All About Baseball with Byron Copley

Major League Baseball, unlike the other professional sports in the United States, has been exempt from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act since 1922, meaning that no competitive professional baseball league can be established to directly compete with MLB for its players, fans, or markets. Still, that hasn't prevented a few United States legislators from threatening to introduce legislation that would repeal that exemption because -- well -- listen to this episode that focuses on one Stuart Symington, a senator from Missouri, who strong-armed American League president Joe Cronin in 1967 to replace the Kansas City Athletics with the Kansas City Royals in the span of a mere 18 months -- or else.

Be prepared to venture down a few rabbit holes that chase the language of the Sherman Act, the volatile relationship between Symington and Charles Finley, the owner of the Kansas City Athletics, and the willingness of politicians to jump from one side of the fence to the other to get what they want.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

That's the question that this episode of All About Baseball answers. A listener requested an episode on nicknames, and I tried to place a larger context around the topic and opine that nicknames no longer, "augment a given name and provide a richer and more explicit denotation." But that's only part of this story. Listen in to hear the rest of it.

https://sabr.org/journal/article/an-analysis-of-baseball-nicknames/

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

In this episode, I, unfortunately, rant somewhat on yet another tinkering of the rules of baseball, using technology to yet again supplant the human factor, which, once ensconced in the game, is "progressively" taking a back seat to machines.

"Hey, IT says so!" Controversy resolved, right?

As we ignore the larger controversy of handing the judgement and management of the game over to things. I think this is a bad idea, and so does Charles Dickens.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

Baseball has numerous interesting and quirky rules. Perhaps none more so than the "Fourth Out Situation," where an extra out can be made and applied to replace the third out made in an inning.

This episode offers a hypothetical example that is a literal game-changer, and it also recounts two specific incidents in Major League baseball that demonstrate the importance of the rule as well as its rarity in application.

With instant replay now a fixture in MLB, however, the Fourth Out has gained significance, and teams need to recognize that any play "isn't over until it's over," to quote Yankees' Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra.

Subtitled Baseball and the Rise of a New City, the book The New York Game is about the interdependent rise of professional baseball in New York with the grand and grandiose progress that New York accomplished from 1901 to 1945. This is the first episode of that podcast that I wrote in advance so that my words were measured and what I intended to say.

I recommend this book, but not for the reasons that reviewers expressed. I find that Baker presents most of the principle characters as universally deficient in moral character. And I think this book clashes its baseball content with the non-baseball content as they compete in a tug-of-war throughout the book. Finally, there are two glaring factual errors -- that have no business being inaccurate -- that could call into the question the accuracy of other accounts described in the book. Still, Baker describes several famous events in New York baseball history with stunning visualization.

Overall, a worthy read with a few swings and misses.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

This episode takes the lessons from a book that I read -- and still read -- called Quantum Golf, by Kjell (pronounced Shell) Enhager, which offers a radical yet reasonable way to approach the game of golf and asks the question: "can those same lessons be applied on the baseball field to help players enhance the game?" I think they can, and I explain why. I also identify several players who may have been playing Quantum Baseball all along without realizing it.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

This episode asks and answers this question to my satisfaction. At first, I was skeptical if the signing was a good idea.

However, as I ruminated in real time, without much preparation, but with an open mind and a predisposition to express gladness that Verlander is a Tiger again, I discovered in the process that I can change my own mind by just talking it through with the "record" button activated.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

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This episode examines in a fair amount of detail the reasons why I think that there was no World Series in 1904. The personalities who could have worked out an equitable solution -- Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, president of the fledgling American League, John T. Brush, owner of the National League's New York Giants, and John McGraw, manager of the Giants -- were simply too obstinate to negotiate. Instead, they waged a vicious verbal war in the newspapers during the summer and autumn of 1904: firing cocksure word salvos, rife with calumny, covered in vitriol, aimed squarely at their mutual hearts.

It was baseball theater at its finest; a passion performance of three men -- who refused to play games to preserve (so they thought) their reputations, their pride, and their principles.

Mickey Lolich, who passed away on February 4, 2026, at the age of 85, was a humble, self-effacing, patient, loyal man and teammate. His 13 years as a Detroit Tiger consisted of dramatic highs and lows, but Lolich was a man who always saw the bigger picture. His dedication and durability -- and substantial talent that often went unappreciated -- served to place him among the all-time great pitchers in wins, innings pitched, and strikeouts. This podcast remembers Lolich as a pitcher who thought of his team first. Still, however, he offers some justifiable, candid comments about being denied the Cy Young Award in 1971 and his exclusion from the Hall of Fame. Rest in Peace, Mickey Lolich, and thank you for your humility, integrity, and loyalty.

9th inning of the 1968 World Series, You Tube: https://youtu.be/cyhY7A9pXuI

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin

Artificial Intelligence has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, and Major League Baseball has embraced it with boundless enthusiasm. The claims: AI will increase competitiveness, excitement, safety, and fairness. It will extend careers and enhance the quality of play. This podcast offers some opinions on the "wisdom" of surrendering human judgement to computers, possible unforeseen circumstances of AI: as an example, AI could potentially shorten careers. I also relate two historic moments in baseball involving the same MLB player that, thankfully, took place decades before AI was able to prevent them from ever happening.

With special thanks to Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, Hall of Fame pitcher, who inspired this podcast and who, more than 90 years ago, often exhibited the property that many today value most about AI: Dizzy often predicted specific outcomes and then made them real.

Music: "Field Grass," by Sergei Pavkin