Good morning and welcome to episode 475 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from baseball

perspective presented by the baseballreference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindbergh, joined as always by

Sam Miller. It actually is morning this time. We are recording on Friday morning because we have a

guest. It's World Cup season. Many of our domestic listeners are excited about the United States

victory over Ghana earlier this week and the upcoming match with Portugal on Sunday, our 11

listeners in Spain are distraught over their team's early exit from the tournament but probably

excited about the coronation of King Felipe VI. This is not a podcast about that, about the Spanish

monarchy or about soccer, but there are things that baseball could learn from the structure of soccer.

Or so contends, Will Woods contributor to baseball perspective, former guest of Effectively Wild

former co-host of Effectively Wild. Hello Will. Hey guys, how you doing? Thank you for having me.

Sure. So I have known you for almost 20 years and I have to say that you have changed.

When we first met in first grade, you were a Metz fan and that much is still true, but you were not

to my knowledge a soccer fan and at some point in the intervening decades you became one. By the way,

would it be okay with you if we refer to the beautiful game as soccer for the duration of this podcast?

Yeah, it's okay with me. I didn't know that I was still a Metz fan actually.

Yeah, you dabble and despair. Yeah, okay. So we'll call it soccer apologies to our international

listeners. So how did your soccer conversion occur? Well, yeah, it's true. I used to be a red-deleted

American like the rest of you. I think soccer has a few advantages that are undeniable,

un-based ball and sort of inarguable, but it doesn't make it better. But these advantages are

basically, I know when it's going to end and I can schedule the rest of my day around it.

The other advantage is that every highlight is different. Every goal is organic to itself. It comes

about in a totally unique way, whereas I've seen every home run that's ever been hit and have even

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