Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley begin with a little loose talk about Kiké Hernández’s revelation that he sharted during the 2020 NLDS, and pin down the precise instant of the accident with audio evidence. Then (23:59) they banter about whether it’s oxymoronic for MLB to have multiple “co-exclusive” official betting partners, MLB hiring local media execs to prepare for an RSN collapse (30:27), how the Blue Jays could make use of ex-Astros GM James Click (33:37), MLB lobbying state governments for exceptions to minimum-wage laws (39:51), a wave of injuries in spring training (44:30), and an umpire-less inning (48:06). After that (51:06), they answer listener emails about whether a Triple-A team in midseason form could defeat a pre-spring-training average MLB team or team of MLB all-stars, forgetting player handedness, the fluky debut of Livan Soto, whether Barry Bonds could still hit home runs, triple-digit uniform numbers, changing one’s mind about boycotting MLB, “hitter” vs. “position player,” the effects of starting separate unions for pitchers and hitters, and what a “partial shift” means in 2023, plus a Past Blast from 1975 (1:43:31) and a follow-up on the Past Blast from 1974 (1:46:37), featuring Gregg Trueman, son of sabermetric pioneer Richard E. (Dick) Trueman.

Audio outro: Monsters of Folk, “Ahead of the Curve”

Link to Red Sox Twitter video

Link to the instant of the shart

Link to 2020 NLDS G1 at B-Ref

Link to Meg on Bradley

Link to new “co-exclusive” press release

Link to 2021 “co-exclusive” press release

Link to MLB’s local media hirings

Link to Drellich on MLB and RSNs

Link to article on Click’s hiring

Link to article on Click and Crane

Link to Ben on front-office secrecy

Link to Seeking Rents on MLB lobbying

Link to Drellich on MLB lobbying

Link to EW on possible book bans

Link to Lux injury video

Link to thread on umpire-less baseball

Link to Handley’s framing

Link to MLB on the umpire-less inning

Link to ESPN on the umpire-less inning

Link to EW on unnecessary 9th innings

Link to EW listener emails database

Link to Soto/Bouchard leaderboard

Link to Voros’s Law

Link to Soto’s record on Stathead

Link to article about Bonds’s cycling

Link to Bonds on Strava

Link to 75-year-old Appling’s HR

Link to Adler on uniform numbers

Link to Neshek on SABRCast

Link to 2020 Keyser column

Link to revised MLBPA logo

Link to MLB on “strategic” shifts

Link to 1975 Past Blast source

Link to high school expanded DH

Link to “Ohtani rule”

Link to David Lewis’s Twitter

Link to David Lewis’s Substack

Link to 1974 Past Blast

Link to Trueman’s 1974 article

Link to Trueman’s 1959 article

Link to Pete Palmer wiki

Link to Earnshaw Cook wiki

Link to The Numbers Game

Link to 1964 SI article

Link to SABR’s Mills data

Link to Palmer on Player Win Averages

Link to Dick Trueman archive

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