You Wanted More Baseball Talk? We're Giving You More Baseball Talk, Red Line Radio EP98 Is LIVE
So as you know, Red Line Radio started as a Chicago baseball podcast. Carl and I thought it’d be cool to cohost a dual podcast seeing as we’d be breaking down two teams on the complete opposite of the competitive spectrum. Now obviously it has since expanded to an all inclusive Chicago sports podcast (sorry Bulls) and we’ve locked down some grade A guests, but there are true OG listeners that have asked Carl and I to get back to basics now that baseball is here. A few notes on that:
1. Of course the show is going to be extremely baseball heavy now that it’s baseball season; it’s just hard to talk about the same shit all winter without getting stale
2. Eddie and Chief are the very best at what they do and
3. Carl and I are spinning the wheels on a Friday afternoon live periscope show or some shit. We’re starting to hammer out logistics on it now.
Nevertheless – episode 98 was extremely baseball heavy. My favorite part of Red Line Radio by FAR is getting the city’s opposing fanbases engaged in debates like who’s better between X player vs. Y player or breaking down the innards of the game.
Now this week the topic was, as anyone with a brain could guess, Tim Anderson. Anderson was the talk of not just the baseball world, but maybe the entire sports world last week. Most people agree that his ejection/suspension was bullshit for the most part. Those same people think Keller’s bean ball was fine and he executed it perfectly. Other people think Anderson doesn’t have the track record to be able to get pumped up after pissing on a ball, and Brad Keller should be tarred and feathered for throwing a projectile 95MPH or whatever at Anderson’s ass.
Regardless of your opinion on how everything unfolded, one thing cannot be denied: eyeballs were on Anderson and the White Sox this week, and for the first time in a LONG time not in a negative way.
It reminds me of that scene in The Social Network where Eduardo tells Sean Parker that he’s heard about the girls and the drugs and Parker looks at Eduardo and asks, “you know what I’ve heard about you?” then passive aggressively whispers
“nothing”
Just cold blooded. All pub is good pub, as they say.
Other topics of note:
– Kyle Hendricks is back. We’ve talked over and over again about how it takes a few starts into the year for a sinker ball pitcher to get in the groove because a sinker ball almost requires a “tired” arm in order to be effective. Sinker ball pitchers with fresh, early season arms get too much backspin on their pitches which causes sinkers to ya know, not sink due to said back spin. Low and behold, Hendricks dominated his last start
– More on sinkers; we explain why the sinker is kind of a dying a pitch. Launch angle is the new “in” phrase and hitters are trying to hit the ball in the air as much as possible. “Hard and on the ground, make the defense work” is an archaic way of hitting. Hitters are swinging with upper cuts and now more than ever, an average hitter’s bat path lines up perfectly with the plane of a sinker, causing sinkers to get hit to the moon.
– We break down Jose Abreu’s early season struggles. I say it’s not his typical early season slow start and theorize that he might be in actual physical decline due to his high K rate/ abnormally high barrel rate. I really hope I’m incorrect
– Patrick Kane was named Captain of Team USA
– NFL Draft talk for about 5 mins
– Game of Thrones talk: is Dany the biggest twat in the 7 kingdoms? Was episode 2 any good? Should the writers have just combined Ep1 and Ep2 into one episode? We also pair Chicago sports teams/fanbases to different houses in the show. Spoiler: White Sox fans are wildlings; free folk savages
Really good show that is without an interview and again, HEAVY on baseball talk
Download, rate, subscribe, review ALL GAS NO BRAKES Let’s go!!! Sit back, relax and grab yourself a great tasting, less filling Miller Lite and enjoy
