I'm David Farrier, and New Zealand are accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure

out what makes this country tick. Now, you may have noticed that there was no New Zealand call

at the start of this episode, and that's because I have no idea what this episode is going to be

about. You probably know what it's about because it's in the title of the episode, but as we

record this, I don't know what we're going to call it because I have no

idea what I'm going to be learning about. That's because right now, I'm sitting here with Rob

and today's guest, Gareth Reynolds, and I'm mortified because I'm reading this intro live

in front of them, which is always terrible. Gareth is a comedian who has a bunch of podcasts.

I highly recommend we're here to help. It's

excellent, but I first found his work through a podcast called The Dollop. It's a podcast about

American history, about some of the crazier, madder parts of American history. They've clocked up

almost 700 episodes now, but an episode that has always stuck with me as episode 12, The Rube,

it's about a Hall of Fame baseball player who'd get distracted mid-game if someone was holding

up a puppy or a kitten, or if he heard a fire engine go by during a game, he'd literally

leave the field and just go and chase it. The team lost him once on tour, and they later found

he'd joined an alligator wrestling team.

Today, Gareth is here to teach me and Rob about a specific story from American history.

I'd usually say this is the whatever episode, but as I said, I don't know what that is yet,

so let's just play the theme song.

Flag this. Flag bits. Let's Gareth Fideless

Fideless

Bird Touchdown in America

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