Effectively Wild Episode 1235: Becoming a Beat Writer and Marketing Mike Trout
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2018
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler discuss Lindsey’s transition from blogging to beat writing, how to talk to players and become comfortable in the clubhouse, the contrasts between the Yankees and Mets (and Aaron Boone and Mickey Callaway), writing about teams vs. writing about baseball’s big picture, the beat-writing fraternity, being a beat writer on Twitter, and more. Then (32:01) they bring on former MLB Director of Business Public Relations Jeff Heckelman to explain why MLB players struggle to become superstars, the sport’s structural disadvantages from a publicity perspective, whether MLB is doing a bad job of marketing the sport, what makes people become baseball fans, why baseball players are so straitlaced on the field and on social media, MLB’s crackdowns on video-sharing, the demise of the MLB Fan Cave, how the league could improve its marketing message, and more.
Audio intro: Ringo Starr, "Give Me Back the Beat"
Audio interstitial: Pete Townshend, "Popular"
Audio outro: Elvis Costello, "The Beat"
Link to Lindsey’s writing at The Athletic
Link to Bryan Curtis’s article about baseball dying
Link to Jeff’s Twitter thread
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Facebook Group
Effectively Wild Wiki
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Give me back the beat! |
| 0:02.6 | Give me back the beat! |
| 0:05.2 | Give me back the only thing that makes my life complete! |
| 0:10.1 | If you come back to me, I'll be dancing in the street! |
| 0:15.3 | I'm Mr. Tune! |
| 0:16.7 | Give me back the old, that made me tap my feet! |
| 0:19.9 | But these two rocks is more asleep now that you've gone! |
| 0:23.9 | It's leaning on! |
| 0:26.0 | Give me back the beat! |
| 0:27.6 | Electoral! |
| 0:29.1 | Hello and welcome to episode 1235 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangross, presented by our 8PM supporters. |
| 0:37.1 | I'm Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, not joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangross. |
| 0:41.1 | Today, Jeff is sick. |
| 0:42.6 | He was losing his voice on our last episode, and he has now entirely lost his voice. |
| 0:47.1 | His immune system is weakened by working from home, and he was in contact with other human beings this weekend, and it did not go well for him. |
| 0:55.1 | So, he'll be back later in the week, but, fill in for Jeff, I am happy to be joined by Lindsay Ethler, who covers both the Metz and the Yankees for the Athletic. |
| 1:05.1 | Hey, Lindsay. |
| 1:06.1 | So, later in this episode, we're going to have a guest, we're going to talk to Jeff Hecklman, who is a former MLB PR guy. |
| 1:12.1 | He is going to tell us why it is or isn't MLB's fault that Mike Trout isn't more famous, which is a debate that we hear all the time that it's MLB's fault, that they're not doing a good job of marketing their stars. |
| 1:24.1 | Maybe, but it's debatable, and Jeff will tell us why. |
| 1:28.1 | But this is not terrible timing for Jeff to be sick if he had to get sick at some point, because I wanted to talk to you anyway, because I'm kind of fascinated by the career change that you have made this year. |
| 1:40.1 | And for people who don't know you, you were at Buzzfeed News, and then you were at Deadspin, and now you are at the Athletic, so you are basically a beat writer for two teams at the same time. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.