Cheapseat Baseball – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We've got a real barn burner this episode.  We talk about our fantasy football league -- especially topical now that football season is over.  Thankfully that's it for the football talk, as we end up discussing the 1987 St. Louis Cardinals, which has NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOTBALL AT ALL WHATSOEVER.

This week Tom and Josh discuss pranks -- including Josh pulling his own prank by not using his recording mic for this episode.  While we start talking personal stuff, we spend most of our time talking about MLB pranks.  We go over some of the old standards and tell one another about some more elaborate pranks that we came across.  This is a fun, if a bit of a dumb one.

This week Josh and Tom take turns telling some of the story of multi-sport legend Bo Jackson.  While his star rose as a Heisman-winning football player, he shocked the world in the 1980's by refusing to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and instead choosing to sign with the Kansas City Royals.  It was with the Royals and (eventually) the Los Angeles Raiders that Bo's legend took off before a horrible injury derailed his career, but led to one of the greatest comebacks in pro sports history.

Join us for our take, before we have a special guest join us to continue the story next week.

The Guardians, Mariners, Padres and Phillies may have advanced in the "real" playoffs, but in our simulation, we pick back up in the LCS series where the 84 Tigers take on the 90 A's and the 69 Mets take on the 16 Cubs.  Who will advance?  Who will win it all?  Will Tom accept that the Royals lost?  Let's find out.

It's playoff time, which means we decided to do our own playoffs, pitting all of the teams we've profiled so far against one another.  What do we do with the 1919 Black Sox?  Who can possibly stop the 1985 Kansas City Royals?  Will the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers finally win it?  Will the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals carry forward their black devil magic?  Is it even possible to stop the Miracle Mets or the 2016 Chicago Cubs?

Let's find out how the opening rounds go...

Josh takes Tom to the OC in the mid-90's where we talk about No Doubt and the 1995 California Angels.  We cover the origin story of the Angels, their move from Los Angeles proper to Orange County early in their existence, and the long run of mediocrity through their first 30-odd years -- a solid run in the late 70's to mid-80's notwithstanding.

The 1995 Angels showed up after the strike, having rocked the worst record in baseball in 1994, and got off to a scorching 56-33 start and a 11 game lead in the AL West.  Then things happened... Join us to find out.

Josh and Tom make fun of Canadian whiskey before discussing the career of Canadian baseball legend Larry Walker. We follow his journey from being a middling hockey prospect, his transition into baseball, his early career with the Montreal Expos, his star run with the Colorado Rockies, and his ring-chasing year and change with the St. Louis Cardinals.  Also, the wonderful tv series Letterkenny comes up a lot for some reason.

This week Josh tells Tom the history of the MLB All-Star Game.  The great moments, the not-so-great moments, the time it ended in the tie.  The stretch of time that there were two of them a season for some reason.  The time that the Royals justifiably made up the whole damn AL roster, which was a fine and correct decision (guess who's writing this episode summary...)

We fire up the Whatif? simulator to square off Josh's all-time Cleveland Bronchos / Naps / Indians / Guardians against Tom's Cincinnati Red Stockings / Reds / Redlegs / Reds.  Can Bob Feller contain the Big Red Machine? Can Dolf Luque contain the Cleveland's stacked 90's outfield? Why does Whatif? love old timey players so much?  Let's find out.

We pick up where we left off in the last episode, wrapping up the story of the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, by talking about the Yankees dynasty they took on, the 9/11 attacks, and one of the greatest World Series ever played.  The shambling corpse of Rudolph Giuliani is mentioned.