Starkville | Baseball’s Most Unhittable Pitcher & Terry Francona

Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball

The Athletic

Sports, Mlb, Fantasy Baseball, Baseball

4.7 • 874 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville explain why Mason Miller may be the most unhittable pitcher in MLB history before discussing the toughest pitcher Doug ever faced. Later, they’re joined by Terry Francona — Doug’s former manager, Jayson’s old neighbor, and current Reds skipper — to talk about his return to the dugout, memories of managing Doug in Philadelphia, and the joy of watching Elly De La Cruz lead the Reds.

Rundown:

1:35 Is Strands Inspired by Starkville?

3:40 Is Mason Miller Baseball’s Most Unhittable Pitcher?

8:01 Doug’s Most Unhittable Pitcher

11:10 Reds Manager Terry Francona Joins the Show

12:40 Being a Manager in 2026

19:21 Adjusting to ABS

25:00 Managing Elly De La Cruz

27:07 Playing 162

28:10 The Good Ole Days

31:38 Most Memorable Regular Season Game

34:00 Health Update

35:22 Benches Clearing Brawls

36:39 Francona’s Gum Chewing Habit

38:55 Francona’s Most Unhittable Pitcher

41:18 Strange But True

52:00 Call Us at (347) 313-8371

Is Padres closer Mason Miller the most unhittable pitcher who ever lived?: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7244775/

Follow Jayson on Bluesky: @jaysonst.bsky.social

Follow Doug on Bluesky: @dougglanville.bsky.social

E-mail: starkville@theathletic.com

Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels

Hosts: Jayson Stark & Doug Glanville

With: Terry Francona

Producer: Jason Potere

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up on the new Starkville, Reds manager Terry Francona joins us to reminisce about managing Doug Glanville.
0:07.3	We'll have strange but true, and who knows what else might come up.
0:23.4	Greetings and welcome to Starkville.
0:24.8	I'm Jason Stark.
0:27.8	I write about baseball for The Athletic.
0:34.6	And I am joined once again by my good friend, writer, substacker, a man who once got 1100 hits in the big leagues and our favorite voice of baseball on ESPN radio, Doug Landville.
0:43.9	Doug, how are you, my friend?
0:46.1	I'm doing great.
0:47.3	You know, it's another weekend without a red eye.
0:49.8	So, you know, I hit Chicago, I hit Detroit.
0:53.1	It was a little bit chilly, a little bit chilly, Detroit.
0:56.3	But, you know, April, May, baseball, in the central part of the U.S., North, Midwest, is a little bit chilly.
1:03.7	That's right.
1:04.3	But it was good.
1:05.7	A lot of good games, a lot of good talent.
1:08.3	So I enjoyed, you know, I got to watch a guy like Jackiter, who was the son of a guy, faced like 70 times. So I don't know what to do with that, you know, but it was, it was, he did a great job, though. I think you faced out later more than any other pitcher. Does that sound right? I did. Yeah, that is right. So, um, yeah. I know my Doug Glenville trivia, don't I? So, yeah. I know my Doug Glanville trivia, don't I?
1:30.0	So, Doug, I text you about this over the weekend, but here is how inspirational our show apparently is.
1:37.9	Do you play strands on the New York Times games app?
1:41.5	If you don't, you should.
1:43.1	I have played strands. I do connections a lot, and I do the crossword, Sunday crossword.
1:49.2	But I've messed with Strands. I do like their games. Yeah, it's fun. So for those who don't
1:54.2	have any idea what the heck I'm talking about, Strands is a word game. And it's made up of
	...

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