Episode Details

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley issue a sexiness-comment correction and banter about Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s MLB: The Show cover-model credentials, the 2023 Opening Day schedule, more ways in which baseball is and isn’t different from other sports (14:35), Chad Green’s convoluted contract (31:35), and their appreciation of Zack Greinke. Then (43:49) Ben chats with former All-Star Shawn Green about his cameo in 2003 sci-fi film The Core and his dominant stats against fellow The Core cameo-maker Mike Hampton, followed by a conversation (56:55) between Ben and The Athletic features writer Jayson Jenks about Jenks’s three oral histories of Greinke’s career, the best Greinke stories, Greinke’s singular skills, personality, and reputation, Greinke’s future in the game, and more. Finally, Ben and Meg conclude with a Past Blast from 1963 (1:36:31), plus a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Sleater-Kinney, “Male Model”
Audio interstitial: Fruit Bats, “My Unusual Friend”
Audio outro: TUNS, “Keeping Options Open”

Link to Correa tweet
Link to fake Jazz tweet
Link to Chisholm cover reveal
Link to cover athlete analysis
Link to Jazz on his cover spot
Link to Jazz on last year’s game
Link to 2023 schedule announcement
Link to fraternization rule video
Link to Ben on baseball failure
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to FG post on Green
Link to MLBTR on Green
Link to Green options flow chart
Link to The Core Stat Blast episode
Link to The Core wiki
Link to story on the real core
Link to The Core baseball scene
Link to Green vs. Hampton H2H
Link to 2004 Green vs. Hampton story
Link to lopsided batter-pitcher matchups
Link to ’99–’02 top position players
Link to Randall Munroe on the shuttle
Link to Green vs. pitchers
Link to Greinke vs. hitters
Link to Green vs. Greinke H2H
Link to MLB 2004 wiki
Link to Green’s book
Link to Jay on Greinke re-signing
Link to story on Greinke’s cutter
Link to above-average low-K%+ SP
Link to 2022 SP by K%+
Link to Posnanski on Greinke
Link to first Greinke oral history
Link to second Greinke oral history
Link to third Greinke oral history
Link to fourth Greinke oral history
Link to 2019 thread of Greinke stories
Link to Greinke calling his own signs
Link to Greinke at game in stands
Link to list of best-hitting pitchers

Listen Now