Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Programming Note

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Ben briefly explains this week’s podcast hiatus. Link to Joon Lee on players’ statements Link to Marc Carig on MLB’s response Link to Bradford William Davis on team and league statements Link to Randy Wilkins on MLB’s statement Link to Doug Glanville and other ex-players on race and baseball Link to Shakeia Taylor on civil […]

Hi everyone, Ben here. You may have noticed our absence from your feeds this week, and since it's rare for us not to stick to our schedule, Meg and Sam and I thought we owed our listeners and Patreon supporters a brief explanation. During the difficult past few months, some listeners have told us that Effectively Wild has been a welcome distraction for them, and we're happy if the podcast can occasionally brighten your day or provide some sense of community for you, as it does for us. But the act of creating a podcast is inherently somewhat self-serving, and this week we felt it would be better to minimize distractions, make more room for other voices to speak, and hope that the time you might have spent listening to us would be spent listening to them instead. The murders of

George Floyd and many other black victims, and the ongoing protests stemming from institutionalized racism and police brutality, have reverberated in the baseball world as well as everywhere else. The outpouring of public statements by baseball players, teams, and MLB has amplified ongoing discussions about the role of race in the experiences of athletes, fans, and journalists, and in the structure of the sport. Many media members have made important points about the timing and content of those statements, as well as the issues that they don't address, which we will make a focus of future episodes. For now, we will link on our show page to some recommended baseball-related reading, and in lieu of our usual Patreon plug, we ask that you consider supporting bail funds,

police reform initiatives, and other causes devoted to addressing the long-standing injustices that millions of Americans have so painfully felt anew in recent days. We support the protesters Thank you.