Best Podcast in Baseball

Major League Baseball has delivered a proposal for how it can return for a shortened, highly-structured 2020 regular season, and that has revealed the parallel tracks the owners and players are driving. There is the precaution of health and the motivation of wealth and revenue -- and where these two intersect is the start of a discussion between St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Ben Frederickson and baseball writer Derrick Goold. By nature of their position, the owners control serve and get to present the proposal to return to the players -- thus standing out in the narrative as the group that wants the game back and putting the players on defense to pick away at the proposal. The owners are a messaging machine. So how do the players regain a foothold in the conversation and the public perception. They have a good message, but the messengers are scattered, taking to social media and streaming services to broadcast their many, varied, valued, and fractured opinions. Is the game of baseball enough to bridge the game and overcome the business of baseball? The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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As conversations about baseball's return gain volume, how clubs return from this lengthy stoppage of all official activities will be more than a test of talent -- it will challenge the existing clubhouse culture and the organization's leadership. That starts with trust -- and courage, says Southern Illinois University pitching coach Tim Jamieson. The longtime head baseball coach at the University of Missouri joins a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball to talk coaching during quarantine, the traits of successful coaches at any level and in any sport, pitching development, and, of course, the competitive zest and career of Max Scherzer, an All-American and first-round pick from Jamieson's Mizzou program. For more than 25 years, St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold has had a chance to learn from Jamieson -- first as a wannabe baseball writer and freshman interviewing the pitching coach and later as a baseball writer returning to MU for a story on the program's rise. The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. 

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This past week Cardinals veteran Yadier Molina, a constant at catcher for nearly two decades, suggested that he would pursue free agency this winter if he and the team cannot come to an agreement on an extension. He previously had said he would either play for the Cardinals or retire. Now, he wants to play. His preference is to be a Cardinal. But his priority is to play. St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Benjamin Hochman joins podcast host Derrick Goold, a baseball writer at the newspaper, to discuss his column about Molina, about the need to re-sign him and a motivation behind Molina's comments. Hochman and Goold also discuss the various plans for baseball's return from the coronavirus shutdown and indefinite delay of the season, and Goold asks that pressing question, as first articulated by Michael Keaton in 'Batman': "You wanna get nuts? C'mon, let's get nuts." The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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Author Brad Bulukjian joins St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss his new book, "The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball's Afterlife." The concept is so genius it should make you jealous. Balukjian took a pack of 1986 TOPPS baseball cards, opened it, and then set out on the road to find each player inside the pack -- from Steve Yeager in Los Angeles to Don Carman in Naples, Fla., to Garry Templeton in San Diego and Vince Coleman in ... well, we will get to that. The conversation with Templeton and chapter about him hinges on his view of the event in St. Louis, the one that got him yanked from the field and eventually traded by the Cardinals. His thoughts -- and his explanation -- alters the perspective of a pivotal moment in Cardinals history. The book is part travelogue, part memoir, and part baseball book -- all wrapped up neatly like the familiar TOPPS wax pack, complete with a stick of gum. The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Ben Frederickson, fresh off streaming some live baseball from Asia, joins baseball writer Derrick Goold and the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss official signs of optimism for the return of sports and Major League Baseball. Players are getting creative to stay in shape (see: Goldschmidt, Paul and Voit, Luke), leagues will get creative to play a season (see: Grapefruit League vs. Cactus League), and fans will be asked to be patient as games likely happen in isolated cities in front of empty ballparks. But there's a note of caution. Will this stoppage and the hasty return of sports -- when safe, when healthy, when permitted -- accelerate changes in Major League Baseball. Did we see the last baseball game without a DH? Will the schedule dismantle the American and National leagues and prioritize balance, not history? The two Post-Dispatch staff writers discuss sports returns, and the ramifications. The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. (Please note there is one moment of crashing feedback early in the podcast when a microphone was jostled. Thank you for understanding.)

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What do you know about Finnish Baseball? Let Tom Timmermann explain. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's hockey writer and resident uber-sportswriter Timmermann and Amy Marxkors, of KMOX/1120 AM, join the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss baseball in a bubble, hockey staying on ice, and just how far we should be willing to shape, change, and wedge professional sports into the schedule and format that allows them to return as quickly as possible. Marxkors and Timmermann, the co-hosts of 'Flotsam and Jetsam,' discuss with St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball Derrick Goold the importance of community at sporting events and whether the 2020 champion -- if there is one in the NHL or will be one in MLB -- will be affixed with an asterisk because the season and the playoffs could be so different than usual. How much should sports change just to come back when a nation is in crisis? The Dodgers are discussed. So is Wayne Gretzky. And then there's the 'classic 'Flotsam and Jetsam' factoid about Finnish baseball. The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design, is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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"This has been a curveball for us and our jobs," begins St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Ben Frederickson before discussing how to cover sports in a time without sports when there is a much larger, more serious story. The answer? It's the same as when you're covering a sporting event: Write the people. Find the heroes. The real ones this time. Frederickson rejoins StlToday.com baseball writer Derrick Goold and the Best Podcast in Baseball for a discussion about cake -- the gift of it and whether Major League Baseball is telling minor-league players to go eat some. As what would have been opening day at Busch Stadium approaches, the two sportswriters also discuss the news of the week (agreements between MLB and the union) and what will be missing when there isn't a game downtown on April 2. Tony La Russa offered Frederickson some advice. The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design, is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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The Cincinnati Reds won the offseason Yahtzee with good vibes coming from a surprise pitching staff (check), a big free-agent signing (check), a sexy addition of modern pitching tech gurus (check), a hometown and feisty manager (check), and a bright young talent on the horizon who stirred imaginations in spring (check). Alas, they won't get the traditional stage to show it. On the eve of Cincinnati's civic holiday -- baseball's opening day in the city of one of the first pro teams -- The Athletic's Reds beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to talk about the opening day that won't be against the St. Louis Cardinals. Skyline Chili is referenced, baseball stories are told, and the 2012 Reds are discussed in unexpected detail -- because enthusiasm hasn't been this high for a Reds team since that team whiffed in October. Baseball legends are revisited. Newspapers are lauded. And a checklist of things we can do as a community -- a BPIB community -- during this time without baseball is offered. Rosecrans also provides a fitting (borrowed) tagline in this extended edition of the BPIB: 'Mischief Managed.' The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design, is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. 

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Author and New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner joins a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss an April without baseball and his book, "K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches," which is now available in paperback. With host Derrick Goold, baseball writer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kepner -- joining the podcast from a socially approved social distancing distance, all the way in Connecticut -- discusses his favorite pitch, its master, the curveball, its master, and how it's about time the National Baseball Hall of Fame found some way to honor some of the best coaches. The two baseball writers spin yarns about pitch legends, examine the Reds' approach to pitching, and talk about the questions facing baseball during a global pandemic, when there are bigger things than a baseball stoppage but baseball could still play a part in the culture. It can provide stories -- that we tall when self-isolating with family. Please forgive the audio quality as this podcast was pieced together with the technology on hand, and it will improve for subsequent episodes. The Best Podcast in Baseball is brought to by Closets by Design. The podcast is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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A day after Major League Baseball shutters spring training camps and two days after the global pandemic coronavirus causes the cancellation of spring training games and delay of opening day, the remaining baseball writers covering the Cardinals in Jupiter, Fla., gather to discuss how to cover a game with not games, a sports without competition, a team in a time of national emergency.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Hall of Fame baseball writer Rick Hummel joins sports columnist Ben Frederickson, MLB.com beat writer Anne Rogers, and baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss the parallels he's seen in his four decades of covering the game.

Also discussed is where spring left the Cardinals, the odd sensation of watching a game that shouldn't have been played, and, to close, some of the best opening day memories they have. Where does sports writing now fit into the upended daily lives of readers, and what role do sports writers have -- providing information and providing distraction?

The Best Podcast in Baseball is brought to you weekly by Closets by Design (1-800-BY-DESIGN), and it is a production of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.