Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about players snacking on the field and a baseball equivalent of the EGOT before (23:01) Ben brings on Ron Shelton, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of Bull Durham and the author of The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham, to reminisce about Shelton’s minor league career, how conditions in the minors have evolved, the future big leaguers he played with, why Crash Davis didn’t stick in the majors, sports-movie verisimilitude, how he wrote Annie Savoy, Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, why Bull Durham almost didn’t get made, the golden age of baseball movies, Bull Durham as a TV series, an MLB game in Durham, his other baseball projects, and more. Then (1:04:02), Ben and Meg talk to well-traveled 45-year-old pitcher Chris Oxspring of the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox about his baseball origin story, his path through indy ball, affiliated ball, Japan, South Korea, and the Olympics, culture shock and the language barrier, his cup of coffee with the Padres, the development of baseball in Australia, the knuckleball’s future, being a player-coach, the toll being a baseball player takes on one’s family, Australian slang, and how long he can keep pitching. Finally (1:50:04), they end with a Past Blast from 1956 and a few follow-ups.
Audio intro: Fruit Bats, “The Ruminant Band”
Audio interstitial 1: Concrete Blonde, “It’ll Chew You Up and Spit You Out”
Audio interstitial 2: Toner, “Ox ’45”
Audio outro: Frazey Ford, “One More Cup of Coffee”
Link to EGOT Facebook thread
Link to EGOT winners
Link to Academy Juvenile Award
Link to Historic Achievement Award
Link to Lou Brock Award
Link to The Church of Baseball
Link to Shelton’s B-Ref page
Link to Shelton’s IMDb page
Link to ’69 Ports article 1
Link to ’69 Ports article 2
Link to ’69 Ports article 3
Link to Everybody Wants Some!!
Link to Everybody Wants Some!! pod
Link to Ben’s Remake Necessity Score
Link to Ben on movie analytics
Link to story on minor league owners
Link to private equity minors story
Link to players born in Australia
Link to Joe Quinn’s SABR bio
Link to Oxspring’s SABR bio
Link to Oxspring’s B-Ref page
Link to Oxspring’s Blue Sox page
Link to Oxspring’s Instagram
Link to Oxspring’s MLB clips
Link to 2014 story on Oxspring
Link to Kent-Oxspring Cup story
Link to story about leaving Lotte
Link to Ben on the knuckleball
Link to Australian slang
Link to Ben on international The Bachelor
Link to 1956 story source
Link to EW on Mays documentary
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to Belt on chicken tenders
Link to Ritz opening story
Link to Pirates job tweet
Link to Pirates job posting
Link to laser measurements story
Link to LIDAR post
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