Episode 316 - MLB's Strangest Opening Day Oddities

Introduction

0:00Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Two Strike Noise, your mom's all-time favorite, number one with the Bullet Baseball History Podcast. My name is Jeff. I'm one half of the show, as always. Joining me from the Pacific Northwest, the Mike Brumley Studios in Seattle, it is my co-host, Mark A. Johnston. Hello, Mark. Hi. Hey. Hey. You know why we are your mom's

0:36favorite? I don't know. I'll ask her later tonight. No, the reason is because you and I are both the kind of guys that girls like to bring home to mom. Yeah. I don't know about that. I didn't plan on being that way. It's just a little there. Well, I mean, I guess maybe once they get to know us, if it's based on appearance, probably less so. Well, yeah, it's always based on when they get to know us. You and I are both sort of an acquired taste. Growers, not showers, if you will.

1:10Wow. If you are listening to this with anybody under a certain age, I apologize. We're just

BP and 999 Challenge

1:16talking about flowers. All right. Let's change subjects. Let's just jump right into BP here, because this train's going off the rails here pretty quick. It is BP. This is our start of the season, our opening day episode. Very exciting. Baseball is back. Baseball is underway. There's baseball being played not particularly well by the New York Metropolitans, but Mark, another team, another team that's not playing particularly well, and I relish it. I love it. It's the San Francisco Giants.

1:49Yes. And I'm more excited to talk about something that the Giants are doing not well rather than on the field, because Matt Chapman's on that team. I like Matt Chapman. There's some guys I actually like on that team. But the Giants tried to do something cool, and they couldn't do it. They're like, no, we can't do it. We're not the A's. The old A's. We can't do it. So, Mark, I for one could care less what food that teams are serving at their ballparks this year.

Food at Ballparks

2:22Yeah. That's never my favorite segment on the pregame. Well, I mean, social media, that's all there is. It's, I don't know if they do it anymore, if I've ridded my time, ridded? I don't think that's a word. If I rid my timeline of college football uniform combinations for the upcoming week, like, I just don't, I don't care. It might be my, might be my old man yelling at a cloud moment for this, but I just, I could care less what weird thing you're serving at your ballpark. I know that the Giants are doing this thing that

2:56a couple of other teams are doing in the league. It's the 999 challenge. And it's, they're trying to be cool by embracing, like, this viral baseball meme, but they messed up on the biggest part of it, why people would want to be doing this. So the 999 challenge, if you don't know, it's, you drink nine beers, have nine hot dogs in nine innings. Can I do one per inning of each of those? So they are doing this in different forms at Citi Field, the Mets, Citizens Bank Ballpark, where I think this

3:27originated in Philadelphia, Coors Field, which kind of seems like a gimme, their Dakin Park, I think that's Houston now. And then here at Oracle Park for the Giants. So they're in on this, but first of

Special Jerseys

3:41all, the hot dogs are mini hot dogs. They're not, I mean, okay, now Dodger dogs are like a 12 inches. They're like a foot, like that obviously wouldn't work, but a regular hot dog, nope, can't do that. They're doing mini dogs. But the thing that really is ridiculous here, the beer, right? The beer is what people are probably most interested in here than anything. What they're offering, it's still larger than a regular beer. But when I say the beer, I mean the beer, a single beer for this 999

Ticket Stub Hunt

4:21challenge. They give you nine flight glasses. Oh lord. That you are then supposed to pour this singular beer into and just gently sip. It's not whiskey. Sip on it throughout the nine innings. I mean, first of all, by the third inning, it's going to be warm. I guess there are mini hot dogs. You don't need as much beer to wash it down, but just a fail. And they're getting roasted for it too. A fail on this. Yeah. I wouldn't call it a challenge. You can call

4:55it the nine nine. Nine nine? But not a challenge. It's, yeah. I mean, and I did just looking at the picture. I mean, I don't even know if it wasn't, it might've been AI even, but the flight glasses, which are larger than a shot glass, you know, if you poured the contents of that can, you wouldn't be able to fill up all nine of them. So you're not even getting a full flight glass full of beer. I think I could do the nine nine one. Oh, in one inning. All of it in one

Charlie Bennett Story

5:26inning. I could do the hot dogs. I guarantee you I could do the hot dogs. There's no way I could do the beer. I, I might be able to do one beer and it might take me nine innings. I can take it down in one. How's that? Well, let's, all right. If we, we double team this thing, then maybe we can, we can handle it. Another thing that there's too many of Mark are channels that baseball games are exclusively on. Oh my gosh. I hear this all the time from people. People know that I work for the

5:56Mariners or that I have this podcast. What is with all the channels we have to go to every day? It's different. And it's like, I know they're used to having root sports. Nothing we can do about it. No, no, no. But I will say this. So I'm a pirate. You can deduce what that means if you don't know what it means. So I don't care what channel the baseball games are on. I, I can get it right. I, I can get that channel. But the fact that I have to check to see what channel it's on is what makes me so angry. It's like an, it's like a new knives out mystery just to find out what channel MLB

6:31is hiding the content that they desperately want people to watch is on. It's so true. So like the Mets were on, or no, it was the Mariners last Sunday. It was on, they were on Peacock and who has Peacock? I mean, what is the big draw to Peacock that somebody other than a baseball fan needs for it? Do they show unaired episodes of Joey? What? No, no, but they do have three's company every episode. Oh, what about three's a crowd? They do. They have all of those too.

7:02All right. I can get those elsewhere though. I just, I'm just saying that's my, this is how I know Peacock. My wife puts it on the three's company channel. Well, I hats off to her for that. I don't mind it. I mean, it, you know, Janet, Chrissy, Cindy, Mr. Mr. Furley, the Ropers, Larry. Oh, I saw somebody posted a meme about Larry today. I was like, Whoa, nice. You know, I got my wife for her birthday. I got a birthday greeting from Richard Klein, Larry from three. Wow. He's still kicking. That's good. Yeah. He gave her a nice

7:38birthday greeting, said he wanted to take her to the Regal Beagle. He's got a script, you know, he's got a script that he just reads off of defending birthday graduation. Pick me up. I, I actually wrote this one for him. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah. He followed it pretty closely too. Nice. Well, I, I saw a meme here on what we're talking about of too many networks. There is a fake ad for a, you know, it says Rangers versus Phillies, but the first inning will be on FUBU. The second inning will be on Sling. The third goes through all of it. And then if it goes to extra innings,

8:12it's, it's, it's only fans for 10th and above and above and beyond. That's, is that where you can get the, when the White Sox play the Rockies? The White Sox play the Rockies. I, I don't, am I going to want to know what this joke is? No, that's just, that's the whole joke. Oh, I thought you were making some innuendo. No, no. I'm just saying, you know, if, if we're going to skip all the way down there, why not just give them the Rockies and White Sox? No offense to fans of either. Or fans of OnlyFans. Why? Go get your bag. Seriously, I, I, hey, if I could sell feet

8:50pics, I'd be on OnlyFans. I don't think anyone wants to see my feet. Oh, Lord, don't even know. You shouldn't even bring it up. Why? It's a good idea, right? Your feet? Yeah. You've never even seen my feet. Yeah. Never seen them. Don't want to. I'm a foot model. We know how George was a hand model. That's right. That's how I, that's how I get it. Let's see. Hey, let's do this. First of all, speaking of Seinfeld, did you see this? This is a real life Seinfeld episode in Major League Baseball. Kansas City rookie catcher Carter Jensen was scheduled to start against the twins

9:26on Thursday, but he overslept and turned up late, causing him to be scratched and leading the team's designated hitter Sal Perez to have to catch that day. Wow. He said, quote, I didn't wake up to my alarm, slept through it. If only he would have had somebody that could have called him a wake-up service. You know, I have a friend who has a wake-up service that she swears by.

Dave Bergman Quote

9:54That's a real life Seinfeld episode come to life right there. I love it. You think he was sleeping head to toe with somebody?

10:10Don't know. Probably not, but who knows? I don't know. Speaking of some, some weird, this seems like this could be a Seinfeld episode. Mountain Dew, right? I like Mountain Dew. I like some of the Mountain Dews. Let me say that. I like Diet Mountain Dew. I think it's a fine beverage. I'm a Code Red guy. I like the Code Red. Baja Blast, not my scene so much, but this is Mountain Dews doing a promo with Major League Baseball. You know, Mountain Dew is served at Taco Bell. I think that might be one of the only places you can get it fast food wise. And Taco Bell,

10:44you know what they're famous for. They're open late. You know, people that recreationally like to do things. It's a good thing that they're open late. That's what Taco Bell caters to a lot of times on their commercials. Well, they are doing a thing where every time somebody hits a home run of 420 feet or more, you can win a free drink. I think that's, I, I think that's on purpose. No. Yeah. I think that's totally on purpose. Oh, and by the way, Mountain Dew, this first commercial

11:16is free. Contact us. We, we do a 420 episode, you know, we will do one this year again. Most episodes technically are 420 episodes. So, you know, it's, wow. I think we, I think we should be in. Let's see this. The Rays back in Tropicana Field this year. I don't think they've, maybe they're opening today. I don't, I'm not sure. But jerseys that you can buy there in the stadium, their sponsor is Weeble.

11:47I don't know what it is. Sounds like Weeble, but no. W-E-B-U-L-L. That is their sponsor that is on their sleeve. And sewn into the logo of these special jerseys are parts of the Tropicana roof that came off during Hurricane Milton. Oh, wow. I think it's a great idea. I mean, it sucks that it's tied to a sponsor. To do this, you've got to wear something that shows you're a Weeble mark, I guess. But it's still a good idea. People always buy that stuff. It's got

12:21some weird connection to it. But if you're in Tampa Bay, go for it. Weeble, do you want to know what it is? Probably not, but what is it? It's an investing and trading company. Yeah, I don't want to know it is. Nothing matters. Wipe the memory there. Now, this is really cool. There is this thing called the Ticket Stub Hunt. And there is a big Carlton Fisk fan. They own carltonfisk.com. And what they are trying to do is to get a ticket stub from every game that Carlton Fisk caught.

12:59All 2,499 games. Wow. They only have 27 left. No way. I can't believe that. That's incredible. Yeah, they've got a list of them here. If you go to Carlton Fisk Collection on Instagram, I found this on Reddit, but Reddit baseball mods being the complete idiots they are, took it down. You know, something actually related to baseball. They wanted to let people post about, probably

13:30about food and other stuff that isn't serious. But this guy is doing some, I mean, he said when he started it, they were coming kind of fast and furious, but now he's lucky to get one or two a year. And he's down to 27 games in particular. And a couple of them are in Kansas City athletics. And those are going to be hard to track down, I'm guessing. But if you don't take a look at the list, if you've got some old ticket stubs, maybe you can help him out. All right,

14:00Mark, this is our opening day episode. I will give you exactly $634. If you could tell me who holds the record for most ceremonial first pitches on opening day. John Cena. And his name is John Cena. Was he there? I don't know. I didn't see him. Did you see? Nope, I didn't see him. So the record for most, and this is consecutive even, not even just, I've done this many, consecutive honorary

14:31pitches thrown on opening day is held by Detroit Wolverines catcher, Charlie Bennett. Okay. So Bennett had both of his legs amputated following a train accident in 1894. So you can guess as a catcher, even in 1894, not having legs hampers you a bit.

14:54Yeah, a bit. You block the plate, but I don't think they had to do a lot of blocking of the plate in 1894. Wild pitches might be a problem if there's runners on and throwing to second possibly. But so this train accident, he had his legs amputated. He was a well-known catcher, popular, very good defensively. He threw out the first pitch at Bennett Park, which was named after him and later became Naven Park until his death in 1927. That Naven Park, and I'm assuming

15:27Bennett Park is where the Tigers played before Tiger Stadium. Bennett was a top-notch defensive catcher. He was the first player to wear a chest protector as well. So I guess he was blocking balls at some point. It was a cork board under his jersey, but a tool of ignorance nonetheless is what I wrote. I could tell you more about him, but he is slated now for a whole episode because he's very interesting. Charlie Bennett. Nice. Then I wanted to give you one more quote here.

16:00This is a quote by Dave Bergman. Remember him? Speaking of the Tigers, that's where I remember him from. He said this about the Major League Baseball schedule. He said, quote, the guys who make up this schedule must have been in a room with a bottle, wild turkey, and 40 straws. End quote.

16:19Now, while funny, when Dave Bergman was playing, the schedule was made by hand by a husband and wife that would just chart these things out every year. Yeah, it wasn't until I'm guessing the last decade or so that computers and algorithms, but there used to be a husband and wife would map out the entire schedule for every team on these big charts. So, good quote. Just pretend you didn't hear me tell you the real story. Just remember the Dave Bergman quote, wild turkey, 40 straws, schedule.

16:54There you go. That's what matters. Kind of ruined my own story there. All right. Let's let the grounds who come out and do their stuff. They got to get out here. We've started very early because we've got, we got to roll the, what is our official color? What's the color of two strike noise? Wow. We don't know. Green because of all that money or. Hunter green?

17:13I, I love, green is my favorite color. I. So, mine too. So, I think we've decided. Is it, Hunter's a little dark. I like Hunter green, but it's a little dark for me. I like between Hunter and, and the A's, you know, swinging A's green, like somewhere, somewhere in the middle, but green. So, they're going to roll off the green carpet for, for player introductions. So, we're, we're here a little bit early. Mark, I wanted to do this.

Opening Day History

17:39I wanted to go over some games and events that happened on opening days throughout the year. Kind of some things that are noteworthy and we should talk about. So, first one I wanted to talk about is, let's go back to 1923, April 18th. Yankees, Red Sox, four to one. Yankees with the win. This would be the season the Yankees won their first World Series. It was also special because this was the house that Ruth built. It was officially opened. The original Yankee

18:12Stadium on opening day. And before the first game was even played there, Babe said, quote, I'd give a year of my life if I could hit a home run on opening day at this great new park. End quote. Hmm. I don't know, Mark, for somebody that inhaled hot dogs and beer the way that Babe did, I wouldn't be given years away of my life like that all willy-nilly. It's really tempting fate. Yeah, but he hit one, shockingly enough. Has there ever been a player who just like said stuff and then made it happen like it was supposed to? Because he hits a home run, three-run homer that made

18:46the difference for the Yankees four to one win over the Red Sox in 1923. Next one I wanted to talk about, 1926, the Senators and the Athletics. They played 15 innings. The Senators eventually win the game one to nothing. But this game was all about Walter Johnson, the big train. He started 14 season openers for the Senators. And in those games, he tossed a major league record seven shutouts on

19:17opening day. But this performance, 1926, is legendary. I think that's an understatement. He's 38 years old at this point, and he held the A scoreless for 15 innings. He only gave up six hits. He was matched, though. The A's starter, Eddie Rommel, he went the whole game as well. Complete game. 15 innings. Gave up that one. Bottom of the 15th, Hall of Famer Bucky Harris singled for Washington. Goose Gosling, another Hall of Famer, doubled him to third. And then Joe Harris

19:53singled him home for the winning run. Johnson faced 53 batters. Unfortunately, though, he was on a strict 500 pitch limit for the game. So he would have not made it out for the next inning had they not scored. That's where I was going with my, now I have nothing witty to say. I've stolen that from you. I apologize. Let's see, how about 1940? I mean, we've talked about this one quite a bit. Cleveland won, White Sox zero. Another one to nothing game. Comiskey Park, 1940. The only no-hitter

20:28in opening day history. I think that still stands, right? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, I would have assumed from the article I read, but I don't want to do that. It was thrown by Bob Feller, of course, Rapid Rob, Rapid Robert, I guess, the heater from Van Meter, just 21 years old at the time. It was the first of three no-hitters that he would throw in his career. 21 years old. I just, I watched the Pirates game. I was watching that before we started today with the shortstop, their big star. I forget

21:01what his name is. He doubled his first time up. You know, he gave him a billion dollar contract to a 19-year-old kid, Connor Griffin. So I was, yeah, I mean, 21 years old today, Connor Griffin, 19 years old for Pittsburgh, made his debut. These kids, young, these kids these days. Young and wealthy. Yeah, very wealthy. Yeah, I mean, you had to wait, right? You had to wait. Even in the big leagues, you had to kind of be frugal as a rookie. Yeah. Who knows how long you're going to be there?

21:35Yep. And now this guy comes right out of high school. Well, not right out. He was drafted in 2024. So played a year in the minors, but still at least a year. These contracts, sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're Evan Williams. Sometimes they're, yeah, I mean, the Mariners did two of them in a row, right? Evan, not Evan Williams. That's whiskey. Evan White. Yes. And then what the, the center fielder before Julio, rookie of the year. Oh, oh, Kyle Lewis. Kyle Lewis. Did he have one of those? I don't know if they had, I don't, I don't remember. But I mean,

22:08that goes to show though, right? Rookie of the year. Everyone's like, oh, this guy, this kid's going to be great. And then nothing. Yeah. And I mean, it's just, it's such a crap shoot. They, they offered Kelnick one, a contract. Oh boy. And he said, no, geez, he's kicking himself. Oh boy. Jerry DiPoto wouldn't have a job if that would happen. Colt Emerson though, they did sign to a contract. Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. The Mariners seem to be doing that more than anybody, but I mean, the Mariners are going to Mariner. So. Ouch. Well,

22:42I mean, Cals can't have the year he had last year and they just gave him a huge contract. Julio's sitting on a huge contract and I'm not going to, I'm not going to just rag on the Mariners here. Let's move on. Let's see. 1940 was the last thing we talked about. 1946 opening day, Boston Braves. This was, you'll remember this Mark. You might've even been there. Boston Braves fans arrived early. Well, not early. They arrived for opening day to find the outfield stands had been given a fresh coat of the Emerald Green of Fenway Park. Unfortunately, due to, I think that the Braves played at Fenway.

23:20I might be, it might be West End grounds or something like that. I don't remember, but if it's Emerald Green, I'm just assuming it's Fenway, but we're talking about the Braves here. It had been kind of cold and damp that spring in Boston though. So the paint that had been applied several days before had not dried yet because of the weather and nobody thought to worry about it. So hundreds of fans sit down to watch the game and when they get up to go get their, whatever meme item, the, the concession stands are selling, whatever social media trend they've got going on

23:55in Fenway, they stood up and found green stripes across and they wore business suits, remember? And they dressed up and fur coats and all that kind of stuff. They had green stripes on the back of them. The fans revolted during the game and stormed the executive offices. The team took out a full page ad apologizing and they ended up paying thousands of dollars in dry cleaning bills for fans who had clothes that were affected. Wow. I've been to plenty of ballparks where nothing's ready

24:29on opening day and you're just skating by. So I get it, but that one's costing them money. Let's see 1947. Of course, something historical on opening day, 1947 for the Dodgers. One of the most important games in the history of baseball. Jackie Robinson makes his major league debut 26,623 on hand at Ebbets field in Brooklyn. The Dodgers come from a rundown in the bottom of the seventh. They score three times and win five to three with Jackie scoring the go ahead run.

25:02Great player. I don't know. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of this. Jackie Robinson is a hell of a player. Yeah. Someone should have, someone should have signed him. I'm surprised more people aren't like wearing his uniform number and they're not making movies about him and stuff. Yeah. Odd. Let's see. How about 1969 Mark up in your neck of the woods. My old part of the woods, the Seattle pilots played their first ever game in Anaheim on April 8th. They won four to four to three, putting them in first place for the

25:42first and only time. But the true opening day in Seattle happened three days later. Six stadium, former minor league park, home of the Rainiers at that point, they renovated it quickly and not well to meet major league baseball standards. Kind of like Sacramento, I guess. On opening day, the stadium, famously still a construction site. Hundreds of fans arrived with tickets to seats that had not yet been installed. So they put a bunch of folding chairs, relocated people to unfinished bleachers.

26:18The pilots did come away victorious in a very White Sox move. The pilots shut out the White Sox seven to nothing. Yes. Gary Bell, nine hit, complete game shutty, even drove in two runs with a double in the six, the complete MVP game for Gary Bell. I don't know how long he pitched after that, but I'm guessing that was a heck of a day. Yep. He had a good day. All right. How about 1974? The Reds in Atlanta,

26:48seven to six Cincinnati with the win. The game was probably most memorable for, I'm sorry, this is in Cincinnati, April 4th. Probably most memorable, but the most memorable though, because of Atlanta, historic moment, Henry Aaron's 714th career home run. He started the season just one shy of Babe Ruth's all-time record. Didn't make face baseball fans wait long. First inning, bam, three run shot his first day B ties it. Then he promised he wouldn't do it again until they got back to Atlanta, which he

27:25did. They sat him in the second game. He did play in the third game, but like, how are you not like, I mean, he's not trying to hit home runs, but he's just trying to make contact. Sometimes you hit a home run. Sure. But he did it. He, they waited obviously until they got back to Atlanta and he broke it there. I was going to say that's in Cincinnati. If Marge shot would have been the owner at that point, she would have been pissed off. This is true. Make him hit a home run. Make him try. Oh my God. So speaking of Marge shot, we will do very little because we hate Marge shot

28:03as everyone should. As ever again, I will say this. She had at least a redeeming quality. She loved animals. She gave a lot of her money to animal charities, zoos, that kind of stuff. Of course, Shotzi, she loved her dogs. Awful racist, racist woman. Just an awful woman though. Besides that though, April 1st, 1996, umpire John McSherry, who had been not behind the plate, but he'd been an umpire for over two decades as an umpire. He'd worked over 3000 games. He was behind

28:38the plate though, for some of the biggest moments of baseball in the seventies and eighties. He was behind the plate for game six of the 77 World Series when Reggie Jackson went deep three times on three pitches. He was also the guy who called Sid Bream safe on that slide in the 92 NLCS that Mike LaVallier swears up and down to this day that he was out. But in the mid nineties, he had become a little large. He had some health scares on April 1st, seven pitches into the season. And this was back

29:13when Cincinnati played the first game on opening day, as was tradition. Always. But John McSherry had a heart attack behind home plate after the first seven pitches of the season. His heart stopped. He collapsed while walking towards the tunnel and medical staff tried to resuscitate him, but he passed away shortly there. I just remember the shots of him right there. And then people kind of surrounded him kind of holding things up, I think, so you couldn't see what was going on. And players were so shaken that they refused to play, forcing an opening day postponement. The city,

29:47the league, the team was in shock. But Red's dictator, Marge Schott, was focused on something more important in her mind, the logistics of her empty stadium. She was pissed. She went on a tear. She complained to the national league. She complained to the national league office about the screwy decision is what she called it to postpone the game. And then she gave the media a quote that stuck with her forever. And it should, she says, quote, I feel cheated. This isn't supposed to happen to us, not in Cincinnati. End quote. Wow. This is the woman who just six

30:24years earlier was reportedly furious that her own 1990 Red's swept the A's in the World Series. So instead of celebrating a championship at Riverfront Stadium in front of a sellout crowd, she missed out on the revenue of possibly game six or seven. I'm not even going to go into what she, what she called Eric Davis and Dave Parker. I'm not going to go down that path. But Marge decided that something an actual human being person might do in the situation where an umpire has passed away

31:00in your stadium would be to send flowers with a note expressing her real human emotions of which she totally had down to the umpire's room. But instead of buying a new arrangement, she just took a bouquet of flowers that had been sent to her earlier that day by the team's TV affiliate, scribbled a note and sent it and sent the re-gifted flowers down to the umpire's room. Problem solved. She wipes her hands of it until she was busted by the local press who knew exactly

31:31where that bouquet had come from. Brutal. I'm sure she apologized. Right. And wholeheartedly. Yeah, probably no doubt donated money to put his kids through, put his kids through college or something. I'm sure that is something that she would totally do. Marge shot. People I don't miss at all. Marge shot. Just saying. All right, that'll do it for our opening day runaround. I don't know.

32:06We were kind of all over the place there. But there are our opening day oddities. Were there any real... I know we had a couple of guys to open the season this year that started the season and their careers with home runs in three consecutive games. Yeah, I saw that. Trying to think if there was anything else. Paul Skeens had his shortest career outing on opening day. But I think that's all I got.

32:36That's it. That's it. All right. So with that, producer Mitch showed up today. He's in his opening day best. His powder blue tuxedo. With a powdered wig to go with it. Oh, I thought that was... I thought he was just trying out something new with his weave. But no, I guess you're right. Yeah. No, it's a Mozart type thing. Oh, okay. But he shaved the side. So it's like a Mozart mohawk. Mohawk sort. There you go. Oh, I think we've just come up with something. Let's...

33:07I'm going to hold off on posting this episode until we can get that trademarked. Yes. You'll be able to find out about it on our fashion podcast, which is of course called Hair Raising. Is it though? That seems more like a hair-related podcast. Well, that's what this is about, is the hair. The fashion podcast that I co-host is actually called Dressed to the 69s. But I guess I do that with Mitch. That's why you didn't know.

33:38And you don't listen. So thanks. No, I don't even listen to our show. Join the crowd.

33:45I can double our demographic if I just listen. Oh, wait. You think I listen? No. Hell no. Thank you, listeners, though. We appreciate so much he does. Let's do it. Mitch is... Oh, he's taking the wig off. He's waving it around like a helicopter above his head. So that means it is time for our final segment of the show. It's time for Wax Pack Heroes.

Wax Pack Heroes Introduction

34:05How, everybody, and welcome to today's edition of Wax Pack Heroes. You know, Wax Pack Heroes backwards is so a cat sow. Hey, he-he. The rules were simple.

34:44Jeff and Mark are here from Two Strike Noise. Long-time friends of mine, Jeff and Mark. They're going to play an old-fashioned game of war. But instead of using playing cards, they're going to be using Budweiser's. Hey, what? That... Okay, no. They're going to be using baseball cards. That makes much more sense. They'll be using War of the Year of the Cards. And whoever has the highest war that round wins.

35:14Cubs win. Cubs win. Cubs win. Cubs win. Just like that. But there are extra factors, Arnie's telling me, that can add or subtract from their war totals. 1980s baseball aesthetics. There you go. Extra points. Hall of Famer. Bud Lover. Extra points. And if they have a pop culture reference, like they were in a Budweiser commercial, extra points.

35:47But whoa, Nellie. If they appeared in Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or Sabrina the Cage Witch, they get a whole extra point. Or if Nolan Ryan or Ricky Henderson show up, the round is over and we drink Budweiser's. Hey! But they can also lose points if they show up in the Mitchell Report or are on the do-not-talk-about list.

36:18You know who I think should be on that list, Arnie? Mark Gretzelonick. That guy's name is too difficult. They can also get more points if they lead the league in any good categories that season. If they want any warrants. And if they have a Costacos brother poster. Oh boy, I could go for some tacos.

36:49I love tacos. But if they top the leaderboard in something bad, like airs or spilling Budweiser's, they're going to get a minus point. So, no. Hey, let's wrap this up and go get some tacos and some Budweiser. Now, let me hear you. A one, a two, a three, waxed pack heroes.

37:22All right.

Wax Pack Heroes Game

37:23Harry always loved an opening day. The Budweiser would always flow freely on opening day. Mark, looking at our scoreboard, we are tied at nine apiece. It's a race to 11 to see who is going to win this next title. This is tightened up. Yeah. We are still going to be working off of these cards of 2,003 tops. We've probably got another two or three episodes, if I'm being honest with these cards. So, let's see. I won last week by going first.

37:54I will let you choose what you want to do. You want to go first or you want to go second? I want to go first. All right. That seems to be the winning position. All right. Your card, Mark, is a season highlights card. Sean Green with the Dodgers. Sean Green hits nine home runs in one week. Wow. That's a good week. Very apropos that we're in the middle of Passover and we pull a Sean Green card. There you go. Isn't he the, doesn't he have the most home runs by a Jewish player of Jewish descent in

38:31Major League Baseball history or something? I don't know. What about the Hebrew Hammer? Was there a movie called the Hebrew Hammer? But I know who you're talking about. Green, Hank Greenberg. Hank Greenberg. Let's take a look. Hank Greenberg. Well, Hank Greenberg lost three years, prime years to the military. He hit 331. Sean Green hit three. Oh, Sean Green hit 328. So, yeah, I think Hank Greenberg might be the answer to that. Barely. But good call. Nice. Nice recall.

39:01I like it. Let's see. Sean Green, 15 years in the big leagues, seven with Toronto, five with the Dodgers, two with the D-backs, and two with the Mets in 2003. Let's see. Hit 280, 355 on base, 460 slug for a 116 OPS plus. He had 19 home runs, 85 ribs, six stolen bases, and a 2.1 war. Nothing on this card is going to help you out.

39:35Let's see. Never won a World Series. Very good comparable names that he is compared to here. First round draft pick, 16th overall by the Blue Jays in 1991. Traded by the Blue Jays to the Dodgers for Pedro Barbone and Raul Mondesi. And that's really the only names that he was traded for.

40:00Oh, Nick Kurtz last year matched Green's 19 total bases in one game when he had that four homer game. Yes. Or three. Was it four or three? Only Jewish major leaguer Hank Greenberg with more home runs or RBIs than Green missed games on Yom Kippur. It's like Sandy Koufax with those playoff games that he missed. I guess they were World Series games. Stanford University.

40:32I'm not seeing, I'm seeing a lot of information, but I'm not seeing anything that is going to help you out. I got some pop culture here. Oh, oh, I see it. Yeah. Made a cameo appearance on the series premiere of the hit show Numbers. It is doing on, doing, doing a lot of heavy lifting there. And from the core and on the Nick Cannon show. Yeah. We're going to not talk about Nick Cannon. He's on the dental list. Yeah. Yes. Nick Cannon is on the dental list. But yeah, no, that is, that is absolutely some pop culture.

41:04You get half a point for that. Walk-up songs were Be Yourself by Audioslave and song number two by Blur. I can sing them both. Oh, also a playable character in Backyard Baseball. There is pop culture right there if you wouldn't have had it before. That's good right there. All right. So you're at a 2.6 for Sean Green. I, oh, I've got a Hall of Famer. Uh-oh. With the Rockies. Todd Helton. The Todd. That's not his nickname, but I'm, I'm watching the new Scrubs season.

41:37Season, so the Todd is on my mind. The Todd father, 17 years. Every one of them with the Colorado Rockies. Hall of Famer. 2003, good news for me, all-star year. Got MVP votes as well. Hit .358, a .458 on base. 6.30 slug for a 165 OPS plus. 33 homers, 117 RBI, a 6.3 war.

42:11Wow. 2000, he had an 8.9 war and came in fifth in the MVP voting. Wow. 6.3. He's a Hall of Famer. That's 7.3. He was an all-star. That's 7.8. Did he get a gold glove that year? I know he won some gold gloves. No, he did not win a gold glove that year. First round draft picked by the Rockies in 95.

42:36I'm not too worried about this round, if I'm being honest. I think you're okay.

42:42War number 17 is a tribute to Chicago Cubs first baseman, Mark Grace. We've talked about he was the backup quarterback to Peyton Manning at the University of Tennessee, and he's been arrested several times for DUI. I wasn't going to go there, but I figured the game was over. It's not dental, but I'm going to call them out. We've got to call them out. I mean, that's just stupid. If you're a baseball player that made the amount of money that he has made in his career to not just call an Uber, a cab, whatever.

43:16He made over $161 million in contract money. He can call an Uber black at this point. I think he could do it. But over and over, he's getting DUIs. So I'm just going to say he's an idiot calling it. All right, your next card is son of a longtime Oakland Athletics strength and conditioning and first base coach here with the St. Louis Cardinals. It is first baseman Chris Duncan, founder of his dad was the founder of Duncan Donuts

43:50or his grandfather, because I already told you his dad was right. I'm making that up 100 percent. Brother of Shelly Duncan, son of Dave Duncan. Overall, five years in the big leagues. All of it was with St. Louis. Bad news for you. I don't know if it's bad news or not. He didn't make his major league debut until 2005.

44:11So that points for having an ESPN radio show. I don't think so. Stully and Duncan.

44:18Yeah, I just I just don't think it's very local. Oh, like unless you're in St. Louis, you're not going to hear that show. Oh, he had a brain tumor, underwent chemotherapy. I hope he's doing well. He's not. Oh, he is not doing it all. I'm unfortunately he passed away in 2019. Yikes. I did not. I knew that because we've had him before, but obviously I didn't remember. R.I.P. Sorry about that. That was kind of insensitive of me. I'm not going to lie.

44:49All right. So that will be a zero for you, which we have had zeros be effective before. Oh, you bet. I don't think it will be here because I have a tanning bed enthusiast here with the twins. Somebody I saw play a lot in the minor leagues. Denny Hawking. Not Steven. This is Denny. Not related in any way, shape or form.

45:21Thirteen years in the big leagues. Eleven with Minnesota, one for Colorado, one for Kansas City. In 2003, his final year with the twins, he hit 239, 291 on base. A 362 slug for a 71 OPS plus. Three home runs, 22 ribs, and a 0.5 war. That's good enough. Now, he does have sunglasses on in this shot. I don't know if he's, if he got busted for something. Well, now it would. The sunglasses have saved me here.

45:53Now, Denny Hawking, he's not the guy that got sunburned in the tanning bed. I rescind that comment. It was somebody else that played for the twins. Who was it? I think it was another like utility outfielder. Well, let's see here. Let's just go back and make sure. No, I don't think it was. I don't remember who it was. Who burned themselves and couldn't play because they were, I think they were on the Orioles at that point.

46:28Marty Cordova. Marty Cordova. There you go. Thank you. Sure. Well, he hit a full court shot right before halftime in a basketball game in high school. Nice. That, okay. He's got twins, fraternal twins, and they were both selected in the NWSL draft in 2023. Wow. Good for him. Yeah, good genetics. Also worked with Rob Dibble a bit on Fox Sports Radio, but nothing there that's really pop culture related.

47:02But I don't need it. I'll take it. I'm up two to nothing. I like the way this is going so far. This is a struggle, but we're not done yet. Well, let's see. You've got outfielder here. Well, it's a first year card, so he might have not played. Nothing on his cards can help you out. With the Blue Jays, it's Alexis Rios. Let's see. Alexis Rios, 12 years in the big leagues, 6 with Toronto, 5 with the White Sox, 2 for the Rangers, 1 for the Royals.

47:32In 2003, he spent the year in the minor leagues. So, that is your second zero in a row. Not drawing well here. Let me just double check this card and make sure. He's got, you know, he's cleanly shaven. There is no hint of stirrup under his high tops and nothing on his head. No sweatbands, nothing. A couple comments. Oh, hold on. First round draft pick by the Blue Jays in the 99 draft, 19th overall.

48:08What else you got? Oh, wow. Won a Fielding Bible Award for right field. Yeah. Which is awesome. And hit for the cycle once.

48:17All right. I'll take it. You know, he had his moments. Well, he's a good player. I mean, he had a good career. He played for, what did I say, 11 years? 277 career batting average, 169 home runs. I mean, yes, please. Yeah, exactly. Just no pop culture. So, that is another zero for you. And, well, I think this is going to be a sweep. Oh. First of all, just because on the card he's got eye black and no batting gloves.

48:51We know why he didn't wear batting gloves. Because he would toughen his hands up in spring training. It is catcher for the Yankees on this Sporting News All-Stars card, Georgie Posada.

49:07No, no Seinfeld though, right? He was never on. I don't believe so, no. I don't think he was. Let's see. Jorge, nephew of Bruce Brubaker. From the 70s cop show. Well, if you look at this picture, it looks like it. 67 for the Dodgers. He appeared in one game. And then in 1970 for the Brewers, he appeared in one game. I mean, you're on baseball reference. I'll take it.

49:37Absolutely. Let's see. Overall, of course, 17 years for Jorge Posada. All of it with the Yankees. 2003, he was an all-star. He hit .281, .405 on base. Wow. .518 slug for a .144 OPS. Plus 30 home runs, 101 ribs for a 5.9 war. The highest of his career. He was an all-star, third in MVP voting. I don't think he was ever nipped on steroids for anything.

50:14Again, it doesn't matter. I'm going up against a zero here. Thanks a lot. Is that what you just called me? Yep. Ouch. Your team name is The Zeros here today. Apparently today it is. Jeez. Yeah. I thought there was some pop culture stuff. It doesn't look like there's anything that's really necessary. Co-wrote a book. No, not really. Yeah. But you know what? It doesn't matter. I'll take it. Yes, you will. Easy win. Like, that's an easy win.

50:44Like, we might have had a position player in there at the end. I'm not sure. Wow. I checked out. Wow.

50:53I was down. I was hitting the spread early. I got pulled because we were ahead so much. So, get the rest of the day off. All right. That'll give me ten wins to your nine, Mark.

51:05Only halfway through that season. Hey, that's going to wrap it up for this edition of Wax Packs Heroes. I'm also going to do it for this show in its entirety. If you want more of us, you can find us on the internet. We are at Two Strike Noise. T-W-O Strike Noise. All the links are in the show notes. You can Google us. I'd like to mention I do stream three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday on Twitch and YouTube where we do a lot of games. I've got some games now where chat gets involved.

51:38We play Feud Friday. On Fridays, we try to get the number one squares in the Immaculate Grid, which is sometimes hard. We got eight this week. Eight of them. No, I'm sorry, seven. It's because I messed up and I put Sammy Sosa in the wrong box and he needed to be in the other box. And then Ryan Sandberg would have been the obvious choice and we would have got all nine as the top number one choices. But we also place we did this, Mark. We played Wikipedia speed runs where we take a random word and then try to connect it on Wikipedia as fast as we can.

52:15And we generally choose a word that is vaguely related to baseball. So, like, today we went from, I don't remember what we started, but we went to Peanuts. And so I went to, like, Jimmy Carter and then looked for Peanuts there. Then I realized I had accidentally hit Peanuts the comic strip, so we all had to take a little detour to get there. But we got a lobby going so that if you're there live with us, you can join and just see how awful I am at that game.

52:48It's fun, but I'm awful at it. We play starting nine, daily walk off, a bunch of these things. So if you want to join us, you can also watch the VOD, just see what we've been up to. Because we're probably not going to be around next week because I'm going to be out of town doing vaguely baseball stuff. Vaguely related. But if you want, though, while we are gone, you can listen to old episodes or you can just email Mark repeatedly at this email address that he's going to talk about. Well, no, I don't want to say it. I'm just kidding.

53:18Two Strike Noise. Spell it out. T-W-O-Strike Noise at gmail.com. Very nice. Like I said, I'm going to be out of town. So if you want to just hit that email as many times, just tell them what you're doing. If it's mundane, the more mundane, the better. Just light up that email box. Thank you all for listening to if you're still listening to us. I don't know. I wouldn't be. I'm sorry. Did you say something? I wasn't listening. See, exactly. Thank you for listening.

53:49We do appreciate it. We are, like I said, we're probably not going to be here next week, but we'll be here the week after that. We'll get back on to our regular schedule. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you again on the next episode of Two Strike Noise. Thank you. God bless you. Have a great day.

54:05We'll be right back.

54:35We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.