Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about baseball dreams and a holiday weekend in MLB marred by testing delays, canceled practices, concerned players, and other impediments to a safe and smooth season, then pick up where they left off four months ago in their season preview series by previewing the 2020 Tampa Bay Rays (16:05) with The Athletic’s Josh Tolentino and the 2020 Miami Marlins (57:10) with the Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson.

Audio intro: Warren Zevon, "Disorder in the House"
Audio interstitial 1: Superchunk, "Florida’s on Fire"
Audio interstitial 2: Modest Mouse, "Florida"
Audio outro: Mac DeMarco, "Dreams From Yesterday"

Link to Jay Jaffe’s summary of MLB’s testing mess
Link to story on Chaim Bloom’s cardigan
Link to Yandy Díaz workout
Link to story on Jonathan Erlichman
Link to Josh’s Rays return-to-play guide
Link to Josh on the Rays’ farm system
Link to FanGraphs’ Rays prospect rankings
Link to Jordan on the Marlins’ furloughs
Link to Jordan on the Marlins’ COVID-19 concerns
Link to Jordan on Marlins roster decisions
Link to FanGraphs’ Marlins prospect rankings
Link to Roster Resource Team Info Tracker

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the difficulties of disclosing or obscuring the identities of players who hit the injured list after contracting COVID-19, dissect a few new analogies from Scott Boras’s brain, and discuss resuming their season preview series, then (35:47) conclude their week-long celebration of the Negro Leagues by bringing on esteemed Negro Leagues historian Larry Lester to discuss the origins of scholarship about the Negro Leagues, co-founding the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, collecting Negro Leagues artifacts, his relationships with former Negro League players, helping select the Negro Leaguers inducted into the hall of Fame, his efforts to find Negro Leagues box scores and the status of the project to complete the statistical record, the greatest writers who covered the Negro Leagues, his favorite unsung players, the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project, how he researched Negro Leagues uniforms and helped obtain pensions for Negro Leaguers, and more (plus a postscript about reading recommendations).

Audio intro: Bob Dylan, "One More Cup of Coffee"
Audio interstitial: Natural Resource, "Negro Baseball League"
Audio outro: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "See That My Grave is Kept Clean"

Link to stream Stove League on Viki
Link to Lindsey on COVID and the IL
Link to Larry Lester’s website
Link to NLBM website
Link to Only the Ball Was White
Link to Larry’s Henry Chadwick Award page
Link to Larry’s Bob Davids Award page
Link to Hall of Fame Screening Committee press release
Link to Grave Marker Project page
Link to Jerry Malloy Conference info
Link to info on Cannonball Dick Redding
Link to Seamheads Negro Leagues Database
Link to SABR’s guide to researching the Negro Leagues
Link to Rob Arthur on systemic racism in baseball
Link to Rob on racial bias in player promotions
Link to Shakeia Taylor on Effa Manley
Link to Shakeia on the Negro Leagues centennial
Link to Shakeia on the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s effusive streaming recommendation, the Korean baseball drama Stove League. Then (8:51) they start the second episode of their week-long celebration of the Negro Leagues by bringing on Jeremy Beer, author of the award-winning baseball biography Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player, to talk about Charleston’s bona fides as one of the top 10 baseball players of all time, why his fame falls short of his accomplishments, and the challenges of researching Negro Leagues stars. Lastly (46:18), they speak to Invisible Ball of Dreams author and Ball State University professor Emily Ruth Rutter about two of the only non-documentary movies to focus on the Negro Leagues, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) and Soul of the Game (1996), touching on where they succeed and fail, the differences in their portrayals of the Negro Leagues and Negro Leaguers, and the history of cinematic and literary representations of Black baseball.

Audio intro: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Forgotten Man"
Audio interstitial: Thelma Houston, "The Bingo Long Song (Steal on Home)"
Audio outro: Sloan, "Set in Motion"

Link to Stove League trailer
Link to stream Stove League on Viki
Link to stream Stove League on Kocowa
Link to Oscar Charleston book page
Link to Charleston at the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database
Link to Charleston’s Hall of Fame page
Link to Joe Posnanski on Charleston
Link to Bingo Long trailer
Link to Bingo Long full movie on YouTube
Link to Soul of the Game full movie on YouTube
Link to BlackBaseballLit site
Link to Invisible Ball of Dreams
Link to Paul Petrovic essay on Bingo Long and Soul of the Game
Link to article about historical inaccuracies in Soul of the Game
Link to Washington Post review of Soul of the Game
Link to Roger Ebert’s review of Bingo Long
Link to New York Times story on Toni Stone

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the backlash to MLB’s use of the sponsored term “summer camp,” four players’ decisions to opt out of the season, a heartfelt, thought-provoking post by Ian Desmond, and the official cancellation of the minor league season. Then they explain the Negro Leagues theme of this week of Effectively Wild episodes and (at 16:19) bring on Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick to talk about the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues, the Tipping Your Cap campaign, how the pandemic has impacted plans to celebrate the centennial, the Negro Leagues’ origin story, Bob’s favorite unsung players and museum guests and artifacts, how young players connect with the Negro Leagues’ legacy, how the story of the Negro Leagues resonates in a year of racial reckoning, and more. Lastly (1:04:25), the late Negro Leagues great Buck O’Neil delivers a classic speech at the 2006 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Audio intro: Dr. Dog, "100 Years"
Audio outro: The Rolling Stones, "100 Years Ago"

Link to Desmond’s post
Link to Baseball America on the MiLB cancellation
Link to Tipping Your Cap website
Link to NLBM website
Link to NLBM donation page
Link to AP story on MVP plaques
Link to John Donaldson interview episode
Link to Hall of Fame page for Martín Dihigo
Link to Buck O’Neil speech
Link to Joe Posnanski on Buck O’Neil

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk to a beat writer and a broadcaster—The Athletic’s White Sox reporter James Fegan and Diamondbacks and MLB Network Radio host Mike Ferrin—about how they plan to tackle the unique challenges of covering the 2020 season, touching on how often they’ll be at the ballpark, how restricted access to players will affect their work, how they’ll blend baseball coverage with allusions to national news, how their audiences reacted to MLB’s latest labor battle and the news of a season starting amid a pandemic, what they think the response from fans and teammates would be to a player sitting out the season, how White Sox and Diamondbacks fans will view the shortened season, which changes in sports media they expect to be permanent, running low on article ideas, and more.

Audio intro: Nathaniel Rateliff, "Don’t Get Too Close"
Audio outro: Feist, "The Park"

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley answer listener emails about statistical leaders and record-setters in a small-sample season, what would make winning a championship in a 60-game season more impressive, the odds of good teams missing the playoffs, bad teams making the playoffs, and teams having unrepresentative 60-game stretches, the possibility of losing a perfect game, what types of teams are built for this strange season, KBO’s catching techniques compared to MLB’s, why American sports are averse to ties, and service-time manipulation and top-prospect promotion in a short season, plus a Stat Blast about Billy Hamilton’s value as an extra-inning runner, featuring FanGraphs writer (and visiting Stat Blaster) Ben Clemens.

Audio intro: The Rock*A*Teens, "Billy Really"
Audio outro: Tennis, "Runner"

Link to Ben on the randomness of a 60-game season
Link to Sam and others on short-season stats
Link to Jay on team entropy in a 60-game season
Link to Stark on losing a perfect game
Link to Alex Eichler’s Stat Blast song cover
Link to Jeremy Frank’s Hamilton hypothetical
Link to Ben Clemens on the Hamilton scenario
Link to Kapler’s comments on Hamilton
Link to Jon Tayler on the extra-innings-runner rule
Link to Sam’s 2014 Hamilton hypothetical
Link to Reds pitching staff article
Link to Eno on team pitching staff depth
Link to paper on America’s aversion to ties
Link to article about the history of ties in baseball

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the long-in-the-making announcement about the MLB season starting, touching on the resolution of the dispute between the league and the union, their deeply conflicted feelings about baseball being played during a pandemic, the strangeness of a 60-game season, how to reframe fandom and reorient rooting interests in a short season, starting extra innings with runners on second, and an especially perplexing Scott Boras analogy. Then (45:20) they bring on epidemiologist, incoming Emory University professor, and sports data analyst Zach Binney to discuss MLB’s health-and-safety protocol, the difficult of preventing transmission in baseball compared to other sports, the recent coronavirus outbreaks in baseball, the ethics and efficacy of COVID-19 testing in sports, whether temperature and symptom screenings work, how long players who test positive might have to sit out, prohibitions on spitting, touching, and equipment sharing, how to protect non-players who work for teams, what it might take for MLB to stop the season, the trajectory of the pandemic in the country at large, and more.

Audio intro: Neil Young, "For the Turnstiles"
Audio interstitial: Richard Thompson, "Keep Your Distance"
Audio outro: Ted Berg, "Small Sample Size Song"

Link to Ben on the MLB season starting
Link to info on new Darvish pitch
Link to Dan’s playoff odds and projected standings
Link to Neil Paine on “paper champions”
Link to Neil on the 60-game season
Link to Neil on observing true talent in various sports
Link to Eno Sarris on short seasons
Link to Russell Carleton on the 60-game season
Link to Boras analogy article
Link to 2020 MLB operations manual
Link to summary of manual
Link to Zach’s website
Link to Zach’s Football Outsiders archive
Link to epidemiologist survey about attending sporting events
Link to SI article about baseball’s non-bubble plan

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Meg Rowley is joined by the New York Daily News’ Bradford William Davis and Baseball Prospectus’ Shakeia Taylor to discuss Major League Baseball’s response to the police killing of George Floyd and the recent Black Lives Matter protests, why the league’s statements have been so wanting, whether teams have a role to play — both in their communities and in their clubhouses — in conversations about systemic racism, players’ increased willingness to support BLM publicly, some concrete steps MLB should be taking to make baseball more accessible to Black players and fans, and how the media should engage with players around activism and questions of social justice, police brutality, and racism. Plus, Shakeia and Bradford share their thoughts on the strange, short season of baseball we’re about to see.

Audio intro: Otis Redding, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
Audio outro: The Police, “Truth Hits Everybody”

Link to Shakeia’s piece on Tim Anderson.
Link to Bradford’s piece on the need for pro sports leagues to say more in their statements on police brutality.
Link to Shakeia’s piece on how diversity in baseball begins in Little League.
Link to Bradford’s piece on how MLB is (and isn’t) involving public health officials in its resumption of play plans.
Link to the Five and Dive showpage, the podcast Bradford co-hosts at Baseball Prospectus with Craig Goldstein of BP and Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated.
Link to Demetrius Bell’s piece “What Jackie Knew,” the first in a series of articles at Baseball Prospectus by Black authors that will explore op-eds and articles written by Jackie Robinson throughout and after his career.

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley review the latest lack of progress toward starting the MLB season, touching on the false hope offered by a meeting between Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, the subsequent breakdown in talks, a poll about where the public places blame for the standstill, what negotiations without leaks would look like, how the parties will proceed, and more. Then they discuss a series of COVID-19 outbreaks in baseball, the feasibility of a safe season, the importance of mask-wearing, and a Scott Boras quote about taking baseball’s temperature, plus a Stat Blast about the players who played for the most World Series-winning teams without appearing in the World Series, and a warning about top prospects’ proximity to trampolines.

Audio intro: The Sleepy Jackson, "I Understand What You Want But I Just Don’t Agree"
Audio outro: Ezra Furman, "Thermometer"

Link to story on the latest MLB disagreements
Link to The Athletic on the midpoint problem
Link to Eugene Freedman’s post
Link to The Athletic on the backgrounds of MLB owners
Link to The Athletic on COVID outbreaks in baseball
Link to study on the number of prevented infections
Link to study on the effectiveness of mask-wearing
Link to second study on the effectiveness of mask-wearing
Link to Morning Consult poll results
Link to Boras article with Verducci quotes
Link to Mayo Clinic thermometers page
Link to Stat Blast song cover by Kyle Cripps
Link to list of players with most rings without a WS appearance
Link to Wander Franco trampoline post
Link to Idiocracy thermometer scene

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss Rob Manfred’s rapid flip-flop from expressing 100 percent confidence about an MLB season starting to expressing a lack of confidence in an MLB season starting, his ultimatum to the union, how Manfred has floundered at a pivotal time and how that failure effects his future, how some owners’ reluctance to start the season is hurting themselves and the sport, how COVID complicates plans to play, the worst-case scenario for the league, the odds of a season, and more. Then they answer listener emails about how to support players while still supporting teams, expanding the division series, the impact of future NBA seasons overlapping longer with MLB’s, whether players could form their own league, teams’ incentive to win in 2020, and whether and why pulled homers are the most aesthetically pleasing, plus Stat Blasts about players with the least playing time by number of years of service time and an unsurpassed feat by Mark Buehrle.

Audio intro: Courtney Barnett, "Crippling Self-Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence"
Audio outro: Drive-By Truckers, "Grievance Merchants"

Link to The Athletic on the latest in MLB’s big dispute
Link to Craig Edwards on Manfred’s latest comments
Link to Jeff Passan on Manfred
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Manfred
Link to Stat Blast song cover by John Choiniere and Lucas Apostoleris
Link to Lucas’s debut album
Link to service time spreadsheet
Link to starters with most games facing the minimum
Link to Rany on Buehrle

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