101 life lessons from the dugout and a few extra from the CBA negotiation room
Best Podcast in Baseball
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
4.6 • 690 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's become book week at the Best Podcast in Baseball.
Long time baseball writer and columnist and former president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America Ken Davidoff joins the podcast to discuss with host Derrick Goold his new book, "101 Lessons from the Dugout." The book, written for young adults, is a merger of baseball, parenting, and life lessons that use the dugout, batter's box, basepaths, and mound to map how baseball is a window into larger affirmations and experiences.
One chapter discusses baserunning on a sacrfice fly and amplifies tagging up to a larger idea of pausing, gathering one self, survey the situation, and then charge headlong toward your goal with knowledge and without hesitation.
"Your mound (is your) high ground," the book describes as an image for standing tall with an opinion at the center of everything.
Davidoff spent decades covering baseball for the New York Post and Newsday, and on his final day on the beat a small group of writers, including Goold, stayed late into the night to cover CBA negotiations between the players' union and owners at the Cardinals' complex in Jupiter, Florida. The negotiations blew right past one of the deadlines, leading to Davidoff staying on the beat a few hours longer.
There are lessons from those events too, and the two baseball writers dive into what could be lost with a missing season, what the owners aim to gain with the salary cap, and if any of the 101 lessons from the dugout apply to the situation.
The book, "101 Lessons from the Dugout," is available wherever you prefer to shop for books, including here.
In its 14th season as one of the first and most widely heard podcasts on baseball and the Cardinals, the Best Podcast in Baseball has reached a new season-high with 30 episodes. Each episode is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and lead baseball writer Derrick Goold.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let's call it Book Week at BPIB. |
| 0:02.6 | A brand new episode of The Best Podcast in Baseball, |
| 0:04.9 | features longtime baseball writer, |
| 0:06.4 | former president of the Baseball Writers Association, |
| 0:09.7 | and both a beat writer and a columnist there in New York. |
| 0:12.7 | It's author Ken Davidoff, |
| 0:14.5 | who is the co-author of a book 101 lessons from the dugout. |
| 0:18.8 | It's a merger of baseball, parenting tips, and life lessons for kids. |
| 0:22.9 | We talk about that book, the lessons that can be drawn from the dugout, but also from the |
| 0:28.6 | mound and the base paths and the batters box. |
| 0:31.0 | And we dive into the labor negotiations. |
| 0:33.8 | When last I saw Ken on the beat, we were covering the previous CBA negotiations, standing outside the Cardinals Jupiter Complex, watching officials and players go back and forth and waiting for a deadline that never came. |
| 0:47.7 | The podcast starts with me trying to say 101 and saying 101,, and for all types of things. |
| 0:55.6 | Cue the music. |
| 1:05.5 | I can do better than this. |
| 1:07.6 | All right, let me do this. |
| 1:08.9 | That's why I said it that way. |
| 1:10.5 | Well, you can say that. It's either |
| 1:12.0 | 101 or one or one hundred and one. They're all acceptable. Shoot, that was bad. Usually I |
| 1:20.7 | nail it one take Tony. Um, anyway. Hello everybody. And welcome to the best podcast in baseball. |
| 1:27.1 | I'm St. Louis Post Dispatch Baseball under Derek Gould, joined this week by a long-time |
| 1:31.1 | friend, longtime baseball writer, a guy who was, let's say, in the room where it happens when |
... |
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