Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the joy of Opening Day and other news, including early reactions to the new rules, Rob Manfred’s comments about the ball-strike challenge system, Aaron Judge’s first homer, the Angels’ Tungsten Arm game, a good/bad Hunter Renfroe no-look catch, a Taylor Ward name mix-up, the Giants’ latest new left fielder, a Cristian Pache press release, Buck Martinez, George Santos’s message for the Mets, the minor league CBA, an on-field proposal gone wrong (but also sort of right), and more. Then (58:11) they conduct the third annual Team Fun Draft, in which they draft all 30 teams in order of how fun they are to follow in 2023, plus a Past Blast (1:56:06) from 1988 and a few follow-ups.

Audio outro: The Needy Visions, “Havers of Fun”

Link to Opening Day press release

Link to Opening Day stats

Link to Manfred on the zone

Link to Judge homer

Link to Grant’s Judge tweet

Link to Ward/Wade wiki

Link to story on Giants LF

Link to info on Ohtani outing

Link to Tungsten Arm story

Link to Renfroe’s catch

Link to Renfroe catch probability

Link to Pache press release

Link to Baumann’s Pache tweet

Link to Buck’s booth return

Link to Buck impression

Link to MLBTR on Verlander

Link to Santos video

Link to info on the CBA

Link to CBA ratification news

Link to Baumann on the CBA

Link to Russell on Cost in 2012

Link to Russell on cost in 2013

Link to Russell on cost in 2021

Link to proposal video 1

Link to proposal video 2

Link to TMZ on the proposal

Link to other proposal report

Link to Yankees uni numbers story

Link to Cruz homer

Link to Bard anxiety story

Link to 1988 Past Blast source

Link to Triple-A Classic wiki

Link to Triple-A Alliance wiki

Link to Sam on 1988

Link to David Lewis’s Twitter

Link to David Lewis’s Substack

Link to Ben on the pitch clock

Link to Ben’s preseason predictions

Link to Meg’s preseason predictions

Link to EW prediction voting results

Link to double-draft episode

Link to before/after WS odds

Link to FanDuel OD WS odds

Link to DraftKings OD WS Odds

Link to EW drafts/competitions sheet

Link to expanded playoffs incentives

Link to Forbes on Ohtani

Link to sped-up Trout/Ohtani video

Link to side-by-side Trout/Ohtani 1

Link to side-by-side Trout/Ohtani 2

Link to The Sun on Angelos

Link to Sun editorial on Angelos

Link to Angelos radio quotes

Link to Defector on Angelos

Link to The Shirey Brothers Bandcamp

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