Effectively Wild Episode 1426: Fun or Foul
Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller debate whether a fact about Michael Lorenzen’s multi-way play is fun, banter about Nelson Cruz’s unflagging offense, technology and the future of the knuckleball, and an ignominious achievement by Billy Hamilton, then answer listener emails about the lack of four-homer games, what would happen if foul balls caught in the stands counted as outs, and whether (and how) MLB should ask its audience what it wants to see, plus a Stat Blast about the most-ever talent on one team and another fun-fact debate (about Cody Bellinger).
Audio intro: The Stooges, "No Fun"
Audio outro: The Scruffs, "You’re No Fun"
Link to Lorenzen story
Link to Ben on Cruz
Link to Ben on the knuckleball
Link to Travis on foul balls
Link to Sam on the most talented teams
Link to order The MVP Machine
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Of course it will never happen, but if you play with the “foul ball” concept, it goes to a very dangerous place. Where you get a game in a stadium where the visiting team has a decent number of fans in attendance, fans will fight over catches. Whichever team hits the ball, the opposing team’s fans would go for the ball and the batting team’s fans will attempt to interfere with the fans that are trying to catch the ball. All while a baseball is whistling towards them at dangerous speeds. That would be a recipe for disaster. In OPACY, assume that some O’s fans show up to an O’s/Yankees or O’s/Red Sox game. People would get hurt.
So apparently Sam Miller thinks the only things worth “pointing out” are “the greatest athletic accomplishment any baseball player has ever done” yet he spends every podcast and virtually all of his professional output talking about things that don’t reach that standard.
I’m glad I can skip ahead in this podcast… (and now I truly appreciate that intro music: thanks Ben).