Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about players snacking on the field and a baseball equivalent of the EGOT before (23:01) Ben brings on Ron Shelton, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of Bull Durham and the author of The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham, to reminisce about Shelton’s minor league career, how conditions in the minors have evolved, the future big leaguers he played with, why Crash Davis didn’t stick in the majors, sports-movie verisimilitude, how he wrote Annie Savoy, Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, why Bull Durham almost didn’t get made, the golden age of baseball movies, Bull Durham as a TV series, an MLB game in Durham, his other baseball projects, and more. Then (1:04:02), Ben and Meg talk to well-traveled 45-year-old pitcher Chris Oxspring of the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox about his baseball origin story, his path through indy ball, affiliated ball, Japan, South Korea, and the Olympics, culture shock and the language barrier, his cup of coffee with the Padres, the development of baseball in Australia, the knuckleball’s future, being a player-coach, the toll being a baseball player takes on one’s family, Australian slang, and how long he can keep pitching. Finally (1:50:04), they end with a Past Blast from 1956 and a few follow-ups.

Audio interstitial 1: Concrete Blonde, “It’ll Chew You Up and Spit You Out”

Audio interstitial 2: Toner, “Ox ’45”

Audio outro: Frazey Ford, “One More Cup of Coffee”

Link to EGOT Facebook thread

Link to EGOT winners

Link to Academy Juvenile Award

Link to Historic Achievement Award

Link to Lou Brock Award

Link to The Church of Baseball

Link to Shelton’s B-Ref page

Link to Shelton’s IMDb page

Link to ’69 Ports article 1

Link to ’69 Ports article 2

Link to ’69 Ports article 3

Link to Everybody Wants Some!!

Link to Everybody Wants Some!! pod

Link to Ben’s Remake Necessity Score

Link to Ben on movie analytics

Link to story on minor league owners

Link to private equity minors story

Link to players born in Australia

Link to Joe Quinn’s SABR bio

Link to Oxspring’s SABR bio

Link to Oxspring’s B-Ref page

Link to Oxspring’s Blue Sox page

Link to Oxspring’s Instagram

Link to Oxspring’s MLB clips

Link to 2014 story on Oxspring

Link to Kent-Oxspring Cup story

Link to story about leaving Lotte

Link to Ben on the knuckleball

Link to Australian slang

Link to Ben on international The Bachelor

Link to 1956 story source

Link to EW on Mays documentary

Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website

Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter

Link to Belt on chicken tenders

Link to Ritz opening story

Link to Pirates job tweet

Link to Pirates job posting

Link to laser measurements story

Link to LIDAR post

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