Ballpark Digest / August Publications

The 2021 season was certainly a challenging one for anyone running a professional baseball team. But for the Somerset Patriots, there were additional challenges outside the normal course of events. For his leadership during an eventful season, Patriots president/general manager Patrick McVerry is the Ballpark Digest Executive of the Year for 2021.

Challenge 1: Shift from the independent Atlantic League to affiliated ball as the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. Challenge 2: Address the ballpark upgrades required by Major League Baseball after its takeover of Minor League Baseball. Challenge 3: Maintain steady leadership after the loss of team owners Steve Kalafer right before the beginning of the season. Challenge 4: Run an operation with initial limited capacity due to COVID-19. Challenge 5: Deal with a flooded ballpark near the end of the season--and turn that situation into a fundraiser for the local community. We discuss each of these situations with McVerry in this hour-long podcast.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

2021 Ballpark Digest Awards season continues with a chat with the Baltimore Orioles' Melanie Newman, our MLB broadcaster of the year! In this episode we discuss Newman's history-making career in MLB and MiLB broadcasting as well as reporting on other sports. 

Her background includes work both as a sideline reporter for Fox Sports Southwest and  play-by-play announcer for the Frisco RoughRiders and the Salem Red Sox. Along the way she made some history when she teamed up with Suzie Cool to form the first all-female broadcast team in professional baseball on a Salem Red Sox broadcast in 2019.

She then was part of two more important events in 2021, become part of the first all-female crew to call an MLB game, as she called the action with Sarah Langs, Alanna Rizzo, Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner on a YouTube broadcast on July 21. She followed that up by teaming up with analyst Jessica Mendoza to call a game on ESPN on Sept. 29.

Joining the Baltimore Orioles for the 2020 season, she has yet to experience what anyone would call a "normal" season: she made her O's debut on August 4, 2020, and in 2021 she called all the Orioles games--but called many of them at home when the team was on the road.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

Awards season continues, as our MiLB Broadcaster of the Year, Sam Levitt, sits down for a chat with Ballpark Digest's Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard.

Levitt is the Voice of the Amarillo Sod Poodles and the self-proclaimed TikTok's Sportscaster (@sammylevitt), amassing some 357,000 followers. His role with the Sod Poodles is as a traditional baseball broadcaster; his role as TikTok's Sportscaster is pure entertainment.

In this chat, Sam discusses his college education at Northwestern, how he ended up in broadcasting and the route he took via independent ball, his life so far as a nomad moving seasonally from sport to sport, the necessity of traveling with the team in the age of COVID-19, and what he sees as the role of the broadcaster in the social-media age.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

The 2021 Ballpark Digest Awards season continues with a chat with the Savannah Bananas’ Jesse Cole, winner of an Editor’s Choice Award, who is single-handedly working to bring fun and a new spirit back into the increasingly staid world of baseball.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard discuss the 2021 season with the ever-energetic Cole, the Man in the Yellow Tux. In a year when the baseball world is struggling to attract younger fans and shorten games, the Savannah Bananas struck a nerve with those younger fans. Attracting capacity crowds to Savannah’s Grayson Stadium and embarking on a sold-out One City World Tour, Cole and his team upend all the rules of baseball a la the Harlem Globetrotters, attracting new fans to the sport thanks to plenty of national coverage from the likes of ESPN, Boston Globe and USA Today. That success has led to an Editor’s Choice Award in the 2021 Ballpark Digest Awards

Some highlights of the discussion:

·      Cole and his wife Emily launched the Bananas in 2016, coming to Georgia after running the Gastonia Grizzlies, formerly in the Coastal Plain League. The emphasis, they decided, would be on plenty of entertainment in the stands, with all-inclusive food and drink. After a slow start—two ticket sales in the first three months—the pair decided to go all-in on the entertainment side, a bet that paid off in a big way with sellout crowds, attracting fans from every state in the union. That led to Banana Ball, unique variations on the rules of baseball.

·      Flush with that success at home, the Bananas took their show on the road for the One City World Tour, resulting in two sold-out games at Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile, Ala. That success is leading to a longer World Tour in March 2022, featuring stops at spring-training, MiLB and MLB Partner League ballparks. The pro team hits the road and plays Banana Ball (which Jesse explains); the summer-collegiate team plays by normal baseball rules and snared a 2021 Coastal Plain League championship.

·      Though the Bananas received plenty of mainstream media coverage, the key to the team’s success means reaching fans where they are—and that means social media like TikTok, where the Bananas have 912,000 followers. What they get isn’t a traditional social-media menu of game highlights and game-winning hits, but rather game highlights like infield karaoke, batters competing on stilts, and batters introducing themselves when coming up to bat. Yes, it’s silly and more than a little absurdist, but it’s entertaining as all heck. Anyone who hates batflips will be flummoxed; anyone who loves some flash in their baseball game will be entranced.

 Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

Season 3 of the Ballpark Digest Podcast begins with a Broadcaster Chat, as Mick Gillispie, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard discuss the 2021 postseason, why Buster Posey is a lock for the Hall of Fame, why the 2021 Winter Meetings are likely to be a disappointment to all, and a preview of 2022 rebrandings and name changes.

Some highlights of the discussion:

·       The 2021 MLB season ended on a high note, with the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series after a season of adversity and a wonderfully unpredictable postseason. It was also memorable that it came in the midst of a year-long celebration of Braves great Hank Aaron. And, for those budding GMs at home, the Braves’ Alex Anthopoulos had a textbook season in player moves, with seemingly every move working. Will the Braves dynasty emerge? MLB does have a lot of parity when it comes to World Series winners over the last 20 years.

·       Speaking of dynasties: What will become of the Oakland Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays? They are both seeking new ballparks, and it helps to have a winning team in both markets. We still don’t know where the A’s will end up, but we may see some announcements shortly.

·       Buster Posey deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

·       The trio update folks on the 2021 Winter Meetings in Orlando. MLB types will be sequestered at the Hilton Bonnet Creek, and we’ll be seeing a scaled-down event for MiLB types at the Swan and Dolphin. The Winter Meetings don’t really seem to have a purpose, and MLB doesn’t seem too eager to provide one—yet another example of MLB not really understanding how MiLB works.

·       They look back at how the 2021 MiLB season ended. Six-game homestands worked; two road trips or two homestands in a row did not. It’s great MLB is stepping up to pay for player housing, though the devil in the details. One trend noted by all three: burnout in the sport is prevalent.

·       PETA blew it with their attack on bullpens. Arm barns is a great terms, but with PETA officials totally lacking a sense of humor or whimsy, the point was lost and the chance to make an impact diminished.

·       We’re entering the time of year when teams announce rebrandings. Discussed: the transition from Cleveland Indians to Guardians, and the move from Green Bay Booyah to Green Bay Rockers. More are in the works; generally, we’re pro-Fish Stick.

Mick Gillispie is Voice of the Tennessee Smokies and a spring-training Voice of the Chicago Cubs, while often appearing on Marquee Network broadcasts and podcasts throughout the season. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

We’re prepping for Season Three of the Ballpark Digest Podcast, and we’ve got plenty of interesting chats in the works for the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022. We’ll debut this season with a broadcaster chat with Mick Gillispie and Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, and then we’ll pivot to some chats with our 2021 Ballpark Digest award winners through the end of the year. After that, we’ll preview the 2022 season as well as look back at some ballpark history fifty and sixty years ago. We’re excited for this season; we hope you are too!

The Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat strikes back, as Mick Gillispie, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard gather to discuss the 2021 season—so far.

 Recorded last week, the three discuss the Minor League Baseball season in the first season under MLB rule. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly complicated what would have been a complicated season anyway, what with a new scheduling framework, new travel rules and more. Some highlights of the discussion:

·      The ever-changing nature of the season schedule has raised concerns. When MLB first announced the 2021 MiLB schedules, there were to be no playoffs. But once the season started MLB announce there would be playoffs, albeit under some new arrangements.

·      The new six-game homestand schedules have been a success and will continue into 2022 and beyond. There have been some adjustments here and there—in 2022 the schedule will allow for July 4 night games despite the holiday falling on what normally would be a Monday day off, and teams will be able to request morning games, a popular promotional tool for the younger set. The 2022 spring-training schedules have been very traditional in nature, while the 2022 MiLB schedules (at least Triple-A and Double-A) also feature traditional structuring, including a break for potential All-Star Games.

·      Broadcasters are once again hitting the road, at least on the MiLB level. Mick has called both MiLB and MLB games this season from a booth and doesn’t think the fan experience was diminished, but Jesse shows a clear preference for in-ballpark broadcasts.

·      The analytics vs. hands-on scouting debate continues in front offices.  Many analytics advocates—whose voices were loudest during the MiLB contraction—are not seeing their teams experiencing a lot of success this season. The traditionalists, meanwhile, say the only way to learn to be a big-league player is to play real games, not participate in the chain-link-fence leagues. Remote technology-based instruction can get you only so far.

·      The treatment of players has been a big issue this season, ranging from housing problems to bad food in the low minors. With the 2020 MiLB season canceled and the 2020 MLB season curtailed, resources are stretched on every level of the pro-baseball hierarchy.

·      Kevin bemoans the decision by MLB to dump Topps as a trading-card partner in favor of the inexperienced Fanatics after no negotiations or notice, ending a 70-year relationship. It’s all about the money.

Mick Gillispie is Voice of the Tennessee Smokies and a spring-training Voice of the Chicago Cubs, while often appearing on Marquee Network broadcasts and podcasts throughout the season. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.

We have a little departure from our normal broadcasts, as Rick Gosselin, Tom Shanahan and Jesse Goldberg-Strassler gather to discuss their football books from August Publications.

The three esteemed authors gather to discuss their books, why they decided to cover football and its impact on culture, and how they saw their books make an impact in the football world. 

Goodfellows, The Champions of St. Ambrose, showcases a true football glory story of guts and heart spanning nearly a decade. Through faith, fight and perhaps fate, the Giant Killers of little St. Ambrose High School rise as titans of their terrain and end up leaving a legacy millions of young boys and coaches aspire to but very few attain.

St. Ambrose High, one of the most storied programs in high-school-football history, didn’t even have it’s own football field. But success pulsated from the three-story building in Detroit between 1957 and 1967, when tiny St. Ambrose produced five football All-Americas, 12 all-state performers, and future NFL players and Super Bowl champs. They were products of this legendary place where old-fashioned values reigned, where teamwork triumphed over individual glory, and where football was the glue of this community.

The third edition of Goodfellows features a foreword from Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy and a new introduction from Detroit native, Michigan State University All-America and Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe DeLamielleure.

It’s a world filled with armchair quarterbacks, designer blitzes, the Hogs, and Purple People Eaters. The colorful language of America’s Game—football—is the subject of The Football Thesaurus from broadcaster Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, now out in a second edition.

Field generals throw back-shoulder passes to vertical threats, working off the bump and run. Penalties were originally signaled by horns, not flags. Tailbacks follow the big uglies to paydirt for a touchdown.

Football is a sport with its own lingo and jargon – a colorful patois that’s developed over the years and millions of games, college and pro, with today’s broadcasters developing their own descriptions of America’s Game. In The Football Thesaurus, a fascinating compendium of football terms, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler—broadcaster, storyteller, talker, voice—explains what football terms mean and how they came to be.

When Jimmy Raye enrolled at Michigan State University in 1964, he did more than just enroll in a university hundreds of miles from his native Fayetteville, N.C.: he was part of a groundbreaking movement that changed college football forever.

His story, as well as his Spartan teammates and coach Duffy Daugherty, is told in Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, The Integration of College Football, and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans. History has not accorded Daugherty, Raye, and the Spartans proper credit for their roles in the integration of college football. Too many view Daugherty as recruiting a couple of All-American players from the South, winning a bunch of games with his 1965-66 teams and then having it all come to an end.

All three books are from August Publications.

Dave Heller, owner of two MiLB teams and a newly independent Pioneer League squad, joins Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard to discuss his approach to fun at the ballpark and MiLB’s makeover in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.

Heller’s first splash in Minor League Baseball came as owner of the Quad Cities River Bandits in the Class A Midwest League, where he implemented annual ballpark upgrades on the fan side, including a scenic Ferris wheel in center field, fan-friendly additions to the Modern Woodmen Ballpark upper level, and other amusements in the 360-degree concourse. The guiding philosophy behind all the moves: to create and enhance the sense of community at the historic venue, which reflects in the current support for the River Bandits. A portion of the proceeds from the amusements go to a local medical foundation providing free flu shots for every child in the Quad Cities.

On the flip side, Heller discusses the challenges operating MiLB teams in the last year, whether it’s sitting out the 2020 season due to COVID-19 and losing teams in the MLB reorganization of the sport. Quad Cities and the Wilmington Blue Rocks made the cut to the new 120 (only after Iowa elected officials lobbied to keep Quad Cities in the mix, however), but the Billings Mustangs and the rest of the Pioneer League did not. Instead, the Pioneer League will play this season as an MLB Partner League—the new term for what were formerly independent leagues—and break new ground in the west. All the Pioneer League teams will be operating in 2021 or 2022, joined by the Boise Hawks. While the Pioneer League has been making headlines due to 2021 rule changes, operations will be a challenge due to new, increased payroll, as Heller explains. But with a strong set of owners, Heller likes the chances of the Pioneer League thriving in the future.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurusand The Football Thesaurus from August Publications.  Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.

When baseball first started, there were no dugouts—but by 1908, they became part of the game for an unusual reason, as Jesse Goldberg-Strassler explains in this week’s Tales from The Baseball Thesaurus.

Dugouts came to be for a simple reason: by putting the players lower than field level, fans sitting closest to the action, in the expensive seats, would have a better view of the game. Those early dugouts were basic, unlike the dugouts of today, which feature guard railings and screens to protect players from foul balls. And, as you might expect, players have bestowed a bevy of interesting monikers to these foul balls—heat-seeking missiles, ugly seekers—as well as to the players riding the pines, the benchwarmers.

Not every dugout is a true dugout. It wasn’t until after the Los Angeles Dodgers moved spring operations to Arizona that sheltered dugouts were installed at Holman Stadium in Dodgertown, the team’s long-time Florida spring home. Instead, players sat on ground-level benches—with Tommy Lasorda holding court at the end closest to the umps.

Goldberg-Strassler shares his insights on the colorful patois of America’s Pastime in this weekly podcast. You can find The Baseball Thesaurus at augustpublications.com.