Podcast Audio Episodes

Send us a text Interleague play has been a part of MLB since 1997. This season there will be 20 interleague games for each team. We think that's too many and that winning a playoff spot should not be so dependent on performance against the OTHER league. With expansion on the horizon there will almost assuredly no longer be a need to have an interleague game played nearly every day. There are some interleague rivalries worth keeping but do fans really want to watch their favorite teams play 20 in...

Send us a text The role of baseball player-manager was fairly commonplace in the early years of #MLB, Some great players like HOFers Nap Lajoie, Lou Boudreau, Bill Dickey, Frankie Frisch, and Honus Wagner to name a few. We talk about why there are no longer player-managers in baseball and who of today's players might be a good player-manager. Then we talk about the Olympic Games not just because baseball and softball are back in the Games! Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listenin...

Send us a text As of the 2021 season there have been 413 sets of brothers who've played in a MLB game. We found some of the careers of one of the brothers were very short. Most of the time one of the brothers significantly outperforms the other brother. But not all the time thanks to brother combos like the Waners, Deans, DiMaggios, Torres and Alomars. We talked about Hank and Dick Allen not mentioning that they were teammates with the White Sox in 1972-73. Hank and Tommie Aaron were also teamma...

Send us a text The first MLB All-Star Game was in 1933. Yet it is little-known amongst even big baseball fans that because Black players were not allowed in MLB, the Negro Leagues had their own All-Star Games also beginning in 1933. And these games were both popular and well-attended. We take a look at how the All-Star game in MLB has changed over the years and with Gary Livacari's help (you can check out his old-time baseball photos page on FB and his blog baseballhistorycomesalive.com), we dig...

Send us a text The bullpen has not always been the most respected place for #MLB pitchers. The save did not even become an official statistic until 1969. Two HOF players far and away represent the best of the best when it comes to having success both starting and relieving. There are other but not many examples of former starting pitchers who became stellar relief pitchers - even HOFers! As fans might expect the real rarity is being a relief pitcher who later has success as a starting pitcher. B...

Send us a text In MLB today scheduled doubleheaders are almost extinct. Rainouts and Covid-19 protocols have caused there to be a few more DH's than in a normal year. 7-inning DH's are, well just weird but might be here to stay. We're ok with that for the most part but not if there are two separate admissions at full price! Two for the price of one does not work well for team owners in today's baseball economics. Players are probably ok with it since they get paid the full amount even if only 77...

Send us a text Official scoring in baseball is very different than it is for all the other professional sports. Part of it is due its own history. It was not all that long ago that baseball reporters doubled as official scorers. The box score 'invented' by Henry Chadwick in 1859 is still in use today! But official scoring has been the bastion for males almost universally except for just a small amount of females. Starting with E. (Eliza) Green (could not use her name in 1882), and including Susa...

Send us a text Aren't we already tired of hearing about the doctoring & defacing of baseballs? @MLB has decided to do something about it mid-season. It's always been illegal to use sticky stuff or anything on the baseball. Now the rule is going to be enforced. We just had to talk about it! Thanks for listening and if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown F...

Send us a text Most fans would argue that their favorite team had a period of time in which they were a very good team, maybe won a WS, but fell short of winning more than once. Yet there are also teams that over-performed expectations to win it all more than once over a relatively short period of time. Are the 2016-2021 Dodgers overrated? They are the current WS champions and might have actually won another WS (if you ask Dodger fans), but should they have won another already? Thanks for list...

Send us a text What makes a player a good baserunner? Speed helps for sure but there have been many adept, even good baserunners who have lacked foot speed. Picking up the ball, knowing the field, taking longer leads and reading the move home of the pitcher are all important if not underused skills. The shift to power and home runs over the past 30+ years has robbed the game of exciting plays like scoring from first on a double, or just a good old fashioned triple! We talk about the good baseru...

Send us a text Partly because baseball has been around the longest, there have been more MLB players who played other professional sports than pro athletes from other sports playing MLB baseball. Baseball players were not paid much in the early part of the 20th century and being paid for two sports beat out having a regular job! We talk about what we call the big 4 - all NFL/MLB players as well as some notable names from sports like basketball, hockey and golf who were also major leaguers! Tha...

Send us a text Do you know the 10 oldest ballparks currently in use in MLB? Sure you'd expect Fenway & Wrigley but some of the other names might surprise even the most knowledgable fans. How about groundskeeping and the differences between baseball parks? Baseball is really the only major sport in which the playing field differs depending on the park in which you're playing. What's going on with the future of the Oakland A's? We talk about all this and more in this episode. Thanks for listening...

Send us a text Ichiro Suzuki has the all-time #MLB record for hits in one season with 262. He broke George Sisler's 84 year-old record of 257 in 2004. Since then there have been a number of 200-hit seasons recorded by players but the number is decreasing. And we talk about why that is the case. Thanks for listening and if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperst...

Send us a text Good teams always seem to have a guy or two who's a versatile utility player. This helps keep the roster efficient since a good utility player can cover a variety of field positions. We discuss that being a versatile player is a good thing but overall a utility player is most often not quite god enough to have an every day place in the lineup. Have there ever been any utility players elected to the Hall-of-Fame in Cooperstown? We answer that question and more in this episode! Tha...

Send us a text Bench-clearings still happen fairly often in #MLB. Actual bench-clearing brawls are less common due to the players being suspended, losing pay, and generally hurting the team. But in the heat of the moment a batter can snap when a high hard one goes right at his head or upper body. Fortunately baseball brawls don't end up having players injured such that they can't play but even that has happened. We talk about which current MLB teams might be poised for a fight in this quick and ...

Send us a text Do you recognize the photo of the AL Rookie-of-the-Year from 2004? Jackie Robinson won the very first Rookie-of-the-Year (for both leagues) in 1947. Since then one team has dominated ROY selections. Can you guess which team it is? We talk about the Hall-of-Fame Rookies of the Year as well as a few winners whose ROY winning statistics are less than impressive. Thanks for listening and if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail...

Send us a text Before our podcast started, we like so many others, sat around and talked about baseball. What recently got us going was the idea that Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average back before and after the 'Dead-ball' era was fattened up by facing tired pitchers in innings 7/8/9. Pitchers today rarely throw complete games and today hitters have to face a bevy of hard throwing late-inning relievers who have nasty stuff. How did Cobb perform in the first six innings vs. the last three? Ho...

Send us a text Thanks to Mark Rickard for the show concept! With some sense of certainty this will be the last year in MLB in which there will not be a DH in the National League. This will be negotiated as part of the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Player's Association and MLB in what promises to be an acrimonious negotiation. No pitcher has finished the season with a .300 average since 2008 when Micah Owings hit .304. In general MLB pitchers are lousy hitters and getting ...

Send us a text It's a new season already and the start of a 2nd season from Almost Cooperstown! Only 10 months after the delayed start of the 2020 MLB season, here comes the 2021 season. A planned 162-game season that is sure to test the pitching staffs across both leagues. 7 inning double-headers are back as are some of the new rules introduced in 2020. We talk about the rule changes from last year and how they worked out, some new ones that are being experimented with at the minor league level...

Send us a text Pitchers don't often get hit by line drives and get it to the skull even less frequently. But it does happen, as much as 2 - 3 times per season. We note a number of well known current MLB pitchers that have been the victim of a shot to the head. Currently there are no MLB pitchers wearing protective headgear on the mound. There are a number of reasons for that and we discuss all that and more with former major league pitcher Willie Blair who was felled by a line drive off the bat ...

Send us a text Remember there used to be a MLB statistic for GWRBI - Game Winning RBI's? The one that gives your team a lead it never relinquishes. Because players could get the GWRBI conceivably (and in reality) in the first inning @MLB junked it after 1988 which was about 8 years too long. One of our 'Almost' guys Keith Hernandez has been in no way helped by the stat that he has the all time record for GWRBIs. Because and rightly so, it's a dumb stat! Are pitcher starts as important as they u...

Send us a text Here at Almost Cooperstown we believe there's room for more at the Inn. We're not talking about boxing BTW! When it comes to Gold Gloves (only awarded since 1957), a player who is a borderline Hall of Famer (an 'Almost' guy we like to say), can be pushed over the top by superior fielding and a collection of Gold Gloves. There have been 8 players to win GG's in both leagues which is kind of hard to do since often the incumbent would need to be unseated. In the past Gold Gloves seem...

Send us a text The 2020 World Series ended up being a very exciting and interesting one. Seven game series have a way of being just that much more memorable. An anti-climatic game 7 can take away from the overall greatness of a World Series. We start with the 1960 World Series which was one of the greats and highlight the best 7 game World Series of the past 60 years. Thanks to Bruce McClure who points out that reason Mazeroski did not win the '60 series MVP with his walk-off HR, was that the r...

Send us a text Every second people use expressions borne out of baseball lingo and lore. We know there are Yogi Berra-isms and Dizzy Dean's oddball expressions, but what about normal everyday conversational responses? There are many of them that are used everyday and a surprising amount of food/dining references. America's Pastime does intersect baseball with eating! We can't wait to have peanuts and hotdogs at a real MLB game! Thanks for listening and if you have a suggestion for an episode pl...