Effectively Wild Episode 1994: Down Goes Dinger
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an NPB matchup between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, those aces’ current talent levels and MLB futures, how velocity has climbed in NPB compared to MLB, and how stealing bases seems to be the one thing Shohei Ohtani (and, for that matter, Mike Trout) can’t do. Then (18:52) they follow up on earlier conversations about Cast Away, playing baseball on top of a tall building, and a pitcher who throws an unhittable pitch, discuss partial runs (26:53), a strange MLB survey question (37:10), whether Rob Manfred is suddenly based (44:34), Jim Bowden’s pro-ownership stance (55:17), and why teams aren’t stealing third base more often (1:06:45), followed by Stat Blasts (1:12:43) about the most first major league hits in one game, teams with the most players who had career years, the biggest years for prominent retirements at each position, and mascot clothing, plus a reaction to an assault on Rockies mascot Dinger (1:42:04), a Past Blast (1:48:04) from 1994, concerns about ESPN micing up Martín Maldonado during a game (1:50:28), and a few follow-ups (1:54:47).
Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Kelley Stoltz, “Memory Collector”
Link to Yamamoto/Sasaki story
Link to Yamamoto/Sasaki lines
Link to Yamamoto/Sasaki highlights
Link to DeltaGraphs NPB data
Link to 0 SB players
Link to Sam Blum on Angels steals
Link to Sam Miller on Trout steals
Link to Ohtani “by the way” line
Link to Burj al-Arab tennis
Link to Tom Cruise climbing scene
Link to MLB survey screenshot
Link to Manfred on blackouts
Link to Bowden on opt-outs
Link to 2023 basestealing stats
Link to Petriello on basestealing
Link to Rob Mains on going for 3rd
Link to Topps NOW cards
Link to info on Julien debut
Link to 1938 Feller game
Link to 1938 debuts game
Link to 1947 debuts game
Link to first-hits data
Link to best-seasons data
Link to best-seasons summary
Link to player-retirements data
Link to mascots survey
Link to Dinger attack video
Link to article on wanted man
Link to Charmin’ bear ad
Link to Ben’s bidet article
Link to Abbott Elementary reference
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter
Link to EW emails database
Link to Maldonado news
Link to Ben on in-game interviews
Link to Manoah video
Link to Cortes/Trevino video
Link to 1994 Past Blast source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Dinger arrest news
Link to Dinger summons
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copying my post from the subreddit.
Topps is sort of a weird sponsor choice when a preamble about being selective came first.
MLB unexpectedly cut Topp’s licensing in 2021, after 70 years and gave Fanatics exclusive rights. This allowed them to leverage their and the MLBPA’s partial stakes in Fanatics, to have more direct control of the card business. Also with the surprise lack of renewal of Topp’s license, Fanatics to acquire the bulk of Topps for under what their valuation was at by almost a billion dollars(Topps was about to go public). So with their business was basically ruined they were basically forced to cash out immediately by selling.
Topps doesn’t really exist anymore, this is a Fanatics sponsorship ultimately and they are involved heavily in NFTs, sports gambling, are partially owned by MLB, and we know the show has consistently mocked some of their terrible apparel notably hats. Their ultimate goal is to have a total monopoly on basically everything sports other than the games themselves.