Show notes
Ben Lindbergh, Rany Jazayerli, and Neil Paine discuss the death of Willie Mays, Mays as the last legendary link to an earlier era, the statistical cases for Mays as the greatest all-around player and greatest player, period in major league history, and (36:45) baseball’s new greatest living player, plus (46:02) banter about Kansas courting the Royals with public funding and (50:38) the competitive trajectories of the Royals and Mets. Then (1:01:08) Ben brings on frequent Stat Blast correspondent Ryan Nelson for Blasts about teams that hover near .500, pitchers replacing same-surnamed pitchers, prolific umpire-player ejection combos, the most players with the same first name in the same game, and Alex Verdugo’s grounders.Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”Audio outro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme”Link to Rany’s Mays articleLink to Neil’s Mays articleLink to FG’s Mays obitLink to Mays statementLink to Manfred statement on MaysLink to Carig on MaysLink to Mays fielding slumpLink to EW 1927 on MaysLink to Mays stumble story 1Link to Mays stumble story 2Link to B-Ref career WAR leadersLink to Ben on quality of competitionLink to Posnanski on the GLPLink to EW 2161 on public fundingLink to Kansas funding detailsLink to deMause on Kansas fundingLink to race to the bottom wikiLink to FG playoff oddsLink to BP playoff oddsLink to BaseRuns standingsLink to Grimace explainerLink to Neil on team true talentLink to Neil on Witt and BrettLink to Neil’s SubstackLink to Podracing podcastLink to Kauffman Corner podcastLink to Mike Conte’s Stat Blast coverLink to Wolf of Wall Street quoteLink to Langs on .500 teamsLink to Ben on .500 teamsLink to .500 teams/Ryne Stat BlastLink to Kelly/Alexander gameLink to Retrosheet ejections dataLink to ejections Stat Blast dataLink to ejections-per-G graphLink to SABR on ejectionsLink to Evers wikiLink to “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon”Link to “Luis” gameLink to The Bob EmergencyLink to same-names dataLink to swimmer David YoungLink to 2024 grounder leadersLink to 2021-4 grounder leadersLink to 2019-24 grounder leadersLink to ballpark meetup formsLink to meetup organizer form Sponsor Us on Patreon Facebook Group Twitter Account EW Subreddit Effectively Wild Wiki iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Get Our Merch! Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.comvar SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {});Source