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Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for August 4, 2020
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, Mick Gillispie and Kevin Reichard discuss this year’s MLB rule changes, the meaning of the term Kentucky Wonder and the unique experience of an MiLB tarp pull on this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
In this week’s chat:
• Mick and Jesse discuss the experience of actually watching baseball on TV during the regular season as opposed to working at a game
• Mick is not a fan of the new rules implemented in MLB this season, including the DH, extra innings starting with a runner on second and seven-inning doubleheaders; Kevin doesn’t care about the DH and likes the new extra-innings rule
• What happens to the season when players like Lorenzo Cain and Yoenis Cespedes opt out? In the end, the agreement is that the Cespedes situation is really a Mets thing, not an MLB thing
• Mick and Jesse discuss MiLB players who shut down their game before the season end and wonder how prevalent It will happen in MLB
• Should organizations worry more about winning or player development at the MiLB level? It seems players are either priorities/investments or not.
• Why the South Bend Cubs were such a great story in 2019, winning the Midwest League title
• Kevin remembers Joe Kernan and Lou Schwechheimer; Kernan saves pro baseball in South Bend by buying the South Bend Silver Hawks, a team slated for a move, and turning that team around, while Schwechheimer was a baseball lifer who passed away from COVID-19 complications before he could see his new Wichita ballpark open
• After Kernan saved the Silver Hawks, he paved the way for current owner South Bend Cubs Andrew Berlin and team president Joe Hart to upgrade the ballpark and the team
• The Field of Dreams game between the White Sox and Cardinals in Dyersville, IA, has been canceled, but watch for it in 2021
• Jesse is the official statistician of the Lemonade League and discusses what stats to track and what stats to ignore; the advice is to focus on the basics as well as what stats college coaches tra
Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for July 27, 2020
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, Mick Gillispie and Kevin Reichard discuss their experiences binging baseball, why cutout fans suck and the difficulties of calling a game from the studio in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
In this week’s chat:
• Baseball is back, and we’re all binging on game broadcasts from ESPN, TBS and the regional sports networks
• All agree that fans cutouts are the worst thing ever, while Mick and Kevin split on virtual reality fans; Mick doesn’t mind them, while Kevin says the images of Harry Caray singing from heaven to virtual fans in the Wrigley Field bleachers is one of the worst moments ever in sports broadcasting
• Jesse warns that deepfake fans in the stands may become accepted
• Why Mick and Jesse hate sensory assault at the ballpark
• The difficulties of broadcast a game in a studio and why the crowd noise is so important when calling a game
• Mick and Jesse discuss how they approach calling a game from a studio off monitors
• Production values are better this season in the ballparks: images are sharper and more cameras are being deployed, with more emphasis player closeups. With MLB being a studio sport for 2020, the enhanced production values help
• Patrick Mahomes becomes the newest investor in the Kansas City Royals
• A Black owner buys an expansion team in the independent Atlantic League; it’s been years since there has been a Black owner in professional baseball, and now we have one in Gastonia, N.C.
• Mick talks up Major League Baseball in Nashville
• More positives on the Marlins are changing things quickly, as Washington Nationals vote to avoid an upcoming Miami series
• Why MLB should consider placing players in a bubble moving forward
• Why Toronto Blue Jays players should be happy to be playing games in Buffalo, especially those players who were destined to play this season in Buffalo sans COVID-19
• Today’s Baseball Thesaurus term: how did the term switch hitter come about? Mick and Jesse tell their stories about
Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for June 23, 2020
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, Mick Gillispie and Kevin Reichard discuss the deal to bring baseball back, discuss whether new extra-innings rules are good or bad, and why a pulling a Houdini is one of the most entertaining feats in the sport in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
In this week’s chat:
• Major League Baseball is set to return in July with training camp and then a 60-game season starting around July 24
• Teams will train at their home ballparks
• How the negotiations between players and owners will affect public interest in the sport
• Why potential labor grievances won’t play out this season
• Changes for 2020, including extra-innings play beginning with a runner at second in the top of the 10th. Jesse explains how the rule works and why he was a convert after seeing it in play; Mick speaks out against it. The bottom line: the rule is to address the lack of pitching at every level of baseball and to limit bullpen usage in extra innings.
• Why the season will open under a cloud: COVID-19 cases are going up, not down, and whether the sport can survive an outbreak
• What fallout the sport will see as the regular season starts and how it will be measured. One potential measure: merchandise sales.
• Jesse’s term of the week from The Baseball Thesaurus: a pitcher pulling a Houdini, using the 1927 World Series as an example. It’s one of the great terms of the game, say both Jesse and Mick.
• Why this week could see the formal announcement that the Minor League Baseball season could be called because of COVID-19 safety concerns for players.
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurus and The Football Thesaurus from August Publications. Mick Gillispie is the Voice of the Tennessee Smokies and a spring-training Voice of the Chicago Cubs. Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.
Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for June 16, 2020
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, Mick Gillispie and Kevin Reichard discuss where baseball is returning, why negotiations for the 2020 MLB season are disappointing and what constitutes a Bermuda Triangle in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
Topics this week:
• Some good news: Baseball returns with action in the Northwoods League, the Texas Collegiate League, the Coastal Plain League and the American Association, all using regional pods to limit travel
• Some bad news: Why baseball’s labor strife sucks
• More layoffs in the baseball industry in these very political times
• Why the baseball world needs to honor the Negro Leagues legacy and the existing six Negro Leagues ballparks
• Why Rob Manfred’s disappointment about the 2020 season is disappointing
• Why both players and MLB owners are to blame for the current season impasse
• Mick identifies a big flaw in the MLB setup: players don’t recognize they are business partners
• Why Rob Manfred acts like an attorney for the owners and not a steward of the game
• Why MLB needs more former players in the commissioner’s office and in MLB front offices
• How the MLB draft did not generate positive results for the sport
• Why MLB needs to promote players as relatable celebrities
• Jesse and Mick discuss the term of the day: the Bermuda Triangle, why it’s a great term, and how Brett Kavanaugh ruined the term during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurusand The Football Thesaurus from August Publications. Mick Gillispie is the Voice of the Tennessee Smokies and a spring-training Voice of the Chicago Cubs. Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.
Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for June 9, 2020
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, Mick Gillispie and Kevin Reichard discuss yet another proposal for a 2020 MLB season, why a hard deadline is approaching and the history behind the pitching mound in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
In this chat:
• A discussion of the latest proposal made by MLB owners to the players association: a 74-game season ending Sept. 27, yet more playoff teams and adjustments to compensatory draft picks.
• Not surprising, players were not impressed.
• Why baseball needs to create new fans after the current squabbles over the 2020 season, and why MLB needs to work on its public image.
• Why a Sept. 27 season end and October playoffs make sense: it fills a void in the sports-broadcasting season and won’t run into a potential November-December second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, as predicted by many experts.
• The looming crisis behind ballpark debt and bonding.
• Why Jesse is excited for the upcoming 2020 MLB draft.
• Notable ballpark promotions, such as dining on the infield and fireworks nights, and which promotions are sustainable and which ones are not.
• Why calling a baseball game off a monitor is a lesser experience, with Jesse and Mick saying they’d always be in the ballpark or the stadium.
• Why the Cubs were pioneers in supporting multiple radio stations broadcasting home games and why baseball needs to bring the games to the fans.
• Jesse outlines the history of the pitchers mound from baseball’s earliest days to 1968, and how changing the height of the mounds impacts play. Today we still see groundskeepers impact the game even though the height of the mound is now set.
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurus and The Football Thesaurus from August Publications. Mick Gillispie is the Voice of the Tennessee Smokies and a spring-training Voice of the Chicago Cubs. Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.
