was a very close catch, no catch call at first base with Greer because he short hopped. And if you thought that was a catch, you might get confused and think that it was somehow a double play, even though it wasn't. but it was short hop, so there was only one out on that play. A bunch of people got confused and thought there were two. Yeah, and I think that what happened with that is that play happens. The batter is obviously running hard to first and kind of runs past first. The runner that was on first heads to the dugout.

So I think if you're not paying attention, you think the ball is caught, and then you see the guy who was on first headed to the dugout. You literally don't see the batter on first because he's run past it. it's very quick to look and go, oh, they're both out. And I think that also might have been a factor in this. Can I ask a clarifying question about the sort of time to appeal for a bit of business? Is it when the last Blue Jay crosses the foul line? Like should outfielders just lollygag a little bit in the event that they, because they're going to be the last ones into the dugout, right? Because they have the farthest distance to cross as opposed to. They don't matter. I think

Lindsay said it, it's the four in-fielders and the pitcher. Yeah. You don't, you don't, in fact, I think the catcher's not factored in. I looked at the rule, the catcher's not in there, and I'm assuming it's because he's already in foul territory. Exactly, yeah, that's the assumption. But effectively, yeah, they, I think, and this rule has been on the books for quite a while, and I think that the idea was effectively, the outfielders are so far away from the action. That they wouldn't be able to see. Yeah, you're not going to have an outfielder expected to cover a base to begin with. The infielder's job is to cover the bases. So if the

infielders have decided to sign off for the inning, then that's all that's really relevant for covering the bases. But they all have to be off the field, right? This is like an offside sort of situation. Not completely off the field, just across the foul line. Right, right. But all of them. All of the infielders, yeah. Okay. Okay. And as you noted in your video, Lindsay, if Raphaella were not the aggressive hitter he is and had put that first pitch in play, then perhaps this could have been averted because the scoreboard operator seemed to catch up just a little too late, right? Because when the ball was put in play, was it while the ball was in the air? Yeah, it was in the air.

Yeah. So if Raphael had taken that first pitch, then perhaps the scoreboard could have straightened things out. And I suppose you know this SC because at MLB and AAA ballparks, there is a, a ballparks, there is a boss, right? A ball out strike situation operator. Ball out strike situation. We have this cool little, like, it's on the computer, but it's, it almost looks like a scoreboard with the diamond.

And the person who is the boss is not concerned with what the sequence of the out is, right? It was an 8-4-3. It was an 8-6. They don't care about that. They just care about out. So the things they're doing is they have to make sure that the batter is correct on the boss computer because that's the the batter is what sets the ABS strike zone. In simple,

simple terms, if my batter on my computer and I'm the boss is Jose Altuve, but the batter's actually Yordan Alvarez, that's a very different strike zone, right? So you have to have, so that's the number one thing. And that gets hammered into the boss operators. The number one thing, make sure the batter's right, got to have the batter right, got to have the batter right. So I think what happened was, and this is, I don't have this confirmed, right? But this is the logical assumption based on what I know is that because of the weird play before, it was thought it was two outs. So when they put the two outs, this year is the first year where the boss computer runs the ball strike out on the scoreboard because they're putting every single pitch in. So that helps for the pitch counts.

It helps for all that kind of stuff. So they're tied into the major league. It's not this way in AAA, but it's this way in the major. And so my guess is that the boss computer had two outs because of the previous play. So there's 30 seconds between batters because of the clock now. So with the 30 seconds between batters, they have to make sure all the bases are good. We check the batter. The batter's going up to the box.

He's right. Okay, we make sure we got it going on. Then we're like, oh, crap, I have two outs and there's only one. So now they have to do a correction. And it takes a hot minute to get the correction in there. So by the time they get the correction, they have to put a back. the runner probably back at first base because they probably removed that runner. By the time they did all that in the middle of it, they have to hit a button to let the computers and the cameras know that the pitcher is about to throw a pitch to record it for ABS.

So as all that's happening, if they're doing making sure the pitcher's on the rubber kind of thing for him to throw. So by the time the correction went through, Raphael has swung at the first pitch. So the ball's in the air when the correction goes through and that's why you see. That is my logical assumption of that. So it's not in competency. It wasn't like it was literally a, I think it's a bunch of just weird, it's a weird confluence of events that one after another after another after another that led to this situation. And if any one of those things doesn't happen, right?

It's a butterfly effect. If any one of those things doesn't happen, we're all fine. And just add one more tiny, tiny wrinkle. There was a tiny bit more latency. And this is where my, this is where my work in. hockey actually comes into play because we use the same software. Daktronics, which runs all the LED

displays and stuff, their actual show control has an animation built in for the changing of the numbers to roll back. So it takes time for that animation as well to fully propagate. So even if it's a fraction of a second, when the ball's already

in the air, that's kind of important. I thought you were going to say it was the exchange rate, and that was the difference, but that's that's my nightmare to be that poor person who is probably sweating bullets at that point it's it's not their fault obviously i mean they may have been the proximate cause because people were paying attention to the scoreboard but they don't bear all the blame because people are supposed to be keeping track of the number of outs themselves and so this MLB employed person who is operating the boss system i'm sure felt bad about this but also it is on the players for not

paying attention and it seemed like the only uniformed personnel, the only person player on the field or close to it who understood what was happening was Max Scherzer because one of the handful of instances of this happening in the past was in 2009 in a Diamondbacks game and Max Scherzer was on the 2009 Diamondback. So there's the wisdom of age, right? He is old and wise and he has this lived experience. And so he recognized what was happening. But seemingly no one else did in the moment. Now, When you two both saw this, and I'm sure that you were familiar with some of the previous examples, so were you instantly thinking, Lindsay, oh, yeah, Rule 509C4.

I mean, this is a textbook, clear-cut case. I know exactly what's happening here. Or did you have to puzzle out what was happening yourself? Oh, I immediately thought this is a fourth outplay, and chances are, because we know, we know who plays baseball, they're not going to realize that it's a fourth out play. Most fourth outplays that occur in baseball, especially at a level that requires a live ball appeal, as the majors does. Like, for instance, in high school, you have what's called a dead ball appeal, which means all you have to do is tell the umpire, I would like to appeal this specific thing without throwing the ball there or anything like that, and the appeal is valid. But in Major League Baseball, for instance, and minors as well, the appeal must be made during live ball activity, or you actually have to throw the ball somewhere and tag something, right?

So you don't see people go through the effort of actually following through with a fourth out appeal too often, even if the opportunity for one does exist. Do you think this term is helpful, the fourth out, or is that more misleading than it is clarifying? Because it's really like you have an option of which third out you want, I guess, right? So, yeah, the fourth out is descriptive because you're effectively, there is an extra option. of an out. And you could theoretically have a fifth out if you really wanted to, depending on your base runner situation. But yeah, no, the fourth out, I think is a good descriptor because it tells you that it might be a little confusing to say, oh, yeah, there's an option where for which third out you take. No, the fourth out just means go, go ahead and take that third out, knowing full

well that you still have the opportunity to get another out if you need to. There's an additional fourth out that's not in the rulebook. I call it the false fourth out, which is related to replay review. If an umpire calls someone out for like the third out at first base or something, teams have decided not to stop playing upon that if it's a close call for the third out. They'll try to play it out by throwing the ball home to catch another base runner or whatever, just in case replay review overturns the third out. Is this of all the rules could confusions that you have to sort out. And it could be as simple as, you know, the classic, oh, everybody is confused by the infield fly rule, kind of go-to example or whatever, or some

stranger stuff like this. Is this close to the top of the list of, oh, this is the most complex concept to explain or the hardest thing to get across to people? Or are there other things that you find are even tougher to convey? And, Lindsay, I would imagine you agree with me, this is so right. The fourth out is rare. The timing play with a runner's scoring before a third out is made is not quite as rare, and that seems to confuse a lot of people. I don't know if you agree with me or not on that. It's, yeah, it's rare enough where that isn't a factor. I think that this is actually pretty simply explained because the rules clearly do spell out some very specific things. Like it very specifically talks about all infielders having to leave fair territory to lose the right to do the fourth out

appeal. It very clearly talks about how the ball may not technically be live at that moment, but there is still an opportunity to throw to that base to get that four. fourth out, which then becomes the third out, because the rule clearly says, quote, the defense may elect to take the out that gives it the advantage, right? I think that this rule is a lot easier to explain than a balk, for instance. Because the bach rule is like any natural motion associated with delivery commits the pitcher, right? So it's like, well, gee, whiz, what does that mean? And I just finished doing the Chris Sale video. And that one is a, that's technically a start-stop bach. So that technically is the natural motion part of the Bach rule that was called

there. And the reason that that was applicable, because he was operating out of set position, because he failed to declare that he was using wind-up while in hybrid. There are so many fun things that are involved with a bach. So I think the bach rule is probably the most difficult to explain. Yeah, and on my end, it's transference, which is when you have a guy on base, you change pitchers, and then there's a fielder's choice. Anything with a fielder's choice and a changing of pitchers is tricky. And then, Ben, I've heard you talk about this before.

A good old ruled 917C, the brief and an effective rule and some of the weird things that now happen these days with winning pitchers, those are a lot harder to explain to people. To me, I agree, Lindsay. This is so clear cut in the rule book. It's so obvious what it is and how it's done.

It just doesn't seem like it's that difficult. It is funny. It's like when you, if you ever go to a cafe and they're like, don't feed the cat, not even this other thing. And you're like, what happened in here that they feel they need to be this specific? Like, you can tell that there was an incident and there was a need for a very clear sign and example to be made. Yeah, this, this reminds me a little bit of the, the XKCD comic, the average familiarity comic where it's like a couple of chemists talking to each other. And one is like, silicate chemistry is second nature to us. geochemists. So it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars. And then the other chemist says, and quartz, of course, and the other chemist says, of course. And the text is even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field, which I'm sure we run into here, unaffectively wild. I guess that probably applies to

rules arcana too, because it's like, oh, this is simple. I mean, this is, you know, this is a slam dunk. And meanwhile, everyone else in the world has been confused about this for two days. Yeah, that's what makes, honestly, it's what makes like doing my channel really interesting is I have, I have several MLB official scorers on there. So I try to talk to them at that level. But I've also got to talk to, you know, the mom with game changer who's just trying to do stuff for their 12-year-old. To the fan, to the gambler is so many different elements of like the levels and the strata of what people are, that you try and talk to everybody in the same voice. And sometimes it's really tricky. But I did. I just thought this rule is really pretty well written and pretty

simple. And to be honest, I say it's all time to people. If you need to know stuff about baseball, just watch Lindsay's channel and just go back and watch the videos, because you will learn, I can't believe every baseball announcer hasn't watched every video that's on that damn channel. They should all read it. They should all listen and know it. As soon as the video comes out, I got to watch every ejection video because I'm fascinated by them. Do you think that Kalshry has opened yet a betting line for how many money's worths we're going to have by the end of the season? Oh, my, yeah, that'd be hilarious.

That'd be so funny. What I was going to say as well is, like, it was just a few days ago when we had the David Popkin's ejection for the Zach Wheeler being off the pitching rubber while throwing a pitch or not being off the rubber, so to speak. Now, that one is really funny to me because in the rulebook, it is not explicitly illegal to be off the rubber. And when you're actually delivering the pitch, like, you have to start there, but you don't have to end there. And it doesn't say that you even have to be there in the middle while you still have possession of the ball. The only thing the rule says is the pitcher may not take a second step toward home plate with either foot or otherwise reset their pivot foot in their delivery of the pitch, but resetting the pivot foot is to be interpreted as raising it and putting it back down, not dragging it, which is completely different than a pivot foot situation in basketball,

where if you drag it, it is traveling. So in any case, for all of these reasons, I say that the Bach rule remains the most difficult to explain. Yes, of course, and the famous John Boyce copy pasta prevails forever about doing a Bach. Do you think the rulebook, and we could lump in supplementary texts and umpires manuals and such, are these things well written if you were to chair a committee that revamped the rulebook, not necessarily to change the rules even, or maybe to close some loopholes and clarify things because everything that's in there is in there for a reason, right? Some strange play happened at some point, and they realized, oh, we better write something about that. And these things accrue over the course of more than a century. And so there are relics and strays and sometimes ambiguity.

So do you think on the whole this is a good rulebook or are there some shortcomings that you would like to see addressed? This rulebook is one of the worst professional rolebooks in all of sports. Wow. And this is why you need in addition to just a joint what they could, they change the rules, they now call it, I think, a joint competition committee. We used to have, like Brian Gorman used to be the umpire, and then it was Bill Miller that was on this committee. I think Nick Lentz is the most recent umpire who sat on the committee. But in any case, when you revise a rulebook, when you make rules changes, oftentimes what happens is you are making a rules change to address a very specific situation.

And in doing so, you put something in the rulebook that you think will very much cover all of the bases, so to speak, on that issue. What ends up happening because the rulebook cross-references itself so many times is that oftentimes when you patch one rule, you create another problem in a different rule. Or you can create a conflict. I'll give an example. The rulebook has, for a very long time, and technically still is, has a conflict regarding fair and foul territory. And you might think, how, because the foul line is in fair territory, which is another thing. And how can you have a conflict? How can you have things be both? And it's not so much that the actual grass line or dirt line or whatever is both fair and foul.

It's that the ball is 3D. The ball has an actual circumference or diameter to it. And so when the ball, because it is a sphere, is over fair territory, like a fraction of the ball is over fair territory, but most of the ball is over foul territory. It's like, how do you adjudicate that? What is that? Furthermore, it's like on a ball that's going into the outfield and hits the dirt near the foul line, like right next to it or on it or you think, well, the ball is about, I think there was of the entire width of the ball. I think approximately 1.5, let's say 2 inches of the ball, has hit the ground. Okay, well, the exact center of the ball might have hit the ground 1, 100th of a millimeter to the left of the foul line. But another portion of the ball directly next to that hit the foul line itself. Is that a fair or a foul ball? And the rulebook doesn't address, like, there, there's, conflicting things in the rulebook that say it's both fair and foul at the same time. So the rulebook

was written well before the idea of replay review and instant replay and Zoom and 3D tracking, statcast. The rulebook is well before any of that existed. And in fact, the rulebook makes zero mention of replay review, ABS challenges or anything of that. nature. The rulebook, like in other sports, basketball or hockey, or you name it, they talk about instant replay and using the actual technology and how things are... MLB doesn't do that with its rulebook for whatever reason. I'm sure they have a reason for it, but it's not really good when you have some policies for ABS or for replay review procedures that are sent via piece mail memos to teams and umpires that are not.

not communicated to the fans. We have an umpire manual, the MLB umpire manual, that is not publicly available to the fans. Like the last publicly available version of that's from 2019. There have been a lot of changes since then. So the problem with MLB's rulebook is the rulebook doesn't have everything. The stuff that it has, some of it conflicts with itself, but that's definitely more of a rare case. But the problem I've always had is the transparency simply isn't there. You mentioned that all of that, all of this was written, or at least its initial run was written before the air of replay review, we have all this piecemeal framework. I'm curious if either of you have plays that fall into the current non-reviewable play bucket, right? Because

there are plenty of plays that are not subject to replay review, that you would like to move into the reviewable play bucket, ones that you think are silly to sort of sit off in this corner that we can't use the technology to try to remedy. I mean, it seems to me like there's some. The good thing for me is like the replay thing, for scoring, doesn't matter. And for the record, Section 9's pretty good. I like Section 9 of the rule book. It's not bad.

They did a pretty good job with it to be all things considered. But the OS manual, which is similar to the umpires manual, also not publicly available. I get asked once every week, can you publish it? And I'm like, no, because I like my jobs. And no, I'm not publishing the thing. To me, like the foul ball that hits the batter's foot and goes foul, like that, I don't think that's reviewable.

And it probably should be. Catches in the infield. I don't think they might be reviewable now. I know they weren't at one point. Probably should be. There's some things that should be reviewable that, for whatever the reason is or not. I agree. like the fair foul on the infield, the idea of the batter, did it hit the batter's toe or not

before venturing out to the shortstop or something? That's not revealable, I think it should be. Catch no catch, as you said. That should be reviewable, even if it is on the infield. Could get a lot of call stance out of that, but I don't see why we won't at least make the effort. The one thing that I found really interesting with a non-reviewable play is runner that is out of the base path is not revealable. And I think that's fine.

I have no problem with that. But the 45-foot lane or the runner's lane, interference stuff, that is not reviewable. And I feel like that's one of those where the interference aspect, I don't think that needs to be reviewable because obstruction interference, for the most part, that's a judgment call that is very difficult to do on replay, especially if you slow things down. You lose the essence of the real-time play, and you lose the essence of the angles that. that you get from on the field. That is one of those that I am totally on board with obstruction interference not being reviewable. However, when it comes to a runner's lane interference play, I don't want the interference aspect of it to be revealable, but I think it should be revealable as to where the runner's feet were, for instance. Like, if the runner has a foot on the grass,

that is a violation. And I think that the umpires should be able to go to replay to figure that out. Another thing that I think it should be reviewable that is not even on the list of reviewable nor non-reviewable place, because it doesn't come up that often, is when there is a fight situation, bench clearing, they should be able to go to replay or talk to New York. And if New York has any input on who should be ejected, I think that that should be reviewable. Well, I think they should call you two because, I mean, it took them some time to resolve this, right, when this arose on Monday. And actually, John Schneider had been involved in a similar incident, amusingly, about 10 years ago in 2016, in A-Ball when he was managing the Lansing Lugnuts. Yeah, it was close. That one actually was the guy did tag. We did get clarification that he tagged. Yeah.

But it was very similar. Yeah. If you go to the fourth out Wikipedia page, there are only six examples actually listed there, the oldest one dating to 1989. And some of these are missed fourth outs, and some of them are recorded. quote-unquote fourth outs, but this is not your first rodeos. How do you think the umpires handled this? Because it took some time. It was, what, 15 minutes or so, and people were milling about and they were doing a rules check with New York, which better safe than sorry, sure, but it did take some time to resolve. And actually, Schneider amusingly said that crew chief

Chris Guccione essentially offered Schneider that if he wanted to get run, he could, like, or if he needed to get mad. Guccione would allow it, but Schneider passed and kept his cool and said that he asked Blue J's GM Ross Atkins for a cash advance for not getting thrown out. I did enjoy one piece of transparency that I like in this era is that umpires can get on the PA and explain to people who would otherwise be baffled what is happening. And that's great for multiple reasons. One, it helps clarify the proceedings. Two, sometimes we get funny hot mic situations. Three, Guccioni here, the weariness in his voice. Yeah.

The resignation, the implied sigh I sympathized when he got on the mic and just shouldered the responsibility of having to convey what happened here. But how do you think this was handled both the ultimate ruling and the process that led up to it? The only question that I had regarding what the umpires did was, why did the plate umpire? You notice that he's like waving at the press box to probably get their attention, which is something that you often do see when it comes to a time play, when the umpire's about to either wash out and wave off a run or score the run. But he waved to the press forks to get their

attention. That's what it looked like. It was a one-handed wave overhead. But then I didn't see a mechanic to either score the run nor wave it off. So I was just, that's the only thing that I was a bit confused about. But everything else in that situation seemed to be correct. It seemed like the umpires were cognizant of how many outs there were on that place. the first base umpire stuck with it and was there to call the out on appeal just because that was the third out, not the, not the, like, there were not two outs. There was, there was one, so that makes a double play. Like, I think the umpires did a fine job regarding that. Regarding the microphone issue and explaining the ruling to fans, that is something that is very beneficial in situations

like this for an umpire to be able to do. So I'm glad that Chris Guchin was able to do that. The one thing that I want umpires to also get on the mics, too, is the denied ABS challenges, because that is something, they get on the mic to announce that there is an ABS challenge and who's challenging, what the result is and all of that. I would like them to announce a denied ABS challenge, and the reason that it's denied, too, because we've had several objections on that, and it's kind of baffling to me. It's like, dugout assist is interpreted as the dugout seems to be interpreted, as the dugout yelling anything out to the batter.

no matter whether they actually assisted or not. But I would like to actually have microphone usage for that. Yeah, and I would say they got it right, and so they did a great job. The one neat thing was I was able to see the camera from between the innings, and the whole plate umpire was on his own, but you could see the three base umpires get together at second base, and they were kind of pointing a little bit and discussing, and that's when they ran back home, and then the four of them got together.

for the announcement thing, the big thing I wish they would do is announce the substitutions. That would be the, especially when you start, you know, it'd be worse when you had the double switches and all that stuff. But sometimes you have a substitution and, you know, we're just changing the right field or in the eighth inning because we got a lead. And sometimes that gets messed. You'd be shocked at how many times that actually gets missed and has to get put in after it happens. And it would be so simple for the umpire to go, you know, for Los Angeles, you know, Otani now playing left field, batting third. And I've had people say, well, then what's the purpose of the PA announcer?

And Lindsay, you know this. In hockey, the referee says what the penalty is. And then the PA guy says what the penalty is. So that would be the thing. The referee says the penalty, and then they drop the puck and Phil says what the penalty was. So it's like, I also think that like, yeah, on like substitutions, also objections and warnings would be nice. Because we've had it, I've tried to, I've tried to compile some objections where it's like, Who did they throw out?

And not even the official score. No one seems to know. Do you think that Max Scherzer thought that he would prevail in persuading them that the Blue Jays did not have time to appeal that the runner on third had left early? Because his explanation was, it's like, okay, Max, but we can all see them motoring off. My guess is that he saw the outfielders. He sees the umpire. do the arm thing and he's like, wait, we still like guys on the field, but it was the outfielder's. That's my guess.

Because if you look, I mean, I looked there, I want to say it's the second baseman and then they're like just about to cross the line when he does the washout signal. So he probably should have waited like half a second before doing it. That way they're all off the field. But, I mean, it was their momentum. There's no like, like they're not in the matrix. They weren't stopping at the line with their momentum to all of a sudden go, wait, we do want to appeal.

So that would be my big. thing. And it wasn't even an actual legit washout. It was just a one-arm wave. So I don't even know that he made an actual ruling in real time other than trying to it looked like he was trying to get the press box's attention because he was making eye contact

and up there and all of that. And he waved and then he just stopped which was perplexing to me. But I suppose that like, as you said, the infielders look like they were pretty much yeah, they were out of fair territory. Yeah. So Lindsay, I don't have

question for um i've had a bunch of people ask me this and i've been trying to explain to them no that's what it is people are like well the umpire didn't signal that the run counts and i'm like when do they ever signal that a run counts when there's no play at home like the guy just the like driving that's crossed and there's a good four seconds between when he crosses and when they get the out at first so it's not like it was a close play where they have to point and do the whole gesture so i'm like they don't have to say the run counts until everyone's off the field. Then, just to be safe on a weird play like that, you would say, right, count it. Because that's what happened in the, and I now pulled up, I didn't even know this Wikipedia page was there,

but for the fourth out thing, the first one I know of was in the 1980 nationally championship series. And in that one, as soon as the Houston infielder's left the field, Doug Harvey kind of signals to the press box and starts counting the run, because what had happened was the third base umpire, runs in, yelling, you got to count the run, Doug. And I guess Doug Harvey, like, stared daggers at him. Like, shut up, dude. They're not off the field yet.

And once they went off the field, he counted the run. And then Dallas Green got happy. I think for the only time in his life, Dallas Green got happy. And they went off on their merry way. But that was the first one I knew. But that's usually when they point is when everyone's off the field.

Is that correct, Lindsay? The pointing or the disallowing on a time play, there should be no bearing as to what the defensive players are doing, because that is a call that you make based on your timing and your sense of when something has happened. When you are cognizant that there is a potential appeal play coming up, like a fourth out thing, yeah, there's no harm in delaying it. But in generally speaking, when it comes to either waving a runoff or scoring it,

the umpire will generally do that pretty quickly after they have. an idea of what to do. Like, you'll have the base umpire called the third out of the inning, and then the played umpire who should be lined up on a close time play, like within a fraction of a second or two, they'll go ahead and give an immediate signal as to whether that's a wave or a score. And as you said, this was not a particularly close time play. We call it a time play, whether it's a fraction of a second or whether it's 10 seconds, because that's what it is, but this is not a particularly close one. Everyone can tell that that runner touched home before the play at first base.

Well, ultimately, Toronto couldn't appeal to third, so that run scored, and the score stood. From that point, it was 2 to 1, and that was the final. So in that sense, at least this didn't prove decisive, which is maybe for the best. But I am happy to have you, too. It's good for all of us, I think, both me and Meg, as rules co-consultants to effectively wild, but also as resources for the whole internet, because someone has to know what is happening here and be in a position to explain it to us. And you always are. And I'd like to think that I know ball, but there are ways in which you two know ball in specific aspects and niches that

exceed my own knowledge and comfort level. So I'm happy to talk to you. I'm happy to read you, to watch, to listen. And I recommend that everyone should. So find at scoring changes on all the socials, at close call sports on all the socials, close call sports on YouTube, close callspots.com, where you can read breakdowns of every confusing call and umpire ejection. Great resources. Thank you so much for helping us understand. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Well, immediately after we stopped recording, Lindsay expressed some regret at not having cited the inconsistency in strike zone definitions now as something to straighten out because you have different definitions of the zone according to ABS and the rulebook.

That can be confounding. I also got them both to commit to coming back on the pod. If and when, we have to reckon with that fifth out, at which point the fourth out would seem like Child's play. And hey, in addition to bringing you insights into the rules as they stand today, we also have experts on call to tell us how the rules got that way, including historian, author Richard Hershberger, who served as our past blaster. He's also the author of Strike Four. or the evolution of baseball, and he emailed me in the wake of this play to tell me how we got into this situation, where did the appeal play come from? And this is pretty interesting, Richard writes to me, and to you, the modern appeal plays of the runner failing to tag up or missing

the bag are vestiges from early baseball. As is so much of modern baseball, originally, all plays were appeal plays. The umpire was there to resolve disputes. If everyone agreed on what had just happened, there was no dispute to resolve, and the umpire therefore had no role in the play. If they did not agree, they asked for judgment from the umpire. This changed with the 1857 rules when the umpire was required to call that a batted ball was foul without being asked. This was because any base runners needed to know that to know what they needed to do. From there, the plays the umpire was to rule on without being asked gradually expanded.

Balls and called strikes came in the 1860s. The big one was safer out at the base. As empires got used to making calls unasked, some started expanding on this on their own. This was controversial, and through much of the 1870s, the umpire was explicitly forbidden from calling baserunner safe or out unasked. This was changed in the late 1870s, with the umpire instructed to make the call unasked, but with exceptions explicitly stated for failing to tag up and for missing the bag. This was a weird half-measure compromise that stuck. Richard also adds that the fourth out rule that we would have seen applied in the recent game, had they been more on the ball, is a 20th

century elaboration when the rules started growing to cover rare, weird situations. The rule allows the fielding side to get the third out, then fix it to prevent the run. They could have gone the other way, requiring the fielding side to get it right the first time, but they went this way. Two rules diverged in a yellow wood. Anyway, fascinating origin story, as always from Richard, check out his book. And speaking of books, let's talk to another baseball book author. I'll be back in just a moment with a former major leaguer who's merely in his 70s,

a spring chicken by effectively wild standards. but a favorite nonetheless, John Poth. Well, I am delighted to be rejoined now by a member of the Hancock County, Ohio Sports Hall of Fame class of 2000, and more recently, the Oklahoma City AAA Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2025. John Poff, welcome back to Effectively Wild. Thank you. Happy to be here. Are you in any other halls of fame that I have neglected to mention? No, I'm not. I'm quite grateful for those two.

Yes, you are still a multi-time Hall of Famer, which is more than I can say, well, most people can say. Though I do wonder, and this has come up on the show before, we talked about this on episode 2373. This was last September, and it was actually prompted, I believe, by your induction into the Oklahoma City AAA Baseball Hall of Fame. We were wondering what percentage of major leaguers. belong to some sort of Hall of Fame, any Hall of Fame. They're Little League Hall of Fame all the way up to Cooperstown itself. And we kind of differed on that. And as an actual Hall of Famer, I wonder what your perspective on that would be.

Because as you have written and are quick to note, everyone who makes the majors and really everyone who washes out on some way to the majors and the minors was the best, right? some point in their town, on their local team, whatever it was. And so probably a pretty high percentage of them have been honored for that. Yeah, I think that's true. And I, of course, I haven't had the faintest idea like what percentage. But I have always thought that it's true that most guys who get a chance to play professional baseball player were the best player on their teams throughout growing up and so forth.

And I can think of, oh, gosh, my best friend in college, a really great athlete. by the way, a great name, Buddy Flesh, terrific high school, I thought a small high school in New York State, and played sporadically at the AA level, but I happen to know he was inducted into his local Hall of Fame. And I think lots of people are, and probably a pretty high percentage of hometown boys that have played professional baseball do find their way into a hometown

Hall of Fame. I hope so, anyhow. Yeah, it is. It's nice to be honored and to be remembered. And I think my initial guess was, oh, maybe a quarter of major leaguers are in some sort of Hall of Fame. And my co-host Meg, I think, thought more than half. And I've come around to her way of thinking. I think she might actually be right about that. Not to detract from your achievement. I don't want to make it any less special that you are a member of multiple Hall of Fame.

But it does make me think that you're not alone and that there are many more like you. Well, I really think it's quite a few of a big percentage of guys. that have played in the big leagues, it probably have been inducted because there's an awful lot of, there's an awful lot of athletes in my local, Finley, Ohio, it's a city of 30, 40, 50,000 people. There's a lot of athletes in there, you know. Yeah. And so, but I don't know. Well, if there's ever an effectively wild Hall of Fame, you will be in it because I have so enjoyed talking to you and getting to know you and reading your writing. And of course, you have been a published author for a very long time, but now you are a published book author

because this year a collection of your works called Out of My Life and Two Visions was published by the digital press at the University of North Dakota and is available now. And it's about half baseball. The first half is baseball. And then the second half gets into, how would you describe it, some of your spiritual experiences, the titular visions that you have. experienced and the significance that they had in your life. But I want to ask you a bit about the baseball. And I thought to begin, I could ask you to read a passage from your book. That's what authors do, you know? I'd be happy to. Yeah. So this comes from an essay called Casey revisited the culture of baseball. And it's about how you'd like to reframe Casey at the bat

and that really we should be looking at it from the pitcher's perspective and that that would be more true to baseball maybe. But the first part of this essay reminded me very much of a running bit that we have here at Effectively Wilds, where we come up with ways in which baseball is unique or unusual or exceptional among the major sports. And you wrote a bit about that yourself. So take it away. I will.

And I'm glad there's no video because I'm going to induce an eye roll, probably. on your part. But first I'm going to tell a little story about this essay and baseball and writing. I think it's germane, at least in an old man kind of way. I never wrote anything about baseball. It was worth a damn until after the death of Donnie Moore in 1989. And it took me three or four years to get to the writing of that story and essay. And I was practicing acupuncture in Boulder then. I had the nicest little modest office halfway between. the University of Colorado in downtown. And I used to walk nearly every morning

block down to alfalfas, which was the first full-size, natural or health food grocery store I ever saw. And I get a cup of coffee and an oatmeal raisin cookie. Not exactly a health food breakfast, but it was a good cup of coffee and a good cookie. And I would come outside to what everybody used to have, the newspaper racks or stands.

And there was a Boulder Daily camera. and USA Today, which I think was pretty new then, in the New York Times. And this was like 1991. And I just thought it was so remarkable that at 10 o'clock in the morning, there would be that day's edition of the New York Times in Boulder, Colorado. I thought that was a miracle, man. So I go back up to my office, and I was in that, I was practiced there for several years. And I intermittently, at least, I had a reasonable flow of patients,

but I've never flooded with patients. And that's where I first started writing, about baseball. This is the first this is the first real thing. This particular essay that I wrote about baseball and it was published in Elysian Fields Quarterly. God bless that little magazine and the first editor, Steve Lehman, and then

especially the long-term owner editor, Tom Goldstein. And so I just want to tell that little story about a little bit about my writing in baseball, but really about that little chunk of it's now that, it's now finally that fading 20th century life. All right.

Here we go. Okay. Casey revisited the culture of baseball. Although I spent a good portion of my first 30 years on this planet playing baseball, is only recently years after I walked off my last ball field that I asked myself for the first time, what is a ball? Specifically, what is a ball in sports? Usually when I think of some basic question like this, I can go back to my childhood and remember some initial hit or impression I may have completely forgotten,

but this time I drew a blank. I've thought about a lot since and have come to believe that for all the gibberish, fictionados of one sport or another put out about why their particular favorites are distinctive or special, the bottom line distinction baseball can claim is that the ball serves a fundamentally different purpose than in most, if not all, other sports. Let me put it this way. In other sports, such as football or basketball, the ball is simply a physical representation of the participant's egos, or one can call it a trophy, an icon, etc. The games are symbolic warfare. Rather than killing the enemy, you overwhelm him and plant your flag or your scent or your scent or

your trophy or your ego in his end zone or goal. I imagine ancient games arising from a high priest tossing out a ball which represents divine favor or something like that. I would guess it only represented the high priest's ego, making that high priest the spiritual forebear of modern day team owners. The analogy doesn't work so well for baseball because somewhere along the line, some genius came up with the idea of a bat. Maybe the original impetus for baseball was symbolic warfare. Maybe the bat and ball are symbolic weapons. I would question even that. You simply can't simulate baseball with clubs and rocks.

But then at some point the bat and ball stopped being weapons and started being tools, and we literally and very basically have baseball as a skill sport. Certainly other sports require skills or techniques, but not in my opinion the same way baseball does. So the ball is not a trophy but a tool. Pitchers describe hitting the corners as painting the black. The bat is also not a weapon, but a tool. Enormous contrasts with other sports arise from this.

Teams in other sports are little armies. They have the specialization of activity, group strategies, and so on, that armies employ to win wars. Baseball teams are guilds. Varied specialists do their work with a fair degree of independence and combine with others to fashion a product, which happens to be victory in a ball game. Incidentally, I don't think it's a coincidence the Baseball Players Association has been far and away the most effect they've been cohesive union in sports. Certainly, there are specific historical circumstances involved, such as the baseball players having Marvin Miller, who would be in the baseball players having Marvin Miller, who would have been in sports, was brilliant on their side, but the simple fact is that baseball players are craftsmen who tend

to have a union mentality where football players, for instance, are warriors, not so apt to have the right spirit for collecting bargaining. This accounts for one of my favorite characteristics about baseball. It actively discourages the macho spirit of triumph that other sports actively encourage. There's a primity male dominance at the bottom of these other sports. Certainly it's better to dunk a basketball over an opponent or score a touchdown against him than it is to kill them and steal his women. But the spirit to me is the same, so these other sports lend themselves to display braggadocio and so on. Again, the important thing is not just that the ball is a tool, but the bat is a second different tool. The skills of pitching and hitting are

totally unrelated. When you are successful in baseball, you don't feel so much that you've beaten the other person as that you've finished a job. The macho thing crops up in baseball because it's powerfully in our culture, maybe in our male genes, but it feels comical and inappropriate when it rises. For example, when a powerfully built home run hitter strikes out against the junk ball pitcher, slow curb in the dirt, or feebly grounds out back to the mound of special humiliation. The frustration can sometimes be too much, and I'll yell from the dugout, throw that shit over the plate. In other words, come out and fight like a man. This gives everybody a good laugh, most especially the pitcher. Even the home run hitter, if he's good, we'll usually

laugh about it later. It's funny because it's just not that kind of battle. The ongoing tension and dynamic cooperation between hitter and pitcher contribute to this. No pitcher strikes everybody out. No hitter is impossible to strike out. It's more like the continuous struggles in nature, the balance between predator and prey, for instance, with constant adaptations and interdependence than in other sports where defeat is a symbolic death. I want to elaborate on this idea that pitchers and hitters use different skills insofar as this contrasts with most other sports. In football and basketball, the physical attributes required to play offense and defense, are essentially the same. Matchups are based on size and strategy, but it boils down basically

to my speed and strength against yours. Victories are personal. Baseball is once removed from that, and this distinction is vital. In short, your skilled defeated mine today. Mine may win tomorrow. I can live with that. Lovely. Thank you so much. And there's no audiobook available, unfortunately, so that will have to suffice. That will give you a taste of what the audio book version would be. And I wanted to have you read that because I suppose it touches on some things that we've observed about how in baseball the defense controls the ball and the ball isn't what scores the points. And maybe there are shades of the famous George Carlin football versus baseball routine. But I thought a lot of these observations were very apt and yet also of their era because you wrote this, what, in the early 90s? Yeah.

Yeah. And so some things have changed, right? Not the nature of the game or the ball necessarily, but the celebrations in baseball have certainly gotten more boisterous and players have gotten more expressive, which is something that largely we have hailed and celebrated that people feel free to express themselves, right? And that there isn't some kind of code of behavior where you have to be buttoned down at all times. And so I wonder how this lands with you reading this some 30, 30 plus years later in this environment. Well, I think that that's a change in sports. And, you know, we grew up in the Midwest especially in the old days and that humble and victory and defeat and all that sort of thing. And that's a really interesting thing that has changed about sports. And I'm not opposed to it or whatever. The fact of the matter is the old baseball thing. You know, there was this whole thing of if you showed up the picture, if you celebrated, you were going to get hit or knocked down or whatever.

And I was okay with that code as long as nobody threw at your head or whatever. Well, we're just that simply, as long as the head was ruled out. And there was a kind of code. But that doesn't mean it was like inherently better. And I think you're right. The fact that I probably couldn't have been a guy. And I actually like to tell you the truth. I liked hitting a home run and just taking it in.

Yeah. And just running around the bases. And like, I got a full dose of pleasure out of that. But I don't think it's a negative thing that, oh, I don't know. Everything has positives and negatives, but I'm not some old timer that says, you know, that's horrible for the, display. It is a bit much. Come on. For me, I'll never get over personally. Again, I'm not judging it, but I'm going to hit a home run and flip the bat up in the air and stare at it. I'm sorry. You wouldn't have been a bat flipper even today? You don't think? Well, no, I don't. I mean, it is

today. I don't have anything to do with today. I mean, if you were playing now or, or, you know, if you were raised in this environment, if you were playing now, then probably it would seem quite normal to you. Oh, of course. I would have kind of, who turns into the greatest opposite? If I'd come up in that, I probably would have done handstands or something. And I probably would. It's just really kind of interesting. I think it's a thing in sports.

That whole trash talking thing, how that wasn't done. And because it wasn't done, when I was growing up, the people that did it, really had an impact. It worked, so to speak. And so there's a whole interesting history to that. There's one other way in which the game has changed, hopefully, that I want to ask you about, which is when it comes to drug testing and drug use, certain sorts of substances, you have an essay in the book entitled Experience Amphetamine Story.

And it is about your first experience taking greenies before playing a game. that is speed, amphetamines, etc. And you talk about how, at least in that instance, this was a somewhat euphoric feeling for you and perhaps even a performance-enhancing one. And there's one passage here. You write, there is a routine for taking greenies. You get used to the effects,

and they are completely predictable for the most part, so that your pre-game preparation becomes an interesting and occasionally intricate countdown to blast off. Sometime, I will describe that routine. It was an enjoyable one to go through, so I will probably enjoy describing it. But as this was my first time, I don't remember any of that. Well, if you would enjoy describing it, I will give you this opportunity to because I don't think you did elsewhere in the book.

This is really funny because I thought about when I wrote that, the routine, so to speak, was right there. I mean, the time that you showed up as the visitors and the time for 730 game and the time for visitors batting practice. And then one of the things that was, one of the great pregame things that was unique to professional baseball was just simply the finishing infield a half hour or so before the game, going back in, changing shirts or whatever. And as opposed to high school and college where you have infield and start the game. And so, but the funny thing is that I didn't describe it then. And alas and alack, I just can't get the full picture of it. I thought this 10 or 15 years ago, that's funny. I should have written that down for myself in some detail.

Yeah. But it was just that about, and I don't mind anything about talking. I wrote that story about my own experience and not that it's, I changed the names. I wasn't writing about it and the personalities and so forth. I wasn't writing about anybody else. And I'm not sensitive about it because I did it, first of all. And secondly, for the difference, if there is a difference between that era of taking Greenies and then the steroid era, It's that Greenies didn't really work.

And one person described them as, one guy I play was described him as mood elevators. And I think the research even was that if you're tired, your physical performance might improve. And you can understand that. Ball players didn't work out during the season in the old days. At the end of the season, physically, maybe that would have an impact, which was the case this particular time. But they really don't. And players did use them and abuse them. And I don't think to their overall benefit, and if anything, to their overall detriment, just simply in terms of their baseball careers.

Right. It wasn't a moral issue for me. A good, better, different for me to say that. Another thing that was really funny, I thought a guy said, I got to quit taking those. You think you play a good game whether you did or not. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I guess you did demonstrably have a good game the first time you did it. In addition to feeling the effects, but you could very easily fool yourself into thinking that it was performance enhancing when, if anything, it could be quite the opposite.

Oh, no, that was quite real. You might come into the clubhouse, and I didn't take a ton of stuff and all the rest. But you could come into the clubhouse going, by gosh, what a great game. Oh, wait. We lost. I went over four. There was that error there back in the third inning. And I'm exaggerating.

thing a bit, but that's just the way I look back on it. And I sort of just wanted to tell, in a semi-good nature, it was. There's an aspect of that. There's an aspect of that to drinking coffee, you know, that is kind of pleasurable. And I don't feel guilty about it, particularly because, as I said, I don't think they happen not to work. And they did damage. Yeah, that too. They did damage to some players. But was it pervasive, at least? I mean, you hear stories about, oh, these pills were just in a bowl in the clubhouse and you just, you know, take them like party treats or something. Was that how it was?

Not in the 70s or when I got to the big leagues in the at least 70s, early 80s. There's another thing in there about the, I think the 60s is the era when they were readily available. Right. And sort of handed out by the trouble. Well, the 60s, they were handed out to JFK when he was going to meet with cruise job and so forth, you know. and James Bond and all the rest.

And I think they were available in that way with the traders having access to them, but I don't have any, at first-hand experience with that. And they were under the radar, under the table, so to speak, in professional baseball. And there were different scandals and so forth about it,

and it was clandestine, so to speak. I did want to ask, because you contrasted Greenies with steroids and said that you think that steroids worked or more effective, which is one difference if that's the case. But morally speaking, do you see a difference? Because there are people who will say, you know, when certain players are kept out of the Hall of Fame, that is the National Baseball Hall of Fame, not the Hancock County or the Oklahoma City, but the big one. And I don't want to derail your Cooperstown campaign here

by broadcasting that you did indeed use Greenies. But sometimes people will say, you know, so-and-so, whatever great legendary players. admitted to taking them, Greenies, that is, or was reputed to have taken them. And so ultimately, what's the difference? Each one is some sort of chemical that you are taking to make yourself better at baseball. So do you see a moral difference there? Is there a substantive difference between, say, restoring yourself to your baseline level of performance as opposed to enhancing yourself in some superhuman way?

Because these distinctions can be sort of squishy, too, right? I mean, we talked about that sometimes with, say, LASIC surgery. You know, if your eyesight isn't perfect and you can make it closer to perfect, well, that's legal and that's within the bounds. But what if you're enhancing your natural capabilities? Is that really so different? And, of course, you know, there are health side effects and other ramifications that come into it. But how do you separate those things if you do?

First of all, the starting point for me is I don't really have all the answers. But first of all, the first thing. I don't think Greenie's worked. But that's not, but as a moral issue, then it's really murky because I'd say, well, what about, well, what about everybody before 1950 that played in the segregated big league? Yeah. That is a much bigger moral issue than taking a few, what used to be diet pills, but I don't think it's not controversial. Is it that steroids worked in terms of the physical impact on the body? It's kind of like that Neil Young's song or Debo or something that old steroids never sleep

you know they really change who you are so to speak in terms of strength and they did work because since they've been banned well I think I don't

I'm not that close to it your perspective on this would be better but those numbers were pretty inflated they were yeah in some respects certainly I tend to think that the ball

was also juiced at the time because we have seen subsequently post-testing that the home run rate is actually higher than it was during the so-called steroid era. And that could be for multiple reasons, but we know in this era at least it's because of the behavior of the ball and the seam height and the drag and all of those things. And we didn't have that data and that intricate testing for that era. So I suspect that that was also going on. But I think certainly in individual cases, it would be sort of silly not to conclude that there wasn't an effect. I think there's some dispute about, well, yes, it makes you stronger, but if you can't hit the ball to begin with, how much will that help you, et cetera. But, and of course, there were plenty of players who took those things and did not distinguish themselves from a performance standpoint.

So it's, it's hard to say. It didn't turn everyone into a super soldier. But in certain cases, the evidence is strong, right, if circumstantial. Well, there's a couple of things I want to say about this. And I may be way off base about the modern era. and I'm not following it closely. But the one really relevant thing is that the whole perspective about home runs is the name of the game, so to speak, and the workout routines, perfectly natural and so forth and physical strength. But everybody was impacted by the old code that it's better to not strike out than to strike out.

And as I see it, what I understand is it's better to hit. 30 home runs and strike out as ever many times, then to hit 20 home runs and not strike out very much. That could be completely off base, but it's this sense about the game that the idea of the thing is to hit X number of home runs. And so I went through that out there. And of course, the workout routine, the whole thing, I mean, gosh, Major League players have a team now. Heck, who has I seen? Everybody has a team supporting them, you know? So what impact does that have? But the other thing I really wanted to ask about, it goes back now 100 years, is that when I grew up, everybody said it was the dead ball era. And then they juiced the ball after Babe Ruth came along.

And somewhere over the last 20 or 30 years, I've read, well, actually, no, the ball was basically the same. It's that, and kind of what I took away from it was Babe Ruth taught people how to hit home runs. And I don't think he, I'm not sure he got the credit for that. I mean, one year he had more home runs than the whole league. That could have been the dead ball. Yes, it was a combination of both, I think, because you could say that he capitalized on the conditions because the ball did get livelier and they changed the construction. And so it was more feasible to swing for the fences. But he certainly did that better and more often than anyone else.

He was playing with the same ball as the other players in the league. And as you said, he was lapping entire teams, let alone individual players. And then that caught on because everyone saw how remunerative and valuable that was for Babe Ruth. And suddenly it wasn't taboo to do that. So he certainly was a trailblazer. I also wanted to ask because you write a bit about how you were quite close and associating with players from very different backgrounds. And you're quite a liberal fellow. And, you know, came of age in the 60s.

And you're very open about that. and you write about the fact that, you know, you were hobnobbing with players with very different beliefs and different politics, presumably. And that still comes up. I mean, we've talked about that with all the controversy surrounding Pride Night this year and how players still, at least domestic players, are quite conservative and right leaning on the whole. And so I'm always curious how that comes up or doesn't come up in clubhouses and on the bus and on the plane. And from other conversations I've had, it seems like often it's something you skirt around, right? Because it's kind of avoid politics and religion at the dinner table kind of conversation thing. But also you're around these people in such proximity for so long that I wonder how you navigated that in your era. Was this something people would bring up?

Would you have debates? Would you have good-natured conversations about this, or did you steer clear of it? That's a really interesting question. It's hard to capture now what things were like in the 70s and so on and so forth. I'll tell you one story that's really interesting to me. And this goes back to college. I was at Duke in the early 70s. And, you know, Duke wasn't integrated until about five years before I got there.

And that whole time was different. When we talk about, I think people are uncomfortable. I don't think people talk to each other very well at all about these kinds of things. And in the old days, the lines were drawn, so to speak. But people did get along. You know, when I started at Duke in the fall of 1970, we learned that it didn't hear anything. The school didn't notify or anything, but exams had been canceled as they had been pretty much across the country. But the funny thing to me was the first question for student riots, and the first question was, well, like, who?

Was it anti-war? Was it the black students? Was it even women? And in this case, it happened to be the black students who had never been on the campus before, like 1965. Okay, here's the thing. In the early 70s at the basketball games, good old Cameron Indoor. And the, gosh, I've forgotten the name of the Federation of African-American students and Duke. I don't know, at least 150, I would guess. But they would sit together at the basketball game. National Anthem was played, they didn't stand up. But one guy did, a really good guy. I'm not because of this, but I had known from Intermural Basketball. He's a football player named Melvin Parker.

I'm pretty sure. He's got his name right. But he stood up and he didn't get any stuff from the contingency of his community all around him. But the black students, nobody gave them any, nobody gave them a hard time. And the upper stands, you know, the citizens of Durham and so forth, nobody said anything. Nobody had to ask, why aren't they standing up? You know what I mean? As firmly as they, a man, America was racist and is all across the continent. But it was a new experience for me growing up in a not diverse, primarily, not entirely,

but primarily white, a small city, going to the south. It was an eye-opener being around. white people and black people weren't around. And there wasn't any mistaking the animosity. But there wasn't any mistaking the fact they didn't. Why aren't you all standing up? They knew why they weren't standing up. You know, it was really powerful.

And so there was that kind of thing. We were all getting along, although, gosh, there's so much to it. You know, I've lived in Michigan in the last 30 years, and Michigan as a state, the white population, has really the riots in Detroit in the 60s, black people. That just, the echoes of that are still echoing in this state. It's, it's, I mean, you'd have to listen for it, you know, but it's quite remarkable. And so I'm not sure I can capture, on the one hand, you know, there was a free love and so forth. On the other hand,

it was probably in some ways of a worse environment for women. The women's movement was strong and powerful and rebelling against a lot. And so we had these huge conflicts, and yet really day-to-day, I can't capture the sense of those conversations. And we had them. And I didn't, to think I write about this, I didn't, like, violently, or not violently, but verbally violently, violently confront people that disagreed with me. And I probably sat still.

But not always. I made it clear, you know, there are any black people around. but you're full of it, that kind of thing. And it just didn't, my recollection is, it just didn't, it wasn't like the climate today. Isn't that funny? So that's what I think. Well, you were sort of a standout in the baseball world in a number of ways, I guess, because in one of your previous appearances, I know I asked you about how there aren't a lot of bookworms in baseball.

And you were a reader and a writer and an intellectual and a poet. and it's quite a conformist culture where you might feel some hesitation to be vocal about those things or to try to tamp down those qualities while you're in the clubhouse, for instance. But it doesn't seem as if you hid who you were to any great extent. No, that part, I'll tell you the truth, that part was more fun. I remember, I'll do a specific memory. I remember one day, like, you guys, you're going to get me really playing the, but I had two really good major league spring trainings and the way where people would say well you made that team like nicholas

would say he made a putt it just didn't go in i made a team they just sent me back to oakland city or whatever and one was uh uh in with the fillies in clear water and i hit had let off an inning with a single spring training games are weird for like rookies and guys i'm in the big leagues because you play 142 games against largely big league quality in the in in triple a and they'll judge you on one game in spring training so i let off an ending with a single and then i had a Grand Slam home run of Jack Cusick I later played with. To end the inning, and a reporter, Philadelphia reporter, asked essentially that question. And I remember saying something about, well, yeah, I do kind of read like Moby Dick once a year,

so I probably didn't, but I more than once. But then I said, I never found that I made friends on the basis of their intelligent, or, you know, being intellectual and so forth. And I felt that way. and I was comfortable with who I was about. I remember in writing, I wrote, I believe, memorizing poetry, and I wrote Buffalo Bills the Funk, that old E Cummings poem on the AA bathroom stall,

because I thought it was just perfect for the minor leagues. And that was that. But I liked hanging out with all kinds of people and players and so forth, except for that occasional, except for that really mean-spirited stuff. Yeah, I can't imagine that that was the most common slang to find on a bathroom stall in double-A. Some E. Cummings verse, but then you know that John Puff was there. So I could ask you about baseball all day, but people can read more about your baseball experiences. In the book, we had a brief reading from the book of Puff, but there is much more where that came from.

I really enjoy your writing about baseball. But there is more to your writing and there's more to you. And so a lot of this book is about post-baseball experiences and sort of a spiritual awakening of sorts and how you came to know and appreciate Lakota culture. And you've talked about this a bit on your previous appearances and the time that you've spent and the work that you've done on the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas. and you are at it again for the 10th time, and that is part of the reason that you are appearing on the pod today, because you have a new initiative that you're hoping for some help with.

So for those who haven't heard your past appearances, could you talk a little bit about the Lakota, Standing Rock, and your previous efforts in that community? Yeah, it is a long story about going out there, and that is the background. That's the heart of the second half of the time. this book, and the short version is I've been going out to Standing Rock since this, really every year and every summer since the summer of 2008. I'm not an expert on Lakota culture or anything, but I felt it came through that there's something in Lakota culture that is that the world needs. Okay. In 2017, I started actually doing stuff. The singular event was the very first summer.

I stumbled across the Rock Greek VJ Day celebration, a three or four day of that's a traditional Lakota Powwow. And it's remarkable. This is the 81st year that they've been remembering and commemorating the end of World War II and veterans. And traditionally, Native indigenous people, Native Americans serve in the military at the highest rate. But traditionally, of course, it's hard to explain how people can be very clear-eyed about their history of the United States government and yet honor their veteran citizens. remember the VJ day, as I understand it, and I'm not even positive about this, but there was

a kind of a spontaneous outbreak, and then they just maintained that since 1945. And that was so striking to me. Okay, so in 2017 with a friend of my son, I started trying to do something, you know, I know about baseball, that week leading up to the powwow. I started doing many baseball, softball camps for three or four days, and bringing a bunch of equipment and having the refreshments, and did that for a few years. I met the artist Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy. A terrific artist, he's, I think, well known and not in indigenous circles

and not just indigenous circles. He has made six designs for me over the years. In the last couple years, really, the main thing I've done is this idea he thought was a good idea. It's just he makes a design, and I make a bunch of T-shirts for the VJ Day celebration and just give him away. Okay, that brings up to this year.

And it also connects to the book, The last portion of the book ended with this idea that I wanted to raise $10,000 to do a specific thing on Standing Rock Reservation this summer. There are eight districts on Standing Rock. There are seven traditional Lakota values. And each district traditionally has a famous chief. And Gilbert wanted to create, there are signs, he's painted some of them, there are signs about entering Rock Creek District or whatever. But he wants to create permanent signs, a two for each district, four by eight permanent on the, I can't remember the material and painted his original art,

celebrating one of the traditional virtues for each district and the chief and the culture, so to speak, and then the final sort of overarching theme for the Fort Yates, the center of the tribal government. So for the people that are living there, first for the people that are living there, Every day they come in and out of their community and they see this work of art that's celebrating their culture and is a pleasure to look at and connects them with everybody else in the community of the reservation, of the whole reservation. And then for people coming through, even if just by chance. And so that's this idea that's this year's fundraiser. and I am starting with a goal for this for $10,000. I'm going to try to help get funding for this for 16 of these signs.

I'm doing T-shirts this year, too. This is the kickoff here on Effectively Wild, and I just posted this GoFundMe page, you know, the story of that. Effectively Wild listeners have been supportive in this thing. A couple years ago, I did the T-shirt thing, and you just put a thing on it on, I didn't talk to you, and you talked about it, but it was just the thing on the site, you know.

Yeah. And it was like $600 or whatever. And it was really cool. And so giving effectively wild people till tomorrow before I like go on, I've talked to friends about it and so forth. But before I want other people jumping in and do my little whatever, Facebook or whatever. Okay. It's an effectively wild exclusive for now. And I will link to the GoFundMe page where you can see all these.

details. VJ Day is the 15th. That's the Saturday when you will be giving those t-shirts away. And for those who donate as well, you allude to some potential rewards if people are interested. Obviously, giving the signs, that's its own reward, but you do have some other offers out there if people donate a certain amount and t-shirts, a signed copy of the book. And the main thrust, though, is that you could help decorate this vast expanse of the Standing Rock Reservation by commissioning this art from Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy that has some significance to this culture and to anyone who happens to be passing through, which sounds lovely. That's another thing about if an individual or group fully sponsors a sign at $2,000, we'll be happy to put in a humble plaque at the base of the sign, recognizing that. And I, that's, like, I'm putting $2,000 into this. I want, not because I went that flag, but, but kind of.

Like, you know, you might be in memory of somebody, or I think my high school class will do that, you know, friends and members of such and such a class, Finlay, Ohio, and, or I don't know if this would even work, but, you know, effectively a wild, just effectively wild listeners, and if we could base it, I would like them coming in from all over the country, you know. I did want to say that. I think that's, some of those things that happen out there, I think it's an honor to be there.

And I think it's an honor worth having to have this humble plaque. People there, one, I'm not going to get into generalizing about any culture. But the simple fact is people there remember and know and honor their history and their culture and their forebears. to me, forebears is like grandparents to ancestors more than we do. And they may well, if there's some little plaque there, somebody there may notice that and think of that long after the other things that, you know, people in our culture do are long forgotten. And so there, again, I'm not at all pushing this on anybody.

I'm just telling you what I think. People should believe in what they do. It's not religious fervor. I just think this is a good thing. And the essential thing, the thing that makes it wicked cool is it's art. It's Gilbert's art that's going to be there for people to see every day and make their lives a little better. I know I'm not going off the deep edge. You know, the poet Aud and famously said poetry makes nothing happen.

I don't know if he meant that ironically. But that's bullshit. And the same thing about art. That's the kind of thing that really does make things happen inside people and for people. Okay. Agreed. Yeah. And John has expressed his appreciation for the past support from effectively wild listeners many times to me.

And I'm sure that you'll be able to share photos of whatever it comes of this. So I wish you well and hope that our audience will show up to help out again. And I'm glad it gave me an excuse to talk. to you again, as did the release of your book. And congrats again on that. So the book is called Out of My Life and Two Vision. You can get it online in all the usual places, bookshop, Amazon, etc. And I will link to the GoFundMe fundraising effort that we have just discussed. And I wish you well and hope that we get a chance to talk again. Thanks so much, Ben. Thanks. And it really was fun talking with you. Thanks a lot.

All right, lovely to talk to John again, and I do hope folks will help him out if moved to do so. I suppose he's likely to hold on to his distinction as the player who had the most playing time exclusively in September, what with the diminishment of September roster expansion. Though as that turnaround in the trend line of three-inning saves instructs us, not all changes and declines are inexorable and irreversible. Sometimes what goes down does come up. One addendum to our Stap blast from last time about the longest combined team winning and losing streak snapped in a single series. Michael Mountain notes there was a 1999 series between the Cubs and Reds where the Cubs entered on a 15 series losing streak while the Reds were on a three-series winning streak, but that's still a smaller combined number of streaks than the Red Sox A's

streak snapping record, which inspired that stat blast. And of course, Michael went with everyone's favorite, or at least his favorite harmonic mean, to prioritize cases where both teams had long losing streaks, which is why the Pirates Met series that we cited in that. at Staplast showed up as the previous record holder. Got a lot of feedback about and some support for my extremely labored Scherzerzerz, if you can call it that last time. A lot of people pointed out that Scherzo Scherzer likely have the same root. Patreon supporter James says, sure, you are getting blown up about this. Well, not exactly.

But Ben's etymology is correct, and I've often had this thought. The last name Scher is primarily of German, Austrian, and Ashkenazi Jewish origin. It functions as an occupational name for a. a jester or a nickname for a playful person derived from the middle high German word s C-H-E-R-Z meaning jest or amusement. I don't think of Max Scherzer as a jester, though he can be a playful person at times, so maybe there is some nominative determinism going on there. But it wasn't that large leap is what I'm saying, and also what some listeners are saying.

And some people pointed out that when I brought up the Skerzo Fantastique in the context of Max Scher, they thought I was going to talk about how Max Scher may have salvaged his career and resolved his lingering right thumb issues by playing piano. He became Chopin. Blue Jay's pitching coach Pete Walker said, and the rest is history. This is from an athletic piece. Scherzer continues to play both piano and baseball, convinced his work on the keys, strengthens his finger and hand muscles, helps his dexterity, and alleviates his thumb pain. It's only stupid if this doesn't work, Scher said, it works, so it can't be stupid. I guess that's prioritizing outcome over process, but in his case, perhaps it's helped. And it also makes my

scherzo comp more germane and also more German, because as we learned, it derives from middle-high German. I totally knew that. We talked about Paul Skeens' struggles. They kind of continued in his most recent start on Tuesday. He was pulled after 65 pitches and five innings. He wasn't bad, but his fastball was down again, sitting sub-96, which for him seems sort of concerning. This was a new low score in both average and max fastball velo.

Pittsburgh skipper Don Kelly said anybody this time of year is not injured, but guys in August aren't 100%. It wasn't injury related that he came out, just thought it gave us the best chance to win there. And that's kind of a sad state of affairs when removing Paul Skeens gives the pirates a better chance to win, even though they have rebuilt their bullpen of late. I am officially worried. Also, we talked about the Ted Lasso scene at the Negro League's baseball museum. We lamented that Bob Kendrick was not in it.

As a few listeners informed us, he was asked to make a cameo. But at the time, he had a big brace on his leg from knee surgery, so he declined the offer. Nonetheless, I am glad that one was extended. We got some emails in response to Meg's Pickle Talk. Listener Henry says pickle juice has long been a hydration staple of endurance sports. I run some ultramarathons and volunteer at lots more. And pickle brine is almost always on offer at the aid stations. It's not my thing, but I know runners who love it.

It gets a lot of salt into you, can settle a queasy stomach, and at least tastes like real food, which can all be important factors 15 or 20 hours into a race. So while I, too, am skeptical of Erzatz pickle juice powder, the flavor is at least a traditional one in one of the rare settings in which we do sometimes need extra electrolytes. And as I noted to Henry, this reminds me of the Kumar Rocker pickle juice game, where he was pounding pickle juice because he kept cramping. We discussed that on episode 2421. Of course, the brand that manufactures this pickle juice powder is liquid IV, which prompted this email from Jeff. I feel compelled to email after Meg's recent order of a pickle-flavored electrolyte powder. While barely baseball related, the subject fits squarely within my personal pedantry wheelhouse. I'm generally pro-electrolite and any substance essential to not dying for that matter,

but have for years been evangelizing a boycott of liquid IV specifically on both scientific and grammatical grounds. Well, that's the important thing. Real IVs, you know, the medical grade intravenous saline concoctions they give you when you go to the emergency room because you think you have rabdo, but it turns out you're just a dumb dumb who worked out too much and drank too little water, are inherently liquid. Liquid IV, the product is a powder, notably a solid form of matter. And I guess if it were liquid, that might be redundant. Anyway, Jeff concludes what they actually mean is drinkable IV. And while that's admittedly not nearly as catchy a name, where are we as a society when we no longer have to be truthful about the molecular state of matter of. the products on our grocery store shelves. Patreon supporter JP says, has no one made a Nolan, no Lynn, Ryan joke? Is this thing on? I'll be here all week. Well, we haven't, and I can't believe we passed up the opportunity.

How did we miss that? He went by Nolan instead of Lynn. No, Lynn. Genius. Listener Owen pointed out that John Carlis Stanton did indeed try yoga when he and Aaron Judge revamped their winter routine heading into the 2021 season. It doesn't seem to have solved all of John Carlos' problems. We may have mentioned that before.

I think I suggested swimming for him worth a shot. And finally, there was some reporting about Keith Folk's dismissal as manager of the Boston Hunters in the Women's Pro Baseball League after three games. We have heard Folk's side of the story, at least, from the State Journal Register. Folk says it's just disappointing. At the end of the day, I walk with my head held high, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't say anything derogatory, I didn't say anything mean to my players ever. Well, that's a low bar, but okay.

I was always really positive. I think the ownership just kind of had a change of mind on the schedule that we'd agreed upon. I was the manager, but I wasn't going to be able to be there full time. And ultimately, they didn't think that was a good plan. Well, no, not being able to have the manager there full time doesn't seem like a good plan. But I guess if that had been the plan all along, that should have been recognized sooner. Folk says that as part of his contract, quote, he would be allowed to make an occasional trip to his Arizona home to be with his recently married wife, Jen, and his children.

His recently married wife makes it sound like his wife just recently got married to someone else. I assume to him. Folk said the contract was approved by Keith Stein, the leader, founder of the league. However, it says Folk now believes that arrangement wasn't made clear to Justine Siegel, the commissioner, or the rest of the league. That, he believes, began some second-guessing behind his back. It also says, calling himself an outspoken guy, Folk did say that he thought the talent levels for the other three teams in the league were higher than the Hunter's team that was drafted. Folk said he made those comments in private away from his players, but that someone relayed them to the players behind his back. What Folk might have believed was just some manager talk, where every manager has a gripe about something was blown out of proportion.

He believes he was always encouraging to his players and was eager to teach them more about the game. Anyway, weird story doesn't reflect all that well on either of them. Is that mean making occasional trips away from the team you agreed to manage? It's a six-week season. So, you know, it's not that huge a commitment, although, of course, they don't play games every. day, so I get that you might have time to travel. But also doesn't speak well of the league, which has seemed somewhat hastily planned and organized at the last second in some other respects as well. So this is the guy you get with that level of commitment.

Not great, but again, could have been a worse cause. Here's a good cause. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wilde. And signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to. some perks, as have the following five listeners, Dan, Bill Faust, Alan Esparsa, Chris Harris, and Aidan Lorenz. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to a third unrestricted episode each week. That will be coming up next time. A monthly bonus episode, exclusive live streams, membership in our Discord group, personalized messages, prioritized email answers,

shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, fan graphs, memberships, and more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are Patreon supporter, you can message us to the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at slash group, effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild, and you can check the show notes in the podcast posts at Fangraphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for

editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Hello and welcome to episode 2017. That's not even close to right. Only 500 episodes off. I don't say. Close enough.

Thank you.