Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley issue a sexiness-comment correction and banter about Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s MLB: The Show cover-model credentials, the 2023 Opening Day schedule, more ways in which baseball is and isn’t different from other sports (14:35), Chad Green’s convoluted contract (31:35), and their appreciation of Zack Greinke. Then (43:49) Ben chats with former All-Star Shawn Green about his cameo in 2003 sci-fi film The Core and his dominant stats against fellow The Core cameo-maker Mike Hampton, followed by a conversation (56:55) between Ben and The Athletic features writer Jayson Jenks about Jenks’s three oral histories of Greinke’s career, the best Greinke stories, Greinke’s singular skills, personality, and reputation, Greinke’s future in the game, and more. Finally, Ben and Meg conclude with a Past Blast from 1963 (1:36:31), plus a few follow-ups.

Audio interstitial: Fruit Bats, “My Unusual Friend”

Audio outro: TUNS, “Keeping Options Open”

Link to Correa tweet

Link to fake Jazz tweet

Link to Chisholm cover reveal

Link to cover athlete analysis

Link to Jazz on his cover spot

Link to Jazz on last year’s game

Link to 2023 schedule announcement

Link to fraternization rule video

Link to Ben on baseball failure

Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki

Link to FG post on Green

Link to MLBTR on Green

Link to Green options flow chart

Link to The Core Stat Blast episode

Link to The Core wiki

Link to story on the real core

Link to The Core baseball scene

Link to Green vs. Hampton H2H

Link to 2004 Green vs. Hampton story

Link to lopsided batter-pitcher matchups

Link to ’99–’02 top position players

Link to Randall Munroe on the shuttle

Link to Green vs. pitchers

Link to Greinke vs. hitters

Link to Green vs. Greinke H2H

Link to MLB 2004 wiki

Link to Green’s book

Link to Jay on Greinke re-signing

Link to story on Greinke’s cutter

Link to above-average low-K%+ SP

Link to 2022 SP by K%+

Link to Posnanski on Greinke

Link to first Greinke oral history

Link to second Greinke oral history

Link to third Greinke oral history

Link to fourth Greinke oral history

Link to 2019 thread of Greinke stories

Link to Greinke calling his own signs

Link to Greinke at game in stands

Link to list of best-hitting pitchers

Link to Jayson’s author archive

Link to 1963 story source

Link to David Lewis’s Twitter

Link to David Lewis’s Substack

Link to ESPN on the tennis exhibition

Link to “Battle of Surfaces” video

Link to tennis serve clock story

Link to 2022 RP WAR leaders

Link to John Adams obit

Link to Adams Guardians induction

Link to Hilda Award

Link to Baseball Reliquary episode

Link to turf definition

Link to artificial turf wiki

Link to “Was the Grink There?” tweet

 Sponsor Us on Patreon

 Effectively Wild Wiki

 Get Our Merch!

 Email Us: [email protected]