No Crying In Baseball

Fueled by Isolation Pale Ale brewed by Mr. Pottymouth, your hosts learn about Korean baseball from Jeeho Yoo, KBO reporter for Yonhap News Agency in Seoul. Jeeho shares his take on the culture of baseball in South Korea, the plan for keeping players, media, and staff safe and healthy, and just a few digs on the Orioles. Much as we like the sound of watching KBO, we are not giving up our new dedication to #breakfastbaseball with the CPBL. It turns out Patti and the Pottymouth are good at this Dream Bracket thing, accurately predicting that the Reds and Yankees would make the finals. Blake Snell is the champion of Fake Baseball, and Patti still doesn’t care. The umpires union negotiates pay in this uncertain season, and a voice in planning MLB’s return. And we spend a hot minute on some of the options being offered as ways we may see major league ball this summer. We add our best wishes to those of Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, and Trey Mancini’s teammates from the Orioles, as he recovers from cancer treatment. 

Wash your hands, wear your masks, and stay safe. Find us on Twitter @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.

Or Lion swag, if you’re Pottymouth. NCiB talks Taiwanese baseball with Daniel Shih, sports director at @tstvsports and host of “Rants With Danny Shih.” The CPBL is the only live baseball happening worldwide, and as such is simultaneously playing to empty ballparks and thousands of international Twitter followers. We talk teams (Patti and Danny back the Rakuten Monkeys, and Pottymouth is a Uni Lion for Life), the culture and history of baseball in Taiwan, and how to get Monkey and Lion merch to NCiB hosts. You can reach Danny on twitter @daniel_shih88

The Commissioner’s report on the sign-stealing investigation of the Boston Red Sox is released to a great deal of suspicion. How is the front office off the hook? Did Manfred read his own report? Even Pottymouth, third generation Red Sox fan, thinks something is fishy here.

Pottymouth reports back on the standings in the various fake baseball tournaments, after bravely trying to watch a Dream Bracket simulation. We’ll stick to 7am CPBL games, thank you very much. Over in actual postponed baseball land, the Cape Cod League already called its summer season, and the Cal Ripken League postponed to at least July, with a final decision coming in June. The pandemic is causing such an economic hit to the minors that MiLB is no longer contesting the contraction of the league and is working with MLB to design a 120 team full-season program.

In this week’s cross-training segment, the NBA plans to open its team training facilities in those states with little regard for public health, starting May 1. Because that keeps the players safer than getting on planes to work out in public gyms in Georgia. 

Stay home, wash your hands, wear your masks, and stay safe. Find us on Twitter @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.

10,000 employees of Major League Baseball, from players and front office staff to ushers and your friends that sell you your ballpark beer, have volunteered to participate in a Coronavirus Antibodies study that may help shape public policy. The study is not designed to bring baseball back any faster, but it will paint a picture of the spread of the virus across locations, economic status, race, and medical histories. Anthony Fauci, America’s favorite doctor, came out as pro-BioBubble in an interview last week.  But it was on SnapChat so we’re not sure we believe it. The truncated MLB draft, and the shortened (or nonexistent) season, has a ripple effect on opportunities for college players and young prospects.  It’s a mess.

Bartolo Colon had an anniversary, and we’ll take any opportunity to talk about Big Sexy.  Pete Alonso made an appearance in a Jericho, NY HS geometry class (Zoom, of course), and we’ll take every opportunity to talk about him too.

There are two kinds of baseball fans in the world. The kind that love everything about watching MLB players compete against each other in MLB The Show, and Patti. More fake baseball starts this week as The Draft Kings and Out of the Park Sports Simulations stages a “what if” tournament pitting the greatest players of all time against each other in a “Dream Bracket.”

Actual real baseball played by humans in fan-free ballparks is happening in Taiwan, and if you like baseball with your morning coffee you can watch the four team CPBL tournament via Twitter. The Rakuten Monkeys have an English language feed so have quickly become a US favorite, allowing thousands of new fans to wonder why some people in the ballpark wear masks and use elbow bumps, other go mask-free and high-five, and no one hesitated to get into the scrum during a bench-clearing kerfuffle. More options available soon, as Korean baseball starts this week, also without fans in seats. Your hosts are hoping for a Wyvern vs. Dino smackdown.

Stay home, wash your hands, wear your masks, and stay safe. Find us on Twitter @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.

In the final installment of our score keeping trilogy, Blake grades Patti and Pottymouth’s homework (totally on a curve), and answers the hard questions -- many of which could be solved by larger squares in which to note plays. If you haven’t done your homework yet, get your scorecard and score the September 3, 2019 Nats vs Mets game. See if you have the same questions!

In the post-apocalyptic world, baseball is played in an Arizona-based BioBubble, and basketball in Vegas. What could possibly go wrong? Many, many things. Ask the Nippon Professional Baseball League. Surprising no one, even in this fantasy world, the Minor Leagues still get the shaft. The President met with commissioners of 13 professional sports leagues and associations (dare you to name them all), and painted a rosy picture of sports getting back to normal, which few believe. Safe versions of baseball are happening on Twitch, where actual MLB players are facing off on MLB The Show. The Chinese Professional Baseball League is playing now, in empty stadiums. Based on careful analysis of their team animal names, Pottymouth is throwing in behind the Lions and Patti says, sure, I’ll root for the Monkeys.

The pandemic baseball bright spot is NCiB’s favorite chef, Jose Andres, whose World Central Kitchen has partnered with Nationals Philanthropies to use the vast kitchens at Nats Park to produce thousands of meals for the needy, every day.

Do your homework, wash your hands, wear your masks, and stay safe. Find us on Twitter @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.

Pencils and scorecards are ready for Part 2 of “Scorekeeping with Blake.” Our brave teacher leads us through basic scoring notations and setting up our scorecards, and suddenly we are re-living the Nats/Brewers Wildcard game. It takes so much longer to score that Juan Soto run-down in the 8th than it does to watch it happen. Blake assigns us homework of scoring the September 3rd Nats vs. Mets game, to be graded on the next episode.

After a brief Sports Movie Review conversation in which Pottymouth name-checks Psycho, and Patti defends quiz shows as a sport, we go back to actual baseball. The Harpers, the Murphys, the Upton-Verlanders, and Steven Matz are all using their paychecks for good in the community in these tough times, and Shin-soo Choo is personally augmenting the MLB allowance of the minor leaguers in the Rangers system. AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow may finish their suspensions with not a single game being played in the interim, or they may be suspended to infinity, depending on how you define “end of the 2020 World Series.”

Do your homework, wash your hands, wear your masks, and stay safe. Find us on Twitter @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.

Patti and the Pottymouth are excited to start a new segment today: Scorekeeping with Blake. Dedicated scorekeeper Blake has been with us in Section 408 of Nats Park for two years, alerting us to immaculate innings, impending no-nos, and catching us up on what we missed on that last beer run. In this episode, Blake gives us some history on the art of keeping book, some context for why fans do it, and why the official scorekeeper wields a lot of power.  Next week we will have a lesson on the mechanics of scorekeeping, but in spite of Patt’s assertions that mechanical pencils are therefore the right way to go, apparently one can get by with just a pen. Before next week’s show, pull out that old scorebook or grab this vertical scorecard.

MLB and the player’s union came to an agreement on salaries, service time, the draft, and how a shortened season may look this year.  We break it down for you and play out potential repercussions for high school and college players, through the minors.

The Commish reports on the Fantasy Baseball Boyfriend League, and how the color commentary on draft rosters (and beer) keeps her going while trying to enforce the Boyfriend Rules from Hell.  Pottymouth already had to call in Stephen Matz as a substitute for Thor.  Hard to believe she could find the time what with all the sportsing with frisbees and push-ups

After you get your scorecard and mechanical pencil, or lesser writing implement, find us on Twitter @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.

On the day the Save America’s Pastime Act passed, allowing teams to pay minor league players below minimum wage, More Than Baseball was born. Former players Jeremy Wolf and Slade Heathcott, along with current player Simon Rosenblum-Larson, created an organization to make sure minor leaguers have what they need to succeed.

At the meta level, their job is to make people love baseball by helping communities see the value the players on their minor league team bring to them. At a basic level, More Than Baseball wants to ensure players have adequate food and housing, so they can play at the best of their ability right now, plus higher education opportunities and financial and career counseling for life after baseball. Right now, with paychecks on hold because of the season delay, More Than Baseball is reimbursing $75 worth of groceries to players sending them photos of receipts.  They have helped international players afford cabs home from the airport. This is the dire state of Minor League pay.

Please enjoy Pottymouth’s conversation with Jeremy Wolf, who can be reached on Twitter or Instagram @mtb_org, by email at [email protected].  Help them help baseball, if you can.

Even a Beermobile delivery is not enough to make up for Patti and Pottymouth not being in the same room, but nevertheless, we persisted. We celebrated the new addition to the Pottymouth family, Eris Israel Filpo. Through Adopt a Minor Leaguer, the Pottymouths have pledged to help out Eris, a player in the Rangers organization, currently at home in the Dominican Republic. Did you hear that there is baseball medical news that is not pandemic related? Chris Sale to have Tommy John surgery and Aaron Judge just now told us about that pesky collapsed lung.

COVID-19 is spreading through professional sports, but so far its baseball reach is limited to the Yankees minor league system, keeping 150 players quarantined together. MLB has promised to pay minor leaguers their spring training allowances, but has not yet indicated what will happen to their wages for the delayed season. Each team has ponied up $1million to care for its stadium workers.

Marcus Stroman has an NCiB Boyfriend-filled recruitment plan for the World Baseball Classic.

We announce our starting lineups for our Fantasy Boyfriend Baseball League, drawn from the guys we have profiled over the past several months, and invite you to join us. Clearly there is plenty of time to draft your team before the season begins. Contact us via social media if you want to play rotisserie fantasy ball, following our boyfriend rules for players. Find us on Twitter @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.

Patti and the Pottymouth and their socially-distanced Smart Baseball Brains bring you the baseball state of the pandemic. The eight week delay, minimum, to the start of the season has clear implications for fans, but what does it mean for paychecks for major and minor league players, umpires, and hourly facilities workers? How does it affect service time and dates for incentives and bonuses? The NBA and NHL are modelling good league-level behavior and it is time for Baseball to step up too. Players are picking up some slack, with Redemption Tour Astros donating money and food kits, Trevor Bauer staging a Sandlot wiffle ball game to bring attention to a Go Fund Me for stadium workers, and Pete Alonso putting things in perspective. Keep your baseball muscles loose by watching baseball movies and historic games. That’s how we’re doing it.

Even though the season delay pushes back our Fantasy League, we forge ahead and choose our pitching squads. Marcus “Height Doesn’t Measure Heart” Stroman puts Pottymouth over the hump to selecting the Mets, and shirtless Thor and Quarterican Seth Lugo warrant a mention. By some crazy twist of rules, Patti gets to keep the Nationals pitchers, so spends a moment on Daniel Hudson and his unbelievable 2019 reversal of fortune from being cut by the Angels in Spring Training to closing Game 7 of the World Series. Joe Ross is competing to be the fifth starter, building on his surprise Game 5 WS momentum.  Will Harris gets the nod, even after pitching on the 2017 Astros, because Sean Doolittle says he’s okay with it.

NCiB sends its heartfelt wishes for a full recovery to Baltimore’s Trey Mancini, who in the midst of all of this upheaval had surgery for a tumor on his colon.  

It’s time for NCiB’s Fantasy Boyfriend Baseball League! Contact us via social media if you want to play rotisserie fantasy ball, following our boyfriend rules for players. The draft begins immediately after Patti and the Pottymouth release their starting lineups on the March 21st episode. Find us on Twitter @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.

Stop touching your face. It would be irresponsible not to discuss the intersection of the coronavirus and baseball, so we do. Games have not yet been affected, but some teams are requiring players at Spring Training to pre-sign baseballs and cards under controlled conditions in the clubhouse, to be distributed to fans, rather than sharing pens and passing objects back and forth. Clean club houses and chartered planes will protect young, healthy players, but good luck finding 6’ of space between fans on Opening Day.  As a public service we share CDC information about how facial hair affects one’s ability to safely wear a respirator. Hint: The Yankees, like cockroaches, will live on, while Dallas Keuchel and Justin Turner will have to adapt to survive. 

Patti may already be down one starting-lineup boyfriend as Oscar Mercado is day-to-day. But forever boyfriend Christian Yelich is now a Brewer for Life, still an excellent chugger of beer, and needs to work on his free throws. Pottymouth ex Yoan Moncada extends with the White Sox, and NCiB favorite Collin McHugh goes to the Red Sox and lets loose with the remorse.  Any day where we can talk Big Sexy Bartolo Colon is a good day.

After some soul-searching, Patti and the Pottymouth go ahead with Houston Asterisk boyfriends, but limit themselves to guys who did not play on the 2017 team. Patti selects Abraham Toro, he of the three languages and hero of the Verlander no-no. Pottymouth introduces Jeremy Joan Peña, who is so distanced from he scandal he may not even get to the show this year. The Angels loss is Patti’s gain as Joc Pederson stays a Dodger and makes Patti’s list. Pottymouth doth protest too much with her Max Muncy pick, but she can go get that out of the ocean.

It’s time for NCiB’s Fantasy Boyfriend Baseball League! Contact us via social media if you want to play rotisserie fantasy ball, following our boyfriend rules for players. The draft begins immediately after Patti and the Pottymouth release their starting lineups on the March 17th episode. Find us on Twitter @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.