Clear the Field Podcast

Between the Rally Squirrel and David Freese, 29 other teams had no chance.

Episode Highlights

- How big does an animal have to be to stop a ballgame?

- Tony LaRussa has a great idea for a children’s book

- The Rally Squirrel’s unheralded road trip to Philadelphia

- The critters go home but the merchandisers runs wild

- World Series umpires really do have to plan for everything

- How many teams have a meme on their championship rings?

- More recently, Max Fried and Ben Rice have a close encounter

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

Here on Substack, restacking an episode is one click that really helps us, so if you had fun, please click that button up there on the far right of the episode that has two circling arrows on it.

Comment

If you have comments or details that add to our stories or ideas for future installments, drop them right here on Substack or on YouTube. You can also send us an email at [email protected].

Warning: If a comment is particularly enlightening and/or funny, we might read it during a future episode.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

This Week’s Lineup:

- The final (weird) numbers from 2026, and Nico Hoerner saves Paul’s bacon in real time

- Winning the West ain’t what it used to be

- A record year for ballpark stunt food

- Ted’s ballpark angel blesses him with great seats and unlimited ice cream

- Max Scherzer’s farewell

- Justin Verlander’s farewell, and Paul does his own 21-year look-back

Programming Note

With the regular season ending, Slap Hits will be going into hibernation. We hope you’ve enjoyed our series of non-urgent observations on a season in real-time.

Clear the Field will continue over the fall and winter with a bi-weekly story of sideways baseball history.

Next week: The “Rally Squirrel”

What’s This?

Every few weeks during the regular season, Ted and I cover whatever has delighted us from present-day baseball (or sometimes things even further afield) in a lightning round.

There will be news (of a kind), opinion, banter when we agree, and arguing when we don’t. We’re looking at items big and small, obscure or viral, we’re going quick, and we’re not stopping to fact-check.

Got a Slap Hit?

Send us an amusing, baseball adjacent item (interpretation is up to you) you’d like us to mention, bonus points for weird and obscure. Listen to a few episodes of “Slap Hits” and you’ll get the sense of what we like to cover, and it’s often things that don’t get covered elsewhere that delight us the most. If we use it, we’ll credit you for the submission during the show!

Email tips and suggestions to [email protected] or leave a comment on Substack or YouTube.

The incredible true story the Kansas City A’s “Satchel Paige Appreciation Night” on September 25, 1965, when Paige, age 59, got another opportunity to pitch against big-league hitters and made the most of every inning.

Episode Highlights:

- Looking for work and watching out for moose

- Charles O. Finley’s Kansas City circus

- The Athletics sign Paige for one night only

- The 1960s get a look at a living legend and Paige “unfolds” for one more start

- Underestimated by the Boston Red Sox, but not by “Carl Yastrocki”

- Paige finally gets his major-league pension, and winds up a four-decade career with the Atlanta Braves

Take the Megaphone

What’s your favorite Satchel Paige feat? The hesitation pitch? The gum-wrapper? The infield sit-down? What are we missing? Leave a comment on YouTube or wherever you’re enjoying this story.

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

This Week’s Lineup:

- Champagne problems in the locker room

- Project Runway: Minor League Baseball

- Tristan Peters’ 18-pitch at-bat and the White Sox’ “dumb stuff”

- The Immaculate Inning and the Abhorrent Inning

- Crochet ramping up; Needlepoint shut down for season

- Building the lore of the new Women’s Pro Baseball League

What’s This?

Every few weeks in “Slap Hits,” Ted and I cover whatever has delighted us from present-day baseball (or sometimes things even further afield) in a lightning round.

There will be news (of a kind), opinion, banter when we agree, and arguing when we don’t. We’re looking at items big and small, obscure or viral, we’re going quick, and we’re not stopping to fact-check.

Got a Slap Hit?

Send us an amusing, baseball adjacent item (interpretation is up to you) you’d like us to mention, bonus points for weird and obscure. Listen to a few episodes of “Slap Hits” and you’ll get the sense of what we like to cover, and it’s often things that don’t get covered elsewhere that delight us the most. If we use it, we’ll credit you for the submission during the show!

Email tips and suggestions to [email protected] or leave a comment on Substack or YouTube.

This Week’s Lineup:

- Why they sell a Cubs-themed parrot at Wrigley Field

- Broadcast shenanigans in Houston

- Recapping Pope Hat Night and tipping our mitres to the supreme homer

- Brand-new old gloves

- Travis Bazzana brings cricket into baseball—succeeds

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

Here on Substack, restacking an episode is one click that really helps us, so if you had fun, please click that button up there on the far right of the episode that has two circling arrows on it.

Email

If you have comments or details that add to our stories or ideas for future installments, send us an email at [email protected]. Gentle corrections are also welcome.

Warning: If a comment is particularly enlightening and/or funny, we might read it during a future episode.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

In the conclusion of our deep-dive into a rare baseball forfeit in 1949, an outraged crowd unleashes a veritable grocery store on three stoic umpires.

Here’s the first part of the story, in case you need it:

Episode Highlights:

- The fiercest wolves in baseball

- The difference between cute projectiles and ugly projectiles

- One fan, one hundred glass bottles thrown

- Ted gives this week’s baseball poetry reading

- A forfeit swaps one kind of Phillies loss for another

- The unsportsmanship of the malletheads

- A mysterious orange mixture and ballpark concessions in the late 1940s

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

Here on Substack, restacking an episode is one click that really helps us, so if you had fun, please click that button up there on the far right of the episode that has two circling arrows on it.

Email

If you have comments or details that add to our stories or ideas for future installments, send us an email at [email protected]. Gentle corrections are also welcome.

Warning: If a comment is particularly enlightening and/or funny, we might read it during a future episode.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

In 1949, a team of showboating umpires tangled with the last group of fans still being served (non-alcoholic) drinks in glass bottles. It didn’t end well.

Episode Highlights:

- The Philadelphia Phillies’ mid-life identity crisis

- Three performative umpires

- Ted tries to make “Pafko” happen

- Shibe Park: No booze, but projectiles welcome

- History repeats itself and Richie Ashburn lights a fire under the toughest crowd in sports

We’ll be back next week with the conclusion, when the worked-up crowd causes enough chaos to drive at least one umpire into retirement and prompts some much-needed changes to beverage distribution procedures at Shibe Park.

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like YouTube or Apple Podcasts, follow/subscribe to the show, and if you really want to support our work, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

Email

If you have comments or details that add to our stories or ideas for future installments, send us an email at [email protected]. Gentle corrections are also welcome.

Warning: If a comment is particularly enlightening and/or funny, we might read it during a future episode.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

This Week’s Lineup:

- A visit to the National Ballpark Museum in Denver

- Keeping tabs on author Eric Nusbaum

- Wrigley Field needs an F-16 rule

- Cal Raleigh and Hack Wilson

(Here’s an outstanding write-up of Hack Wilson, the good and the ugly, by writer Jacob Bielecki)

- Shifts in starting pitching milestones. Who’s the next pitcher to throw 2,000 innings? Will anyone?

- The Altoona Curve and a rabbit hole of train history

- Old-school check-in featuring Jefry Yan, Davis Martin, and Sal Stewart

What’s This?

Every few weeks in “Slap Hits,” Ted and I cover whatever has delighted us from present-day baseball (or sometimes things even further afield) in a lightning round.

There will be news (of a kind), opinion, banter when we agree, and arguing when we don’t. We’re looking at items big and small, obscure or viral, we’re going quick, and we’re not stopping to fact-check.

Got a Slap Hit?

Send us an amusing, baseball adjacent item (interpretation is up to you) you’d like us to mention, bonus points for weird and obscure. Listen to a few episodes of “Slap Hits” and you’ll get the sense of what we like to cover, and it’s often things that don’t get covered elsewhere that delight us the most. If we use it, we’ll credit you for the submission during the show!

Email tips and suggestions to [email protected] or leave a comment here on the episode.

In 1983, Dave Winfield thought the bird would clear the field. It didn’t.

Episode Highlights:

- What’s a gull? Canada edition

- Exhibition Stadium, scene of the crime (?)

- Dave Winfield throws and a life is “pffft” out, but what really happened?

- A Canadian Inspector Javert and his pinstriped Valjean

- The Toronto justice system wakes up with a bevy of regrets

- A forensic examination turns the case upside-down

- Winfield makes amends and Toronto comes around on bird population control

Support Us

If you’re a fan of the podcast, nothing says it like becoming a paid subscriber at Project 3.18. Paid subscribers receive some special newsletter perks and help us build on what we’re doing with Clear the Field.

You can also follow the show for free on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS

Give a Rating, Like, or Restack

If you enjoyed an episode on a platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, can you give it a quick rating and let folks know? A 5-Star rating helps our podcast appear as suggested and helps people find us.

Here on Substack, restacking an episode is one click that really helps us, so if you had fun, please click that button up there on the far right of the episode that has two circling arrows on it.

Email

If you have comments or details that add to our stories or ideas for future installments, send us an email at [email protected]. Gentle corrections are also welcome.

Warning: If a comment is particularly enlightening and/or funny, we might read it during a future episode.

On Social Media

Paul: Substack Instagram Facebook

Ted: Substack

Original Research and Writing: Paul Jackson

Production and Music: Ted Walker

Design: Ketaki Kulkarni

This Week’s Lineup:

- Pete Crow-Amstrong’s Interview Range

- Walker on Walker at the Home Run Derby

- Muncy v. Muncy and a story of the time Connie Mack made his own pair of Socks

- Chase DeLauter, mountain mama?

- Marlins say “no-no” to Eury Perez’s perfecto

What’s This?

Every few weeks in “Slap Hits,” Ted and I cover whatever has delighted us from present-day baseball (or sometimes things even further afield) in a lightning round.

There will be news (of a kind), opinion, banter when we agree, and arguing when we don’t. We’re looking at items big and small, obscure or viral, we’re going quick, and we’re not stopping to fact-check.

Got a Slap Hit?

Send us an amusing, baseball adjacent item (interpretation is up to you) you’d like us to mention, bonus points for weird and obscure. Listen to a few episodes of “Slap Hits” and you’ll get the sense of what we like to cover, and it’s often things that don’t get covered elsewhere that delight us the most. If we use it, we’ll credit you for the submission during the show!

Email tips and suggestions to [email protected] or leave a comment here on the episode.