Baseball teams fed a lot of people, Big Papi bought part of a ballclub, Brandon Crawford retired, LAD signed Blake Snell – how was your holiday weekend? We kick off the new year of baseball boyfriends with our picks for the CWS and COL. This week’s math lesson is how the playoff pool, this year a record-setting > $129 million, gets calculated and distributed to postseason teams. Rudy Guiliani tries to hang on to a handful of World Series rings, and Shohei Ohtani would like those baseball cards back, please.  Kim Ng creates “MLB for Softball,” and we’ve got winter ball news from the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, Venezuela, and the, um, Canadian Intercounty Baseball League.

We say, “Rimbonbante,” “My little tongue twister of Venezuelan Ball,” and “What’s the consonant version of numerology?” Fight the man, send your game balls to Meredith, get boosted, and find us on Bluesky @ncibpodcast, on Facebook @nocryinginbball, Instagram @nocryinginbball and on the Interweb at nocryinginbball.com. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to NCiB. Become a supporter at Patreon to help us keep doing what we do. Say goodnight, Pottymouth.