I just recently finished listening to a podcast in which ESPN Baseball Insider Keith Law* and Red Sox Beat Writer Alex Speier discussed a baseball trade. One baseball trade. The trade that sent reliever Mark Melancon to Boston from Houston in exchange for the shortstopish Jed Lowrie and pitching prospect Kyle Weiland. They talked about this one baseball trade for 44 honest-to-god actual minutes. If you don’t believe me, go here and listen to it. One trade. Three players. 44 minutes.
This post is not meant to denigrate these fine gentleman, but rather to celebrate their prolonged performance, one of extreme and unabashed baseball nerdery. Granted, I was listening to this podcast while applying some really pitiful effort at my place of employment, so it’s quite possible I didn’t fully digest the occasional minute or two here and there. Maybe each isolated moment that my mind was distracted elsewhere, the podcast went off the rails into some really in depth detective novel discussion. Or maybe they talked about Top Chef. Or boardgames. I can’t be sure, but I suspect this did not happen. I suspect these two fellows did indeed discuss Marc Melancon, Jed Lowrie, Kyle Weiland, and other topics related these players and their former and current teams for just about an entire 44 minutes all told. Very impressive stuff. Also, really good stuff. These guys are professionals, and they know what they’re talking about. It was a very informative and interesting podcast that dove deeply into a number of areas of player and team evaluation. And I finally learned how to pronounce Melancon. But still, 44 minutes, holy shit.
*Goddammit, I’m doing that thing again where certain notable figures from one post are becoming the main topic of the next. This really isn’t intentional. It’s just a product of poor planning and mediocre creative faculty.
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The Trance of Waiting 