The Best PosCast Idea Ever!

How great is it to have baseball again? Shohei homers (to the delight of Tom Hanks!) Adley says, “I’m back, baby!” Phillies strike out 19 times and still win! Aroldis Chapman gets a cheap win for Boston (wait, he’s on the Red Sox now?). Ichiro absolutely fires in the first pitch!

Oh baseball, you fill my heart.

We’ve already given you some 21,058 words — many of them spelled correctly — about baseball this week in our four-day baseball preview:

So today, we’re keeping it light and loose. Welcome to all our new readers. This is what we do here. And to celebrate baseball being back, we’re extending our 29% sale through the weekend. Be a part of the fun!

On the PosCast this week, Mike and I sort of stumbled upon our best-ever idea — a low bar, yes, but we get lucky now and again. You can listen to the podcast for all the rambling details, but essentially the idea is this: Baseball should stop for two weeks every July for a barnstorming tour.

I’ll give you an example using this year: The All-Star Game is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15. That means the Home Run Derby is Monday and baseball will be “off” the usual four days, July 14-17.

Our idea is that baseball would break from July 7 to 20, 14 days. And here’s what would happen during those 14 days.

Each team would play a series of determined lengths — we’ve already heard suggestions ranging from two to four games — somewhere other than a Major League city. In our imagination, these series could be anywhere. For starters, I’d play a series in Nashville, I’d play a series in Buffalo, I’d play a series in Charlotte, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Birmingham (again), maybe the Field of Dreams, somewhere in Hawaii, how about Boise, basically every non-MLB city mentioned in Huey Lewis’ “Heart of of Rock and Roll and more.”

And there would be some international games too. This would be an ideal time to play in Japan. In London. In Mexico City. In Berlin. Maybe there’s a game in the Dominican Republic. South Korea. We’d do this every year, so the opportunities will be almost endless.

And then on the final weekend, you’d play the All-Star Game as a big old crashing drum solo to baseball’s barnstorming party.

You can say we are dreamers … but we’re not the only ones. Baseball could do this. It would mean shortening the season to 154, but they could do that. It would mean convincing owners to give up home games, but we both believe this idea would generate more than enough revenue to make up for that. It would mean approval from the players, but why would they not approve a big old break in the middle of the season?

I’m telling you: This would be so exciting—so much fun.

Come on, Rob. We’re waiting by the phone. Let’s do this.

This thought from our pal Jeff Sackmann: He writes that Boog Powell is the most not-quite-useful Immaculate Grid player based on the clues because:

This is exactly the sort of insight we’re looking for here at JoeBlogs.

So, I wrote the narration for this movie, “The Diamond King” about baseball artist (and all-around wonderful guy) Dick Perez. Well, it’s about to be released for your streaming pleasure — April 25, 2025! Dick was for years the official artist of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but perhaps you will remember him best for painting the awesome Diamond Kings Donruss baseball cards. Come to see the amazing John Ortiz read the words I wrote. Stay for some Bob Kendrick magic.

Here’s the trailer:

Time today for one “Ask Joe” question. For those of you who are new, we try to do Ask Joe once a week (and if you have an Ask Joe question, simply email it here.

Fantastic question, Stella — I guess part of the answer revolves around what you mean by “started their career with that team.” For example, I’d definitely call Jeff Bagwell a homegrown icon for the Astros. He started his professional career with the Red Sox, but then he started his big league career with Houston. Roberto Clemente technically started with the Dodgers, but again began his major league career in Pittsburgh.

I’ll assume you want to start the clock when they join the big league club.

I’m looking at the teams and thinking about iconic players. Most of the big ones — Ripken in Baltimore, Rose in Cincinnati, Brett in Kansas City, Kaline in Detroit, Banks on the Northside, Ruth and Mantle and DiMaggio and the rest in the Bronx, Teddy Ballgame in Beantown, Yount in Milwaukee, Musial and Pujols in St. Louis, Gwynn in San Diego, Griffey and Ichiro and Seattle, these are obviously players who started their careers there.

But there are plenty of other examples. Reggie Jackson is an iconic Yankee even though he didn’t play in New York for very long. For that matter, I think Paul O’Neill is an iconic Yankee even though he grew up in Ohio and started with Cincinnati. Joe Carter is an iconic Blue Jay. Minnie Miñoso is an iconic White Sox (White Sock?), Randy Johnson an iconic Diamondback, Greg Maddux an iconic Brave. Mr. Marlin, Jeff Conine, started in Kansas City. I’m sure our BRs will come up with plenty of others.

The question is in direct reference to Juan Soto — can he become an iconic Mets player? I think yes, of course he can. Juan Soto signed what is basically a lifetime deal (assuming no opting out). And if he crushes, he will become an icon on the scale of Tom Seaver. In the same way, Bryce Harper is and will be an iconic player for Philadelphia.*

Shohei will be a forever Dodgers icon, there’s no doubt in my mind about that.