Effectively Wild Episode 1539: It’s Not the Destination, it’s the Journeyman
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2020
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an aggressive umpiring demotion in the KBO, FanGraphs adding KBO stats, and the pleasures of falling asleep with baseball on in the background. Then (16:30) they talk to former lefty pitcher Andy Van Hekken, who pitched professionally for 21 seasons across nine countries, about being one of the most-traveled pro players of all time, his memorable MLB debut with the 2002 Detroit Tigers, pitching in the KBO, CPBL, and NPB, the customs, strike zones, and strategies of Asian baseball, match-fixing in Taiwan, the key to overseas success, the baseball language barrier, the art of the forkball, becoming a star player and local hero in an unexpected place, and more. Finally (56:45), they bring on Leander Schaerlaeckens to discuss his Slate investigation into President Trump’s high school baseball career, how and why he fact-checked claims about Trump being a pro prospect, and Trump as a player and teammate.
Audio intro: Mac DeMarco, "Baby You’re Out"
Audio interstitial 1: Slothrust, "Travel Bug"
Audio interstitial 2: Yo La Tengo, "If it’s True"
Audio outro: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, "Travel Song"
Link to article on umpiring demotions
Link to FanGraphs KBO stats post
Link to MLB.com article on Van Hekken
Link to local Michigan article on Van Hekken
Link to video of Van Hekken’s MLB debut
Link to KBO video of Van Hekken
Link to CPBL video of Van Hekken
Link to list of players who played in MLB/NPB/KBO/CPBL
Link to list of B-Ref’s most-traveled players
Link to article on CPBL match-fixing
Link to article on the CPBL’s resurgence
Link to Leander’s Trump investigation
Link to Kram on the home-court assists advantage
Link to order The MVP Machine
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Don't dream of all the ways things put up in |
| 0:05.0 | Remember all the faces you let in |
| 0:10.0 | Remember all the faces still at sea |
| 0:15.0 | So do not see just what I mean |
| 0:20.0 | It's not good to cry about |
| 0:24.0 | Cause baby, baby you're out |
| 0:29.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 1539 of Effectively Wild |
| 0:34.0 | A fancraft spaceball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters |
| 0:37.0 | I'm Meg Raleigh of Fancraft and I joined as always by Ben Limberg of The Ringer |
| 0:41.0 | Ben, how are you? |
| 0:42.0 | I am doing well, how are you? |
| 0:44.0 | Doing alright |
| 0:45.0 | Cool |
| 0:46.0 | Did you see the news about the KBO on Piring crew that was demoted for being bad at on Piring? |
| 0:52.0 | No |
| 0:54.0 | So this is something that happened just after the first few games here and I'm reading from Tweets by Daniel Kim |
| 1:00.0 | Who reports on the KBO and he says KBO demotion alert after the Hanwai Eagles veteran Yang Q Lee |
| 1:08.0 | Complained about inconsistent strike calling by the Ups and first three games of the season |
| 1:12.0 | KBO announced that the entire crew for the series will be sent down to minors |
| 1:17.0 | And then it continues KBO brought a new director of empires to oversee the entire |
| 1:22.0 | Empire operations prior to the start of the season |
| 1:25.0 | New director is clearly sending new message to all the Ups and the League |
... |
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