Dugout of History

Busch Stadium

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:00:00 GMT

Head for the mountains... of St. Louis? Chrystal and Colleen bring you the story of Busch Stadium, and why it's been named that since long before corporate naming rights at stadiums were commonplace.

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The Pine Tar Incident

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 23:30:44 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the tale of the Pine Tar Incident, which began in July of 1983 with Brett's ejection from a game after hitting what appeared to be a go-ahead home run at Yankee Stadium and didn't turn out to be one until much later, and with much scandal. And we got a classic bobblehead out of it.

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Take Me Out To The 7th Inning Stretch

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 18:28:43 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal are baseball mad, have the fever and have it bad... wait, that's not the line, it's Katie Casey who was baseball mad, had the fever and had it bad. If you don't know what song Katie Casey is from, well, yes you do. It's seventh inning stretch time for Dugout of History!

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A Not-So-Brief History of the New York Mets

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 18:28:04 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the story of New York's National League baseball team, from the Mets' founding in the wake of the Dodgers and Giants leaving the Big Apple for California, through the 1969 and 1986 world championships, to today's contenders with Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto.

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Dock Ellis

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 19:29:01 GMT

If you already know the story, you know that you're in for a good one with Chrystal and Colleen back to talk about Dock Ellis, a 12-year major league veteran, 1971 All-Star and world champion, and author of one of the unlikeliest no-hitters in major league history.

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Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Banned List

Mon, 19 May 2025 17:02:51 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the silver lining of Pete Rose's posthumous and political reinstatement to baseball eligibility: Shoeless Joe Jackson, more than a century after the Black Sox scandal, also got unbanned in Rob Manfred's purge of the Permanently Ineligible list. The subject of plenty of artistic pieces and movies over the years, Jackson's true history is one of the most interesting stories the game has to tell.

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Minor League Greatness

Tue, 06 May 2025 16:00:48 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen bring you the story of the Kansas City Blues of the early 20th century American Association, who churned out Hall of Fame prospects for the Yankees until Major League Baseball’s westward push brought the A’s to Missouri, and sent them on to Denver, New Orleans, and eventually Wichita.

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Salt Lake City Trappers

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:19:11 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the story of a minor league team in Utah that played just eight seasons, but won four Pioneer League titles and set a professional baseball record that still stands -- 29 consecutive wins in 1987, on their way to a three-peat. Part-owned by Bill Murray, before the actor co-founded the St. Paul Saints, the Salt Lake City Trappers had one of the great lightning-in-a-bottle runs in baseball history, all without an affiliation to a major league team after having began their existence in Calgary, where they had been a farm team for the Cardinals and Expos before Alberta got Triple-A baseball (now just as gone as the Trappers, alas).

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Rickey Henderson (Part 2)

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:17:04 GMT

Picking up from last episode, Chrystal and Colleen join Rickey Henderson for his fourth go-around with the Oakland A's, going through the late stages of the Hall of Famer's record-breaking career, and getting the incredible perspective of all the numbers he put up and the life that he lived.

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Rickey Henderson (Part 1)

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:00:00 GMT

We're back! During the show's hiatus, Rickey Henderson passed away, five days before Christmas, which would have been his 66th birthday. The greatest leadoff man in baseball history not only kicks off our season, as we get through Rickey's age-39 season... because with him, that was indeed only the beginning.

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Billy Martin (Part 4)

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 19:50:56 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal finish the Billy Martin story with the part of his career that people are most familiar with, the managerial years. But don't worry, there's plenty you haven't heard before, because when it came to Billy Martin, there was always another story, and all the stories are good.

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Billy Martin (Part 3)

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 18:07:17 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the next installment of their exploration of iconic baseball character Billy Martin, this time exploring more of the 1950s Yankees and Martin’s departure, the end of his playing days with seven teams from 1957-61, and Martin’s entry to the world of scouting and coaching and the birth of Billyball.

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Billy Martin (Part 2)

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 15:30:23 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the next installment of their exploration of iconic baseball character Billy Martin, getting into his playing days, starting with the Idaho Falls Russets in the Pioneer League, going up through the tear gas-soaked minors, and continuing to New York with the Yankees in their 1950s glory days and his bawdy friendship with Mickey Mantle.

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Billy Martin (Part 1)

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:53:18 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal bring you the story of Billy Martin, a story with so many layers, twists, and turns that this is just Part 1, covering his early years — and that means really early, starting with the tale of his birth at home in 1928, and how he found out his actual name, Alfred Manuel Martin Jr., and his colorful Northern California youth. Once he got into baseball, Martin became one of the game’s most interesting characters. What shaped him into the player and manager he became? Find out as we journey from a kitchen table circumcision to a slaughterhouse job to his first pro contract.

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Big Sexy

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 16:11:23 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen bring you the story of Big Sexy, the one and only Bartolo Colón! From Cleveland to Montreal to Chicago to Anaheim to Boston to New York to Oakland to Atlanta to Minnesota to Texas, one of the era’s biggest arms, bodies, and personalities made a name for himself wherever he went. Signed for $3,000 as a Dominican teenager, Colón went from throwing at soup cans to winning a Cy Youg Award and spending more than than two decades in the major leagues, leaving his mark as a cult hero even after his prime years.

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The 1986 Mets

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 18:32:10 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal welcome documentary filmmaker and New Yorker Heather Quinlan to talk about the last team to bring a World Series championship to Queens, one of the most colorful squads of all time, the 1986 Mets.

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Washington, D.C.

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:27:47 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal are back to wade through the swamp of Washington, D.C., and its history of mostly failed attempts to make it in the major leagues, culminating with today's cellar dwellers of the National League East, the team that came as a result of MLB's shenanigans with Montreal (as heard in Dugout of History 14).

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Les Expos De Montreal

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 13:01:25 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen bring you the story of the Montreal Expos, from their beginnings as Canada's first MLB team in the 1969 expansion wave to their demise 20 years ago after a series of unfortunate events including having their best seasons in the shadows of labor disputes, a dream ballpark that never materialized, and some of the worst ownership the sport has ever seen, all with an assist from one of the worst owners in baseball today. No one is free from Jerry's anti-Midas touch.

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Olympics

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 14:29:56 GMT

They're not playing baseball in Paris, but the diamond and the Olympic rings have a rich history. Colleen and Chrystal are here to talk about it!

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Yankee Wife Swap

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen go back to 1973, when Yankees pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich announced a one-of-a-kind trade in baseball history: their wives. Unlike the deals at the trade deadline, no advanced analytics are necessary to figure out whether Susanne or Marilyn wound up with the better deal.

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The Big Red Menace

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 13:52:45 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal look back at Marge Schott, who made history by becoming the first woman to buy a major league team (Joan Whitney Payson inherited the Mets), then made more history by being an absolute scoundrel, and costing herself control of the team. Infamous enough for smoking that she appeared with a cigarette on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and for her dog who loved pooping on the field at Riverfront Stadium, her true vice – and the source of her downfall – was racism. Schott’s praise for Hitler and use of the N-word are why her legacy remains toxic today, making her the benchmark for terrible sports owners.

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Senior Professional Baseball Association

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 13:22:21 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen bring you tales of the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association, the "Boys of Winter" who played in Florida from 1989-90 with such teams as the Orlando Juice, Bradenton Explorers, and Fort Myers Sun Sox. The even had a baseball card set, but the league for pros over the age of 35 (and slightly younger catchers) didn't catch on. It was a fun idea, so why didn't it catch on? Well, that's why we're here...

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Black Cats, Goats, and Announcers

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:13:55 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal dive into the trials and tribulations of the Chicago Cubs, from the collapse of 1969 after a black cat ran on the field at Shea Stadium, to the 1945 billy goat incident, to the foul ball in 2003 that changed one man's life, "helped" along by national broadcasters playing into the decades of Cubs failure lore that only dissipated thanks to a freak rainstorm in Cleveland in 2016.

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Baseball Pride

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 12:59:37 GMT

Happy Pride! Chrystal and Colleen bring you the queer side of baseball history, with plenty of stories and more to check out once you listen: catch the trailer for A Secret Love, learn about The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, read Outsports, watch The TJ House story, and always, always, always stay Proud To Be In Baseball!

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Ten Cent Beer Night

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 12:00:48 GMT

Fifty years ago this month, Cleveland had a promotion that simply couldn't fail, until it did, spectacularly and utterly predictably. The result of Ten Cent Beer Night was a victory for the Texas Rangers, and only for the Texas Rangers, as it was one of five Major League Baseball games to be forfeited in the expansion era, and half a century later, brings Colleen and Chrystal back together after their spring vacations.

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Candlestick Park

Mon, 06 May 2024 15:30:28 GMT

Casual Diehard 59

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The Catcher Was A Spy

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:00:10 GMT

Chrystal and Colleen bring you the tale of Moe Berg, and plenty of source material to dive into after hearing them tell it...

Books:

“The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg” - Nicholas Dawidoff

“The Bastards Brigade” - Sam Kean

Articles:

Who Was Moe Berg? A Spy, a Big-League Catcher, and an Enigma (NYT)

Moe Berg: Catcher and Spy (ESPN)

Moe Berg, Class of 1923: Baseball Player, World War II Spy (Princeton University)

The Baseball Player Turned Spy Who Went Undercover To Assassinate The Nazis' Top Nuclear Scientist (Smithsonian)

Moe Berg's Life In Baseball (Baseball Hall of Fame)

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The Chicago White Sox

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:44:22 GMT

This could have been all yours, Milwaukee. Or Tampa Bay. Perhaps it still could be yours, Nashville. Or perhaps the White Sox belong in Chicago and will be there forever, no matter how bad their owners are, what kind of weirdos want to buy them and move them, or what damage they do to their own stadium in the name of hating disco music. You think 2024 is bad for the Pale Hose? Let's take a trip back to the 1970s with Chrystal and Colleen.

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Pete Rose

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 13:10:29 GMT

It’s never a good thing when Pete Rose is back in the news, and he has been lately because of the alleged theft of $4.5 million from Shohei Ohtani to cover gambling debts. That story has yet to fully unfold. Rose’s has, to the point where the Washington Post ran not one, but two big stories looking back at it… 10 years ago. This year is the 35th anniversary of the death of then-commissioner Bart Giamatti, who banned Rose, even though so much of what happened feels so recent. Nope, it was 1989. It’s just that Rose, who agreed to his own lifetime ban, has never once shut up about it, and he probably never will.

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Pittsburgh Drug Trials

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 13:00:12 GMT

In episode 2 of Dugout of History, Chrystal and Colleen dig into the Pittsburgh drug trials, the scandal that many people know because the Pirate Parrot mascot was implicated as a coke dealer, but that had far-reaching impacts across major league baseball, including shaping the sport’s drug policy into the Steroid Era.

For me (producer Jesse, writing the show notes), it’s a very interesting episode because I was a little kid at the time. I remembered Rod Scurry as a Yankee, for instance, and remember him dying young – though I definitely didn’t put it together as an 11-year-old that his death was drug-related. Lonnie Smith wound up having a very interesting second act with Atlanta, leading the National League in on-base percentage in 1989 and hitting three homers in the 1991 World Series before blundering on the basepaths in Game 7. Keith Hernandez, obviously, was and is Keith Hernandez.

So, I knew some of the details for this one, remembered others, and learned plenty for the first time. The story of the Pittsburgh drug trials also echoes through the way baseball has dealt with subsequent scandals, including in the sport’s powers that be making the same mistakes. Thank goodness that’s all history, though, and vice-related scandals involving superstars are… ah, dang it.

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Merkle's Boner

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 13:25:59 GMT

Colleen and Chrystal start the show by going deep into history for the story of Merkle's Boner, a dramatic turn of events in 1908 that to most folks now is just a funny name for an incident more than a century ago. There's so much more to it than just the boner.

From Wikipedia:

Merkle's Boner refers to the notorious base-running mistake committed by rookie Fred Merkle of the New York Giants in a game against the Chicago Cubs on September 23, 1908. Merkle's failure to advance to second base on what should have been a game-winning hit led instead to a force play at second and a tied game. The Cubs later won the makeup game, which proved decisive as they beat the Giants by one game to win the National League (NL) pennant for 1908. It has been described as "the most controversial game in baseball history"

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Dugout of History

Busch Stadium

The Pine Tar Incident

Take Me Out To The 7th Inning Stretch

A Not-So-Brief History of the New York Mets

Dock Ellis

Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Banned List

Minor League Greatness

Salt Lake City Trappers

Rickey Henderson (Part 2)

Rickey Henderson (Part 1)

Billy Martin (Part 4)

Billy Martin (Part 3)

Billy Martin (Part 2)

Billy Martin (Part 1)

Big Sexy

The 1986 Mets

Washington, D.C.

Les Expos De Montreal

Olympics

Yankee Wife Swap

The Big Red Menace

Senior Professional Baseball Association

Black Cats, Goats, and Announcers

Baseball Pride

Ten Cent Beer Night

Candlestick Park

The Catcher Was A Spy

The *Chicago* White Sox

Pete Rose

Pittsburgh Drug Trials

Merkle's Boner

The Chicago White Sox