Podcast Audio Episodes

Send us a text #Yankees Aaron Judge is now on pace for 56 home runs which would surprise exactly nobody! Judge also has a #MLB leading 39 RBIs which over 162 games would be 156 RBIs. That hasn't been done since A-Rod did it for those same Yankees in 2007. But the real question is can Judge maintain his +.400 batting average? Doubtful but fun to watch! #Pirates CF O'neil Cruz leads MLB on pace for 60+ SBs. Can he keep that up? He has a new manager now that Derek Shelton has been le...

Send us a text It was more fun talking about This Week in Baseball goings-on since #MLB team captains are kinda unimportant. A vestige of 19th century baseball, there are only three team captains in the Majors today. # Yankees Aaron Judge #Royals Salvador Perez, & #Rangers Marcus Semien. Why aren't there more? We dive into that thought in this week's episode. Four of the five teams in the #ALWest are .500 or better. Who'da thunk it? Jacob DeGrom is looking like prime DeGrom for Texas. Pitching ...

Send us a text #Pirates rookie 27 YO Matt Gorski hit a home run in his first #MLB at-bat this week! But maybe #Dbacks Eugenio Suarez outdid him by clubbing 4 home runs in a game versus the #Braves, that Arizona ended up losing! Are the #Giants & #Tigers built for the long haul? Is #Yankees Paul Goldschmidt really back in HOF form? We cover the big and little stories of the past week. Like the phantom triple play turned by the Nationals in their crazy win Friday vs. #Mets. AND, then there's ch...

Send us a text About 1/8th of the season is past so you can pretty much take #MLB player stats and multiply by eight. Tyler Soderstrom of the #athletics s is not going to hit 72 home runs. But #yankees Aaron Judge could definitely finish with 56 or more homers. Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt was taken out by a line drive foul ball last week in the #Mets #Twins series at Citi Field. Hoping that he's going to be ok but it was a scary thing. Is the National League really that much better than the Ameri...

Send us a text #Angels in first place is something we did not expect. Mike Trout leading the #AL in homers is not as shock but that he has 6 HRs and 10 hits is at least surprising! The #Tigers are in 1st place as are #Yankees, #Padres, #Cubs w #Mets & #Phillies tied for 1st place in the #NLEast as of Sunday morning. Justin Steele may have an injury to his elbow that could change the Cubs fortunes. #Giants Wilmer Flores also has 6 HRs. #Mets Pete Alonso is off to a raging start which is good s...

Send us a text Baseball movies are rarer than they used to be. Has there been a great one that you love in the past 10 years? Gordon and Mark participated in a roundtable with 4 other baseball writers/podcasters/personalities - Vince Wetzel (author of "Lose Yourself" and a past Almost Cooperstown guest, Scott Bolohan (host of the Twin Bill podcast and content), Kelly Franco (Three Inning Fan the podcast), and former ESPN and The Athletic writer, current Substack author and author of "The Best Te...

Send us a text The #Dodgers finally lost & #Braves finally won. Yet it's the #Giants who are in 1st place in the NL West. #Padres also lost but still are off to a great start. #Cubs are looking good as are #Phillies who beat L.A. 2 out of 3 this weekend. #Mets bullpen is over-performing but they will take it for now. #D'backs have good news and bad news. #Yankees are still clubbing home runs and the #ALEast is already a dogfight. At one point this week all the #ALCentral teams were 2-4 but it...

Send us a text It's not really been a week in baseball but the Dodgers & Cubs have played 5 games now (Dodgers have won them all and are on a path to be undefeated) so that's close to a week. There are no narratives written in March for MLB teams. That goes for April too although teams will be almost 30 games into the season when April ends. #Yankees Aaron Judge was on a pace for nearly 500 RBIs this season when he had 11 RBIs in his first 11 ABs. That goes with his 4 home runs in three games p...

Send us a text As we launch our 6th season of Almost Cooperstown podcasts we start by saying thank you to our listeners and viewers. 280 episodes in the can and still going strong! Thank you for liking to hear and watch us talk about our favorite thing - baseball! We go division by division picking all 30 teams in order of finish. It's a long episode for that reason but we just couldn't stop ourselves! Take it in bites if you can't listen all at once. Will the #Dodgers go 162-0? Can any te...

Send us a text Author of 19 books, Keith O'Brien grew up in Cincinnati and had a front row seat to much of Pete Rose's career. Keith's 2024 book "Charlie Hustle" won awards from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The New Yorker. We both enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it highly. Pete Rose was addicted to gambling, something he finally admitted, but only when he was trying to get baseball to reinstate him to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Pete always played to win and also ...

Baseball bans, blacklists, and blackballs

Send us a text #Yankees Giancarlo Stanton is injured. Again. This time it is tennis elbow in both elbows! #Mets FA acquisition Nick Madrigal is doing his Jed Lowrie imitation as he's out for the season before it ever started! Injuries are part of the game but you hope to get through Spring Training! Max Scherzer is not thrilled with ABS testing so far. But Max is never happy about, everything? Terry Francona of the #Reds told his players to ignore ABS since they are not going to use it this s...

This Week in Baseball and highlights of the Deadball Era pitchers

Send us a text There was enough news for us to talk about what went on this week. Alex Bregman #redsox was the biggest player news. #Angels Rendon is out of action for the season. Again. Before it even started! Who will be the dark horse teams in #MLB 2025? How about caps for the HOF inductees? Is C.C. really a #Yankees player? Then there's the Deadball era which occurred from 1901-1919. It was not completely consistent and happened for a variety of reasons. Ty Cobb led #americanleague with 9 h...

Send us a text Well here we are with spring training at hand as pitchers & catchers are reporting for #Cubs today. Other teams will follow shortly. Football season is over and baseball is on the way! How did the NL teams offseason go? #Dodgers, #Giants and #Mets were noisy. #Reds have Terry Francona at the helm. #Padres are puzzling. #Dbacks are dynamic w Corbin Burnes at the top of the rotation. #Cubs get Ryan Pressley to close. #Brewers were baffling. #Phillies added Jesus Luzardo, #Braves wil...

Trades, free agent signings for American League teams the winter of 2025.

Send us a text Dan was not the voter who didn't vote for Ichiro. But we all wish we knew who it was! For the 3rd straight year Dan joined the podcast to discuss the final HOF voting. He voted for Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, Chase Utley, and Billy Wagner. 9 in total and we discussed why he didn't vote for one more - could have been King Felix, Andy Pettitte, or Dustin Pedrioia or even David Wright! We also discussed allowi...

Send us a text #pirates and #whitesox Smoky Burgess had a pretty good career with a career OPS+ of 116. But he's third all-time in pinch hits and was a beloved player at the end of his career. We talk about the changes in pinch hitting and why all-time pinch hitting records are likely safe! Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music! Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means...

Send us a text As Director of Product Adam has been part of Sports-Reference for a long time. Keeping Baseball -Reference.com fresh, being part of the addition of Football, Basketball, (both college and pro), and hockey has proven to be groundbreaking. Adam has also worked on bringing in Negro League player data into BR. We talk Hall of Fame (Adam is a Dustin Pedroia advocate), and what's next for Adam! Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Appl...

Send us a text We don't know about you, but we forget things that happened during a baseball season even when it was LAST season! Sure the #dodgers beat #yankees in the #worldseries but besides Shohei and Aaron Judge, and Skubal, Sale and Skenes, there still were a lot of interesting and even amazing things that happened. We discuss the four no-hitters, the pitching triple crowns, and sad things like the #whitesox season. Remember how many #MLB managers got fired during the season. We do! This ...

Send us a text Founded in 1901, the AL contains teams like #Yankees and #RedSox who have an epic list in their top 5 for players hitting home runs while a member of the franchise. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, David "Big Papi' Ortiz, Jim Rice, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra are all in their teams top 5. All are HOFer.. Aaron Judge is outside the Yankee top five but he's closing fast. Then there's the #orioles. Another original #AmericanLeague team, they started as ...

Send us a text Who are the home run leaders while wearing a team's uniform? Sounded like a interesting episode topic but then Rickey Henderson so sadly and suddenly passed away at age 65. Rickey's 66th birthday would have been on Christmas this Wednesday. With 1,406 stolen bases Rickey doesn't only have the most stolen bases in one season, or in a career, he also scored the most runs in baseball history with 2,295! He also had 81 career leadoff home runs, the most in history. Rickey is and was t...

Send us a text Steve Phillips has been a radio personality for 20 years starting not long after his time his time as GM for our #mets. Steve brought in Mike Piazza who had the biggest non-playoff home run in Mets history - until this year maybe? Today Steve hosts 'The Leadoff Spot' on Sirius/XM radio weekdays from 7-10AM. Steve also broadcasts some Toronto Blue Jays games and is a regular contributor the #mlbnetwork. We didn't want to ask him about Bobby Bonilla but did finally at the end, and ...

Send us a text How about the #Giants finally getting their man in Willy Adames. But it was a big price to pay. Clay Holmes to the #mets as a starter? Luis Severino to Sacramento is a big deal for the franchise formerly known as the #athletics who seem like they will eventually move to Vegas. Frankie Montas to the Mets was the reason Severino headed west. But still no word on Juan Soto but we think it will happen this week. Classic Era baseball committee came up with Dick Allen and Dave Parker ...