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Met fans like us are still smarting from the 2015 loss in the World Series to those overachieving Royals.  Entering the AL as one of 2 expansion teams in the league in 1969 (the Seattle Pilots now Milwaukee Brewers was the other), the Royals got good fast with a winning record only 4 years after their birth and reaching the AL playoffs multiple times in their first 10 years. 

Winning the 1985 World Series was also a glorious time for the Royals. But they've been bad more than they've been good and the present team is no exception. We talk about the best players in franchise history although their number one player is universally acknowledged as being HOFer George Brett.

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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We recorded on Father's Day weekend & hope all the Dads had a great day!  It's interesting that MLB player father's almost always outperform their MLB player sons. Except for Barry Bonds & Roberto Alomar at least!  It must be both amazing and challenging to grow up the son of a MLBer.  You get advantages but also compared each and every day! 

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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The 1st MLB All-Star game was played 90 years ago in 1933.  As it is today the American League played the National League.  The players really wanted to win the game since they were paid more if they did win and league supremacy was much more important than it is today.  Even if the MLB ASG is the best of the 4 major U.S. sports,  could it be made better by making a few changes?  90 years is a long time to do anything the same way!

 We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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With more than a third of the 2023 MLB season played there's still hope for most of the teams to claim at least a Wild Card slot. Is being in 1st place June 1st a key to a guaranteed playoff spot?  Well mostly yes.  But as we've seen teams can even below .500 after May and still make the playoffs and even win or play in the World Series (Nationals, Braves, Phillies).   Are teams going to be buyers or sellers? Or neither?  WE talk about all that and more. 

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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A question was posed from a listener - Nile A.  What does a baseball manager actually do?  Besides sit and watch the game?  Baseball has managers, Soccer has team managers, but football, basketball, and ice hockey all have coaches. Why are baseball team leaders called coaches until the players turn professional? We answer those and other questions related to 'what does a baseball manager do?'  Thanks for the fun question as we had fun talking about the various aspects of the baseball manager's job and how it's changed over the years.

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

 

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When it comes to doing a deep dive on our favorite team we could have spent hours. But we kept in mind that listeners may not love the Amazin's as much as we do.  We didn't even talk about the greatest managers in NY Met history. (Gil Hodges and Davey Johnson headline with Yogi, Bobby V, and TC right behind. You can hear the pain in our voices, and the hope! 

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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HOFer 'Candy' Cummings is credited with 'inventing' the curveball.  But as you'd expect a pitcher's fastball has almost always been the #1 pitch.  Pitchers throw more varieties of pitches today than ever before. They have to because hitters are so good!  We talk about how different the average pitcher arsenals are today versus 50, 100, and 150 years ago!

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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As long as baseball has been played people have bet on the game and events during the playing of games.  Today we see updated betting lines posted during coverage of the games!  A far cry from when bets were made through a casino or a bookie! 

We ask the question are baseball bettors real fans of the game? Do they watch the game the way non-betting fans do?  Betting on baseball is here to stay and will likely get even more reach. 

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

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We start with the obvious 4 - Miguel Cabrera, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.  But Mike Trout is already in HOFer in our book. But how about Joey Votto? Zach Greinke?  Evan Longoria? Evan Longoria!!!?  Since Cabrera is retiring after this year and playing beyond this season is not certain with Kershaw, Votto, and Greinke, you do well to watch these players carefully as it may be for the last time!

There are players who've played more than 8 MLB seasons that we talk about who are either on track and need more time to achieve HOF status,  We also discuss others that had a good start but kind of fizzled out.

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com

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Of course Shohei Ohtani would not have been able to play in the 1920s. The first Japanese-born player Masanori Murakari appeared in an MLB game in 1964.  And it might have been the same for Aaron Judge who is bi-racial but may have been deemed 'acceptable' 100 years ago. But we use our imaginations and wonder what Babe Ruth would have looked like (fitter and stronger) in 2023 vs. 1923. And Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani playing in the 1920's would not have them looking the way they do now using the training methods of that day!

All three of them do things that have not been done before.  Babe Ruth did not bat the way he did AFTER he ceased pitching regularly.  Pitching and hitting at elite levels during the same season is unprecedented even if Babe Ruth led the league in 1918 with 11 homers while being a regular starting pitcher for the Red Sox.

We've added a YouTube Channel and are still working out a few kinks so bear with us.  Here is the link to the Almost Cooperstown channel.

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at [email protected].  You can also follow us on Twitter @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating! 

www.almostcooperstown.com