A Swing and a Belt with Dan Shulman

A Swing and a Belt with Dan Shulman episodes:

• 11.02.2020

  A Season Like None Other

  Without question, the 2020 MLB season was the strangest in baseball history: a pandemic, a shortened schedule, new rules, a team without a home and, in the end, an historic World Series win. On the season finale of A Swing...

  
• 10.27.2020

  A Championship Looms

  With the Los Angeles Dodgers leading the Tampa Bay Rays three games to two heading into Game 6 of the World Series, the finish line is now in sight. MLB Network’s Matt Vasgersian has been on the play-by-play call and...

  
• 10.23.2020

  Nomar On The Series

  The World Series is off to a great start, with the favoured Dodgers tied up at one with the Rays. Six-time All-Star Nomar Garciaparra, who covers the Dodgers for SportsNet LA, offers his thoughts on the series, Clayton Kershaw’s legacy...

  
• 10.20.2020

  David vs. Goliath?

  The World Series is upon us, with the top seeds representing the American and National Leagues. Just like we all expected the season to play out when pitchers and catchers first reported in February… right? There’s no doubt the mighty...

  
• 10.08.2020

  Armed For The Future

  Pete Walker is the pitching coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. And in this strange and unprecedented 2020 season, he worked with 28 pitchers across a 60-game campaign that resulted in a postseason berth. A handful with little or no...

  
• 10.05.2020

  L.A. Looking To Dodge An Upset

  There’s a new rivalry out west. The Dodgers are getting a push from the young, fun San Diego Padres. Led by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, the Padres are hoping to knock off the favoured Dodgers in their NL Division...

  
• 10.03.2020

  Familiarity Breeds Contempt

  We are on to the Division Series and, in the American League, they are both truly divisional series. The teams know each other well, and don’t like each other one bit. To preview New York-Tampa and Houston-Oakland, Yankees voice Michael...

  
• 09.26.2020

  Next Stop: The Trop

  The Rays? Really, the Rays!? Yes, chances are the Blue Jays will play Tampa in the Wild Card Round beginning Tuesday. Andy Freed, one of the Rays’ radio voices, drops by to chat about that team’s injuries, pitching plans and...

  
• 09.25.2020

  Kyle Dubas’s Other Favourite Sport

  As GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Kyle Dubas is known for having grown up in hockey. But his love of baseball runs deep, from time spent with his grandfather as a kid to watching the Blue Jays nightly to...

  
• 09.24.2020

  It’s Hot Over Here, Too

  Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is trying to find his way at first base, a position he had never played prior to this season. Former big leaguers Justin Morneau, Pat Tabler and Eduardo Perez offer their opinions on how challenging first can...

  
• 09.23.2020

  The Youngest Old Man In Baseball

  Joe Panik is not old, but on the Blue Jays, he must certainly feel like he is. He won the World Series with the San Francisco Giants as a rookie in 2014 and has been a regular in the big...

  
• 09.22.2020

  32 Years Is A Long Time

  The underdog Los Angeles Dodgers fought their way to the 1988 World Series championship, beating the heavily favoured Oakland Athletics… and they haven’t won a title since. They’ve been close, even making it back to the World Series two of...

  
• 09.18.2020

  And Down The Stretch They Come

  It’s the stretch run… barely a week to go in the regular season. And there is much to be decided between now and when the playoffs begin. Former GM and current MLB Network Radio host Jim Bowden on which teams...

  
• 09.17.2020

  Remote Reporting

  Part of being a Major League Baseball reporter is building relationships with the teams and players you cover. It can take years. Now, you can’t go into the clubhouse, can’t get one-on-one interviews and can’t easily generate stories. So how...

  
• 09.16.2020

  Giant Issues

  It has been an interesting season for the San Francisco Giants. Like every team, the coronavirus has impacted them. But somehow even more pressing right now are the wildfires burning out of control up and down the West Coast. They’ve...

  
• 09.15.2020

  The Yankees Are Coming

  They are expected to win… virtually every year. They are, after all, the New York Yankees. Big names, big payroll, big expectations. After a great start to the 2020 season, they stumbled, dealing with injuries and losing 15 of 20...

  
• 09.12.2020

  Baby Jays

  He knew them back in the day, even if “back in the day” was only a few years ago. Toronto Blue Jays coach John Schneider managed Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio in A and AA ball, winning...

  
• 09.11.2020

  Play Ball!

  For Major League umpires, COVID-19 has changed everything. How often do you need to get tested? How do you get from city to city? How different are things between the white lines? MLB umpire John Tumpane takes us through his...

  
• 09.10.2020

  Slam Diego

  In 2020, any excuse to have fun is welcome. And no team is having more fun right now than the San Diego Padres. Second in the National League, they have one of baseball’s best players in Fernando Tatis Jr. and...

  
• 09.09.2020

  Clemente

  Roberto Clemente was more than just a Hall of Famer. He remains a hero to baseball fans in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Dan is joined by Carlos Delgado, Charlie Montoyo, ESPN’s Marly Rivera and Pirates manager Derek Shelton to...

  
• 09.08.2020

  “A Cruise Ship Scenario”

  Despite two significant coronavirus outbreaks and a lot of concern, we are now in baseball’s stretch run. MLB has reportedly planned for postseason bubbles — of sorts. Two ballparks in Texas for the National League and two in California for...

  
• 09.05.2020

  The Swing Path

  Dante Bichette enjoyed an outstanding 14-year big league career. Part of the feared ‘Blake Street Bombers’ in Colorado, Bichette was a four-time All-Star who finished with a .299 batting average and 274 home runs. During the 2013 season, he served...

  
• 09.04.2020

  Ol’ Roy And The Mick

  North Carolina Tar Heels coach Roy Williams is a legend in the college basketball world; a Hall of Famer who has achieved everything there is to be achieved in the sport. But Williams has never lost his inner child —...

  
• 09.03.2020

  Prospects Are Cool. Parades Are Cooler.

  As hard as it is to believe, it’s September. Baseball is still here, and we have pennant races. Today, in Part 2 of our chat with MLB Network Radio’s Casey Stern, we look back at the trade deadline and discuss...

  
• 09.02.2020

  What A Mets!

  Imagine loving a team so much, it consumes you. Now imagine that team provides you with more anguish than joy, to the point where you wish that you never loved it to begin with. A case can be made that...

  
• 09.01.2020

  And The Winner Is…

  This year no one knew quite what to expect at the trade deadline, but it felt strangely… normal. Deals were made; contenders bulked up; the scene was set for the push to October. Dan and MLB Network’s JP Morosi break down...

  
• 08.29.2020

  Walking The Walk

  Cavan Biggio has a keen eye, both between the white lines and beyond. Whether it’s forcing a pitcher into the strike zone or having a great sense of what is right and wrong in the world, he has quickly become...

  
• 08.27.2020

  Live From Bristol, It’s Sunday Night Baseball

  Jeff Dufine got the promotion of a lifetime over the winter when ESPN gave him the chance to produce Sunday Night Baseball. And then the pandemic shut everything down. When baseball started back up and it was time to get...

  
• 08.26.2020

  Fun On The South Side

  The Chicago White Sox are often overlooked — the “second team” in their own town. Now, they’re forcing people to take notice about what’s happening on the South Side. So, who is this team? And why is it having so...

  
• 08.25.2020

  A Katz And Dogs Year

  Any other year, if player agents are fortunate enough to have a few major league clients, things go smoothly. They negotiate contracts, look for client endorsement opportunities — everybody’s happy. But in 2020, nothing is as it used to be....

  
• 08.22.2020

  The Prospects For Baseball’s Prospects

  The 2020 baseball season is unlike any we’ve ever seen before, for many obvious reasons. Not only at the Major League level, but perhaps even more so for young players trying to make it to the bigs. The same goes...

  
• 08.21.2020

  How The New Normal Becomes Just… Normal

  Richard Deitsch is a sports reporter, and a big part of his job is covering sports media. Who’s calling which games for which network, the business of sports television, and so on. Of course, for a few months, there were...

  
• 08.20.2020

  A World Away

  Jamie Romak is a ballplayer. And he’s been around. Part of seven major league organizations with some time in the big leagues a few years back. Since then, he’s been in Japan and, for the past four years, South Korea....

  
• 08.19.2020

  A Centennial Celebration of Black Lives

  For decades, segregation in the U.S. meant many of the best ballplayers in the world were forced to find their own league to play in, and thus, 100 years ago, the Negro Leagues were born. Bob Kendrick, the President of...

  
• 08.18.2020

  “Embracing The Suck”

  All Ryan Borucki ever wanted was to be a big-league pitcher. As a skinny high-school kid, his chances didn’t look great — until a growth spurt took him to about 6-foot-3 and his velocity ticked up. He was drafted in...

  
• 08.15.2020

  Making The Best Of Things

  COVID-19 has made this a weird season for everyone in baseball, especially prospects. Simeon Woods Richardson, 19, is on the Toronto Blue Jays’ 60-man roster, honing his skills at their alternate training site. For 17-year old Los Angeles Angels pick...

  
• 08.14.2020

  Fili-BUSTER!

  The 2020 baseball season is unlike any we’ve ever seen before. From health and safety protocols, to the season being just 60 games, to rule changes — you name it. So many things are different, for obvious reasons. Let’s find...

  
• 08.13.2020

  Grandpa’s In Charge

  David Ross was as respected and beloved a player as there was in the game — his leadership helped propel the Red Sox and Cubs to World Series championships. Following his playing career, he settled into calling games on ESPN,...

  
• 08.12.2020

  St. Louis Blues

  The St. Louis Cardinals are respected throughout the industry and pride themselves on doing things “the Cardinal Way.” But none of that matters one bit to COVID-19. The Cardinals began dealing with an outbreak on their first road trip of...

  
• 08.11.2020

  Home Away From Home

  The Blue Jays’ long journey to finding a home has reached its end — in Buffalo, at Sahlen Field, which is not your typical minor league park. It is, in some ways, the common ancestor of the beautiful retro facilities...

  
• 08.08.2020

  Buffalo Bound

  So you’re trying to put together a baseball team for a season in which you think your team has a chance to compete; really make some noise. Just one problem… you don’t have a place to play. COVID-19 border restrictions have...

  
• 08.07.2020

  Minor Leagues, Major Issues

  Minor league baseball has been around since the 1880s, allowing players to develop and pursue their dreams of making it to the big leagues while also providing endless entertainment for baseball fans in those towns. Currently there are 162 teams,...

  
• 08.06.2020

  Crisis Management

  Alex Anthopoulos is the President of Baseball Operations for Atlanta. That means everything, whether it’s between the white lines, or COVID-related, falls under his jurisdiction. Because of the virus, he is dealing with endless new challenges, while still trying...

  
• 08.05.2020

  The Big Dig

  With four World Series titles in the past 16 seasons, no team has won more than the Boston Red Sox. But in the past year or so, their fortunes have taken a noticeable turn for the worse. Mookie Betts –...

  
• 08.04.2020

  A Pirate’s Perseverance

  Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jameson Taillon was the second overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. He was climbing through the minors when he felt a pop in his elbow…Tommy John surgery, which cost him all of the 2014 season. He...

  
• 08.01.2020

  It’s Quite The Phix They’re In

  As we are now rediscovering within the context of a baseball season, there is no such thing as zero risk when it comes to COVID-19. The Philadelphia Phillies found that out the hard way. By last Sunday, the Miami Marlins had...

  
• 07.31.2020

  Rays-ing Their Ceiling

  The Tampa Bay Rays are both respected and overlooked. Year after year, they have one of the smallest payrolls in baseball. And year after year, with just the odd exception, they’re one of the better teams in baseball. So how...

  
• 07.30.2020

  Making It To The Show

  Who doesn’t love a Major League debut? Players spend years pursuing their dreams and working their way to the sport’s biggest stage. Sometimes it goes well… but sometimes it doesn’t. Fortunately for Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Thomas Hatch, his recent...

  
• 07.29.2020

  Managing Risk

  Mike Matheny took every precaution to avoid testing positive for COVID-19… but it wasn’t enough. The Kansas City Royals manager contracted it, fortunately without serious symptoms. He’s recovered, and now he’s resumed his baseball duties and is trying to convince...

  
• 07.28.2020

  Yankee Skipper

  There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the MLB season, but one thing that is certain this and every year is the pressure on the Yankees to win… a lot. New York manager Aaron Boone joins the podcast to shed some...