Podcast: MLB’s New Plan for 2020
Guest: Emily Waldon, The Athletic
After a brief hiatus, Josh and Jim are back to recap MLB’s new plans are for 2020. How the possible schedule and Service Time would work if games do return this year.
Emily Waldon of The Athletic joins the show [33:00] to share her insight on Coronavirus’s impact on the minor leagues, and ways fans can help those in need.
One way is to purchase Roto Wear’s new shirt, The Back Fields, which proceeds will be donated to Advocates for Minor Leaguers.
Click play below to listen:
Emily Waldon is doing wonderful work. Thank you for including her on this episode.
Regarding old games I want televised, here are eleven:
June 4, 1972 (both games of a double-header): The Sox sweep the Yankees in front of a packed house. Dick Allen wins the second game with a pinch-hit homer.
July 31, 1977 (game one): Maybe the most fun game of the 1977 season. With 50,000 in the stands (as with the 1972 game), Chet Lemon hits a couple homers to give the first-place Sox the victory over the Royals in the tenth inning. The park is rocking! Steve Stone started the game and could give his memories for a rebroadcast. (Do not air the second game of that day’s doubleheader, or any subsequent game versus the 1977 Royals.)
August 3, 1979: This is a road game in Toronto with both teams mired in the second division. It is also Tony La Russa’s debut as a major-league manager. (Trivia: The August 1 game was Don Kessinger’s last as manager, but it is more famous as Thurman Munson’s final game. I was at that one, and it was devoid of highlights.) Steve Trout wins it, and it gives a taste of what most games were like after the 77 Hit Men dispersed.
May 8, 1984: The Sox beat the Brewers 7-6 in 25 innings. The game took eight hours to play, and this time, the slow battery of Britt Burns and Carlton Fisk was only a minor factor. Fisk played the whole game at the tender age of 36.
August 4, 1985: The Sox beat the Yankees in the Bronx behind Tom Seaver’s complete game. It is Seaver’s 300th victory.
July 1, 1990: The Sox are no-hit by Andy Hawkins and win 4-0. The single most hilarious game of my lifetime.
August 2, 1990: But my favorite game of the 1990 season was this 4-3 win over the Brewers involving the debuts of a couple of Larry Himes draft picks named Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez. I remember watching this one from a bar in Washington DC and having so much hope for the future,
August 11, 1991: The Sox call up a young pitcher picked up a couple years earlier in the Baines trade. In his first game with the club, Wilson Alvarez no-hits the Orioles.
June 18, 2000: The White Sox beat the living tar out of Orlando Hernandez and the Yankees on national TV. As you can tell by this list, I have a lot of time for watching the Sox beat the Yankees, and wathcing this 17-4 rout was when I thought that 2000 was going to be a special season. (It was if we forget about the post-season.)
April 21, 2012: Sure, Mark Buehrle’s perfect game gets all the attention, but on this day Philip Humber becomes the third pitcher in Sox history to achieve perfection. Watch the greatest day in the career of a guy who already had dealt with disappointment and injury, and who would immediately regress to unplayable afterwards.
Good list. I’m putting together a post about your question, and I’m just going to airdrop your selections into it.
Just saw this. Terrific, and I’m glad to see people chiming in with their selections.
In such a sad days for the world ,our country, baseball and the Sox ,the fact that you could put put together such a wonderful podcast full of astute observations on the nature of the possible shorten baseball season , and its effect on everything from projected finishes and service times , and the potential devastating impacts on minor leaguers was comprehensive analytical and sobering. The bonus section of the possible past Sox games we might listen to brought sunshine to my soul. Thank-you