Effectively Wild Episode 1328: National Past Time
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2019
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about players playing for their lives, Bryce Harper rumors, Harper’s fame vs. Mike Trout’s, feeling less intense anticipation than they used to, the Red Sox signing the previously permabanned Jenrry Mejia, and uncertainty surrounding the latest labor strife. Then (30:06) Ben talks to Chris Enns, author of The Death Row All Stars, about baseball in the Old West and the strange saga of the 1911 Wyoming State Penitentiary team, an all-convict squad that played to stave off execution and caused a statewide scandal. Lastly (1:00:21), Jeff rejoins for a conversation with Wes Abarca (co-founder, commissioner, and Crestline Highlanders captain) and Joe Billheimer (Highlanders “behind”) of the Southern California Vintage Base Ball League to discuss the popularity of vintage baseball, the strategic intricacies of playing under 1886 rules, the challenge of playing with period equipment, the importance of staying in character, whether they prefer old or new baseball, and more.
Audio intro: Spoon, "Something to Look Forward To"
Audio interstitial 1: Skip James, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues"
Audio interstitial 2: Paul McCartney, "Vintage Clothes"
Audio outro: Dr. Dog, "Survive"
Link to Rosenthal article
Link to Ben’s old article about the MLB revenue split
Link to Chris Enss site
Link to Conan’s vintage baseball video
Link to Vintage Base Ball Association site
Link to SoCal Vintage Base Ball League site
Link to Crestline Highlanders site
Link to SoCal league video
Link to Highlanders game photo album
Link to SCVBB Rules
Link to preorder The MVP Machine
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 | So many things we could say So many things we could love |
| 0:08.4 | You know, just stay in the stand Some things we best love about |
| 0:15.4 | Say something to look forward to Moving on I'll give you something to look forward to |
| 0:29.3 | Hello and welcome to episode 1328 of Effectively Wild a baseball podcast from |
| 0:35.0 | Vangrass presented by our Patreon supporters, I'm Ben Limberg of the |
| 0:39.0 | Ringer joined by Jeff Sullivan of Vangrass, no Jeffs. Sometimes you say a |
| 0:43.2 | fan-grapes baseball podcast sometimes you say a baseball podcast from |
| 0:46.5 | Vangrass and I don't know which one is more standard because when you say a |
| 0:49.2 | baseball podcast from Vangrass brought to you by our Patreon's board is it |
| 0:53.1 | sounds like we have multiple sponsors we have one sponsor this patreon we're |
| 0:57.2 | Vangrass doesn't. Vangrass doesn't put us up we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps |
| 1:01.4 | and also by patreon mostly. Vangrass doesn't pay me, Vangrass pays you so we're |
| 1:06.8 | sort of presented by both I suppose in a way just trying to keep things interesting. So |
| 1:12.0 | today we have two guest segments, two interviews and we're going way back in history. This is |
| 1:18.4 | going to be an old timey baseball episode because nothing is happening in new timey baseball. |
| 1:24.3 | So we're just doing some time travel today. So later in the episode we will be talking to |
| 1:30.0 | a longtime listener as well as the commissioner of a vintage baseball league in southern California. |
| 1:36.3 | So you've all seen the Conan O'Brien video of people who are playing using vintage uniforms |
| 1:42.1 | and vintage rules. This is one of those. It's a new league in southern California playing under |
| 1:46.9 | 1886 rules and we will talk about why and how that's different. But before that I will be talking to |
| 1:54.9 | author Chris Ends. Now you've been traveling through the past couple days which is why we have not |
| 1:59.6 | put out a podcast yet this week and unfortunately you were not able to join me for that interview |
... |
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.

