Effectively Wild Episode 1663: If Baseball Were Different, it Would Be Blaseball by Ben Lindbergh March 5, 2021 Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Justin Dunn’s offseason overhaul and the value of spring training clichés, the Brewers signing Jackie Bradley Jr., why Jake Odorizzi is still a free agent, where he’ll end up, and why he’ll decide the EW free agent contracts competition, and an abominable baseball scene from the new movie Tom & Jerry. Then (41:25) they bring on Sam Rosenthal and Joel Clarke of video game studio The Game Band, the creators of the viral online simulation league Blaseball, to talk about their baseball backgrounds, how they created Blaseball, how and why it took off, how the game works, its active fan community, its dedicated researchers, how they write the story and simulate games, how they make money, how to get into the game, the impact of the pandemic on the game, the demographics of its fans, player incinerations/resurrections, and more. Audio intro: The Garages, "Empty Stadiums" Audio interstitial: Josh Millard, "Let Me into the Blaseball" Audio outro: The Garages, "Rogue Ump" Link to Dunn story Link to Ben’s BSOHL study Link to Ben’s new pitches study Link to David Laurila on Bradley Link to Jay Jaffe on Odorizzi Link to FA contracts draft stats Link to Ben Clemens on Houston’s rotation Link to Tom & Jerry clip Link to actual Gordon fly ball Link to Sonic the Hedgehog baseball scene Link to Blaseball website Link to the Blaseball wiki Link to The Game Band intro Twitter thread Link to Blaseball explainer video Link to Polygon intro to Blaseball Link to Polygon on Blaseball fans Link to Vice on Blaseball Link to Android Central on Blaseball Link to Defector on Blaseball Link to Cat Manning’s Blaseball primer Link to the Los Angeles Times on Blaseball Link to The Universal Baseball Association Link to SIBR Link to Blaseball Reference Link to story on The Garages Link to Blaseball Patreon page iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Sponsor Us on Patreon Facebook Group Effectively Wild Wiki Twitter Account Get Our Merch! Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com https://media.blubrry.com/effectively_wild/p/cdn-podcasts.fangraphs.com/EffectivelyWildEpisode1663.mp3Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS