As a kid, I fell asleep with a transistor radio tuned to Oakland A’s baseball games almost 2,800 miles away.
Listening to those games that originated from what might as well have been the moon for a kid in South Carolina fascinated me.
It was a time when information was garnered from the back of baseball cards bought from the 7-11 with every penny of my allowance.
I still have thousands of those cards that my son and I occasionally reference.
The images on those cards are often hilarious, but the information on the back was the gold.
Far-off birthplaces, remote minor league cities I’d never heard of and quirky statistics or oddities about the player were for me like being an archaeologist and discovering an unknown sarcophagus of an Egyptian King.
I was on a hunt for the unusual and unexpected and I’ve been hooked on the weird and unusual in baseball ever since.
My son and I bonded over baseball, but more than that, we’ve bonded over the weirdness of baseball…the player that hit .247 for four consecutive years, the 11-walk complete game debut, or the pitcher that won 108 games in 2 seasons...
Today we find these stories online and we share our discoveries with each other…it’s almost become a friendly competition to one-up each other…And now we want to share our stories with you.
They’re silly, fascinating, weird, quirky and a lot of times unbelievable…
…these are True Tales of the Big Leagues..
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
E14: The 1871 Chicago White Stockings and Guy Hecker
The guys go old school this week as they look back at the 1800s to find some true tales of the big leagues.
Parker regales us with some of the crazy rules from the early days of baseball, which helps explain the wild scores and then he tells us about the 1871 Chicago White Stockings.
Marty then shares the story of Guy Hecker, who would "unfortunately" win 50 games in one season, but was the Shohei Ohtani of his time (except he played first base when not pitching).
Sources:
Guy Hecker (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/heckegu01.shtml)
1871 Chicago White Stockings (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHI/1871.shtml)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
28 Aug 2024
E13: One Hit Wonders Part 3
Parker and Marty are back for the the third and final round of players who had one great season and then disappeared.
We chose the players independently and in different fashions.
Parker chose a player that debuted near when Marty was born and Marty accidentally chose another player from the 1980 Indians.
Sources:
Baseball-Reference.com - Joe Charbonneau (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/charbjo01.shtml)
Baseball-Reference.com - Ken Harrelson (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harreke01.shtml)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
14 Aug 2024
E12: One Hit Wonders Part 2
Parker and Marty are back for the second round of players who had one great season and then disappeared.
We chose the players independently and in different fashions.
Interestingly enough, Parker chose a player from long before he was born and Marty chose a player from his childhood that he saw play in person many times.
Sources:
Baseball-Reference.com - Miguel Dilone (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dilonmi01.shtml)
Baseball-Reference.com - Jim Finigan (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/finigji01.shtml)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
31 Jul 2024
E11: One Hit Wonders Part 1
After a brief hiatus, Parker and Marty are back to talk about players who had one great season and then disappeared.
We chose the players independently and today's pair debuted 63 years apart.
Sources:
Baseball-Reference.com - Bill James (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jamesbi02.shtml)
Baseball-Reference.com - Mark Fidrych (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fidryma01.shtml)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
3 Jul 2024
E10: The 83rd Round Draft Pick
Most baseball fans know that 11-time Gold Glover first baseman Keith Hernandez was a 42nd-round draft pick and Hall of Famer Mike Piazza was drafted in the 62nd round, but did you know there was an 83rd-round draft pick that made it to the Major Leagues?
This is Danny Young's story.
Resources:
Danny Bracy Young on Baseball-Reference.com (Danny Bracy Young on Baseball-Reference.com)
Danny Bracy Young on B-R Bullpen (Danny Bracy Young on B-R Bullpen)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
19 Jun 2024
E9: Balk Off
I had a childhood friend who pitched in the Major Leagues. He regaled me with stories of facing Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, Mark McGwire and other superstars when we were in our early 20s.
One day he called me from the road to tell me the story of his first Major League save opportunity.
This is that story.
Sources for this episode are
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cookmi01.shtml)(Mike Cook)
The game in question (https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198607100.shtml)
My Shakey Memory
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
5 Jun 2024
E8: Twelve Minutes and Thirty Seconds
Most baseball players spend thousands of hours practicing, playing and learning about baseball on their way to the to the Major Leagues, IF they’re even good enough and lucky enough to be one of the tiny fraction of players that make it to the Big Leagues.
Some become stars and/or stick around for 10 or more years, living out their childhood fantasies.
Some go up and down between AAA and the Big Leagues and of course, there's everything in between.
Today, Parker and I talk about a pitcher whose dream came true on a rainy June evening at Citi Field in New York in 2010.
Jim Leyland once said “15 minutes in the Majors means you’re a great baseball player”, when describing how hard it was to make it to the Big Leagues.
That rainy day in New York, Jay Sborz fell about 2 and a half minutes short of that 15-minute mark as he debuted for the Detroit Tigers and the dream he had worked for most of his life came true, fell apart and ended, all within 12 minutes and 30 seconds…
Sources for this episode are
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sborzja01.shtml) (Jay Sborz)
YouTube.com (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Oof8hmAEiI&t=7745s) (Sborz enters the game around the 2:09:00 mark)
“Where Nobody Knows Your Name” (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Nobody-Knows-Your-Name/dp/0385535937)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
22 May 2024
E7: The Weirdest Game
One of the things Parker and I like to do is meander through baseball-reference.com in our free time. OK, we're not very exciting.
But every once in a while we come across a gem like the one that took place on July 6, 1916 between the Phillies and Reds.
It started as a blowout, with the Reds taking a 10-0 lead. Then the 9th inning happened.
Parker found this one and he tells the story of what he believes is the weirdest game he's heard of.
Sources for this episode:
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN191807060.shtml)
True Tales of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and this week mostly Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
8 May 2024
E6: The Unlikeliest Perfect Game
Phlip Humber was the third overall pick in the 2004 MLB draft, but things didn't go as planned. He spent years in the minors and was released twice before making the White Sox in 2011.
Then, on April 21, 2012, in Seattle in his second start of the season, Humber did something only 20 pitchers in MLB history had accomplished at that time.
25 of the outs were relatively routine. One required a leaping grab on the warning track. The last out is the story of the game.
This is the story of the unlikeliest perfect game ever and Humber's journey that followed.
Sources for this episode:
MLB.com (includes video of final out) (https://www.mlb.com/news/philip-humber-perfect-game-unlikeliest-in-mlb-history).
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Philip_Humber)
Wikipedia.com - Philip Humber's Perfect Game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Humber%27s_perfect_game)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and sometimes Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
24 Apr 2024
E5: 2016 Oakland A's
The 2016 Oakland A's were one of the first teams that Parker ever followed. They weren't very good, but they were full of interesting players with names like Coco and Dull, not to mention Rzepczynski (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rzepcma01.shtml) and Wendleken.
They lost 93 games, but many of their players went on to be World Champions and Superstars on other teams while others faded away, some for years before returning to MLB and some forever.
Parker explains how a kid from Texas became enchanted with a struggling team in Oakland, California and why he's nostalgic about the team enough for us to make a trip to O.co Coliseum this summer.
Sources for this episode include:
Baseball-Reference.com: The 2016 Oakland A's (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/2016.shtml)
Our eyes (No Link) and Brains (No Link)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and he is joined this week by Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
10 Apr 2024
E4: The Weirdness of the 1972 Atlanta Braves
Last week we learned about the strange case of Jimmy Freeman and his 11-walk, complete game debut for the 1972 Atlanta Braves, but this week Parker Coleman joins me to talk about the weirdness of the season Atlanta had that year and some of the characters who played, managed and surrounded the team.
Some of the stories detailed are Manager Lum Harris and his firing, Mike Lum, Earl Williams, Hank Aaron, Dusty Baker, Denny McClain, Tom House, Roland Office, and oh yeah, a game that ended in a tie.
Sources for this episode include:
The 1972 Atlanta Braves on Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/1972.shtml)
Tom House via Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_House)
July 4, 1972: Durocher, Cubs full of fireworks after sudden rain ends game in a tie (https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-4-1972-durocher-cubs-full-of-fireworks-after-sudden-rain-ends-game-in-a-tie/)
Lum Harris (https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/lum-harris/)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman and he is joined this week by Parker Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
27 Mar 2024
E3: The Debut
Our first two episodes involved relatively well-known stories written in one form or another by professional writers.
Today’s episode is different, this is one of the ones Parker and I found and fleshed out wandering through the pages of baseball-reference.com and as far as we can tell nothing has been written about the first time Jimmy Freeman toed a Major League rubber.
We set out to change that.
Sources for this episode are:
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/)
Jimmy Freeman on Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freemji01.shtml)
Box Score from Jimmy Freeman's Debut (https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL197209012.shtml)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
13 Mar 2024
E2: The Pitcher That Never Was
When I was a kid playing little league baseball Robin Yount was a model for a lot of us.
A hope and a dream that we were chasing at 12 years old.
After all, he was just a few years older than the kids playing for Coburg Dairy, Baskin-Robins and Avondale Pharmacy.
But Robin Yount at 18 years old after half a season in Single-A was a Major Leaguer playing the position where all the cool kids played - shortstop - while we were trying to figure out how to hit what passed for a curve ball.
But this isn’t about Robin, at least not directly.
It’s about Robin’s older brother Larry, who was also a Major Leaguer.
Well, kind of.
Sources:
Wikipedia - Larry Yount (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Yount)
MLB.com - Robin Yount's Brother Larry Holds Unusual Record (https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/robin-yount-s-brother-larry-holds-an-unusual-mlb-record)
Baseball-Reference.com - Larry Yount (https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=yount-001law)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
28 Feb 2024
E1: 1 of 1
Baseball-reference.com lists 23,114 Major League Players as of this recording.
If we assume half of those are pitchers and half are position players that gives us an estimate of 11,557 position players, almost all of whom have had a chance to bat.
Of those 11,557 batters, only one has hit for the same average in 4 consecutive seasons.
This is the story of that player…
References:
Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/daviskh01.shtml)
Thebaseballcube.com (https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/144251/)
MLB.com (https://www.mlb.com/news/khris-davis-hits-247-for-4th-straight-year-c296696156)
True Tails of the Big Leagues is a Seldom Used Reserve Podcast and is narrated by Marty Coleman.
Co-executive producers are Parker Coleman and Marty Coleman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
14 Feb 2024
True Tales from the Big Leagues Trailer
As a kid I fell asleep with a transistor radio tuned to Oakland A’s baseball games almost 2,800 miles away.
Listening to those games that originated from what might as well been the moon for a kid in South Carolina fascinated me.
It was a time when information was garnered from the back of baseball cards bought from the 7-11 with every penny of my allowance.
I still have thousands of those cards that my son and I occasionally reference.
The images on those cards are often hilarious, but the information on the back was the gold.
Far off birth places, remote minor league cities I’d never heard of and quirky statistics or oddities about the player were for me like being and archaeologist and discovering an unknown sarcophagus of an Egyptian King.
I was on a hunt for the unusual and unexpected and I’ve been hooked on the weird and unusual in baseball ever since.
My son and I bonded over baseball, but more than that, we’ve bonded over the weirdness of baseball…the player that hit .247 for four consecutive years, the 11-walk complete game debut, or the pitcher that won 108 games in 2 seasons...
Today we find these stories online and we share our discoveries with each other…it’s almost become a friendly competition to one up each other…And now we want to share our stories with you.
They’re silly, fascinating, weird, quirky and a lot of times unbelievable…
…these are True Tales of the Big Leagues..
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
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