Baseball PhD (enhanced M4A)

Let’s celebrate as the Hall of Fame Weekend approaches starting on Friday, July 19, 2024. Congratulations to Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, Todd Helton and manager Jim Leyland for being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Happy New Year. We celebrate 2024 while we look forward to 2025. Our PhD Committee reviews the strange but true events of 2024 in Major League Baseball.

Ed Kasputis interviews author, Tim Wendel about his book, Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball – and America – Forever.

From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher.”

Meanwhile in Detroit—which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst riots in American history—’68 instead found the city rallying together behind a colorful Tigers team led by Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League, setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with Bob Gibson’s Cardinals.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred floated the idea of the Golden At-Bat. We debate as we bask in President Trump’s re-election. Was 2024 Trump’s Golden At-Bat?

The Mets and Phillies are about to cross the pond. The London Series is coming. We enjoy as Ed Kasputis interviews Anthony Rivera from the Subway to Shea podcast about the plight of his Mets and the beauty of Citi Field.