Effectively Wild Episode 1533: It’s Baseball O’Clock Somewhere

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about beverage consumption, foreign baseball leagues’ potential for popularity in the U.S., and the life and death of legendary flamethrower Steve Dalkowski, who passed away this week. Then they talk to Rob Liu of CPBLStats.com (25:48) and Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net (58:22) about two leagues that have beaten MLB back to action, Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and South Korea’s Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), touching on how their seasons have started, the best ways for American baseball fans to follow them, the players and teams to know, the aesthetic and stylistic differences between them and MLB, the histories and evolutions of the leagues, their fluctuating home run rates, their foreign-player presences, their embraces of sabermetrics, their engaging ballpark atmospheres, the CPBL’s playoff format, and the KBO’s bat flips.

Audio intro: Alec Benjamin, "Steve"
Audio interstitial 1: Sturgill Simpson, "Fastest Horse in Town"
Audio interstitial 2: James Chen, "Summer in Taiwan"
Audio outro: Nadan, "Play Ball"

Link to Pat Jordan on Dalkowski
Link to John Eisenberg on Dalkowski
Link to Joe Posnanski on Dalkowski
Link to Posnanski on Dalkowski again
Link to Steve Treder on Dalkowski
Link to Dom Amore on Dalkowski
Link to Dalkowski obit
Link to CPBL Stats
Link to info on CPBL home run rates
Link to Chin-hui Tsao’s Wikipedia page
Link to story about Tsao as a prospect
Link to Eleven Sports Taiwan
Link to CPBL streaming guide
Link to Jay Jaffe on the CPBL
Link to Marc Carig on CPBL broadcasts
Link to MyKBO
Link to MyKBO Stats
Link to bat flips feature
Link to Sung Min Kim on KBO ball de-juicing
Link to story about ESPN and KBO
Link to KBO streaming instructions
Link to Jaffe on the KBO
Link to order The MVP Machine

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