Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard discuss the opening week of the MLB season and a visit to American Family Field, home of the Brewers, in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
Being able to watch baseball virtually all day has been a boon to fans—begin with the afternoon matinees and end with the late-night West Coast matches. And as a bonus fans have been allowed into ballparks across the MLB board. The home of the Milwaukee Brewers, American Family Field hosted games to start the 2021 MLB season with limited capacity and concessions offerings. Despite that, fans seemed to follow the rules regarding mask usage and staying in their seats, and there was a festive atmosphere. (You can read the story about the visit here.) Some teams are just opening the doors in relief, while others are treating it as a typical year with new food offerings and promos. (The Brewers’ fans seemed content with the Sconnie basics: beers and brats.) Other topics of discussion after the first week of play: How striking Shohei Ohtani is when healthy, why the Mets are playing better, and how this season will be a season of change, as capacity limitations and operating restrictions are regularly revisited.
The Baseball Thesaurus term of the week didn’t come from the book, but rather a phrase attributed first to former player and manager Dusty Baker: a “one-hand Fred,” describing a swing where the batter is fooled, the top hand flies off, and he ends up following through with only one hand on the bat. Many times, a one-hand Fred turns into a whiff, but sometimes there’s limited contact and, in the case of Ruben Sierra, can lead to an amazing homer.
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurus and The Football Thesaurus from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.