Effectively Wild Episode 1663: If Baseball Were Different, it Would Be Blaseball

March 5, 2021

EWFI
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