E31: Manager Earl Weaver + Book Review, 2026 MLB Update & The Midnight Sun Game

A baseball game that starts at 10 p.m. with no stadium lights sounds impossible, yet Fairbanks pulls it off every year. We kick things off with the Midnight Sun Game, a summer solstice tradition that has been running since 1906, and the Alaska Goldpanners, a legendary college summer team with an alumni list that includes Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and more. If you love baseball travel, weird history, and the parts of the sport that still feel handmade, this story is a perfect entry point.

Then we bring in our friend Edwin Nolan for a tight, energetic spin around MLB. We hit each division with the headlines that matter right now: surges, slumps, injuries that change the math, and the questions that are already shaping the trade deadline. It’s a quick way to recalibrate your baseball brain without drowning in hot takes.

The main event is our deep dive into Hall of Fame Orioles manager Earl Weaver, guided by John W. Miller’s Casey Award winning book The Last Manager. We talk about Weaver’s winning track record, his famous philosophy (pitching, defense, and the three-run homer), and the surprising ways he looked like a modern analytics manager decades early, from matchup index cards to radar-gun obsession. And yes, we get into the legendary blowups: 96 career ejections, umpire theatrics, and the kind of dugout character baseball rarely produces anymore, plus the trivia answer that tops even Weaver.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, share this with a baseball friend, and leave us a review so more fans can find Fungos and Fastballs. What’s your favorite piece of baseball history that sounds made up but is 100% true?

Email us at fungosandfastballs@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome And Trivia Teaser

Jerry 0:00

Hello, listeners, and welcome to Fungos and Fastballs. Today we talk about the Midnight Sun game, then visit with our friend Edward Nolan as we go around the league today, and then we go into the life of Hall of Fame manager and quite the pugnacious one, Earl Weaver, including the new biography of Weaver that I just checked out recently. But first we'll dive into today's trivia question. What major league manager has the most career ejections? Weaver had quite a few. Could he be the answer? That would be something if we gave away the answer in the beginning of the show. Well, hang on yeah, that would be, right? Hang on until later until that

The Midnight Sun Game Explained

Jerry 0:40

answer. So, Brooke, I get these emails from MLB.com, daily updates on what's happening in the league, but also there are fun quirky emails. One came the other day about the Midnight Sun Game that kind of sent me down the rabbit hole learning more. Every year on June 21st at midnight, they hold the Midnight Sun Game in Fairbanks, Alaska in Grouton Memorial Park. This year was the 121st annual game. They've been holding it since 1906. It's played on the summer solstice in Alaska without artificial light. It starts at 10 p.m. at night. The sun there goes below the horizon at 12 48 a.m. And games can go past sunset, but the dusky glow provides enough light for those late innings.

Brooke 1:24

That sounds pretty interesting. We uh we want to do a family Alaska Disney cruise, so maybe we could combine that with the cruise. But you know, we'd stop at a port and they'd be calling at four o'clock when the boat's supposed to depart, and we'll be at the game, you know, uh, is anyone from the Dynes family on board? Come see the concierge.

Jerry 1:42

I don't know. It's tough to keep try time. It's always daylight. Yeah, and no kidding. Well, the game is hosted every year by the Alaska Gold Panters. Good name. A collegiate summer team based in Fairbanks. The Gold Panters are the northernmost baseball team in the world. Trivia alert. Uh they play local amateur teams or college summer squads. And looking into the Gold Panters more, I discovered they were founded as an independent barnstorming league in 1960. They were a charter member in 1974 of the Alaska Baseball League, which makes sense, but I didn't know there was an Alaska Baseball League. Now, the Gold Panters are not in that league anymore. There are still great teams in there like the Anchorage Glacier Pilots and the Chigewak Eagle River Chinooks. So sorry if I mispronounced that. Yeah. But as a college summer league, the Gold Panters have had some incredible players pass through there, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jason Giombi, Dave Winfield, Tom Seaver, and our good friend Bill Spaceman Lee. In fact, Bill Lee actually returned there decades later in 2008 to play in the Midnight Sun game, well after his Major League Baseball career was over.

Brooke 2:58

We need a little of Bill Lee in every episode.

Jerry 3:01

Namaste. Well, I found this interesting stuff. There's gold in them hills. Well, at least baseball is alive and well in the land of the Midnight Sun. Let's get our friend Edwin Nolan here to go around the horn and talk about what's going

Around The League Rapid-Fire

Jerry 3:17

on in the league. Today we will go through the different divisions, try and keep it tight with a bit of a time limit determined by a bell from our producer. Thank you, Brooke. Uh Edwin, thanks for joining us again. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, you ready to go? Let's go. All right. I will start with the American League East. Go. So after coming back and getting ahead of the Rays by four games, the Aaron Boone June swoon has is upon us. As of today, June 28th, Tampa has won four straight. The Yankees are on the verge of getting swept by the Red Sox. And man, they really need Aaron Judge Giancarlos Stanton and Max Fried back from injury. Tampa's surge is helped by Junior Camanero's 2021 home, excuse me. And in Toronto, Vlad just has not been Vlad. He's going to do some DHing with Springer out on paternity. Jays have brought up prospect Sean Keyes. This is your moment. Welcome to the show. Will the Red Sox be sellers by the trade deadline given their disappointing season? Yankees series excluded.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Going over to the AL Central. Well, who all had the White Sox sitting atop the AL Central on their bingo card? Late June. We're almost to the 4th of July, and the White Sox are in first place, right ahead of Cleveland, who's handling the Jose Ramirez injury just pretty good. They're working through it. And the Detroit Tigers continue to disappoint. Minnesota Twins can't be consistent. AL West, the the mediocre guys over there in the West. We have the Texas Rangers, the hottest team in the division currently. Although Houston turning it on, and let's see if it's going to be for the for the long haul here. But right now, the Rangers sitting atop the division. A's have finally fallen back towards the bottom with the Angels. And yeah, I've said it before. I think the Astros are going to come back and make a run in August.

Jerry 5:13

Over to the National League East. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was finally fired this week. And even Mr. Met is dancing. Great video. Look it up. The Braves had a huge lead, but what's this? This month, they've lost the series to the White Sox, Mets, Giants, and were swept by the Padres. And lo and behold, the Phillies, my pick for the World Series, are back only four games out, with a resurgence under replacement manager Don Mattingley. Those fighting fish, the Miami Marlins, the hottest team in baseball, 18-5 in the month of June. Do you know who leads the league in batting average? Why? It's Marlins, shortstop Otto Lopez with 336. And right-handed starter Max Meyer is a perfect 9-0. Hey, the Nats are even playing 500 baseball. And now to the National League Central. Milwaukee has a bit of a cushion there, currently leading the pack by 6.5 games. Each episode that we do this, we gush about pitcher Jacob Mizrowski, and my goal was to have a Ms. Free update. But then he threw a 105.5 pitch against Pete Crow Armstrong of the Cubs this week. Remember, the MLB record is 105-8 by Heraldus Chapman back in 2010. The Cubs have had injuries to starters Ben Brown with the next stretch fraction stress fracture, and Edward Cabrera, hamstring. And so traded with the Mets for left-handed David Peterson, who, of course, after leaving the Mets had a great his best start yet. Ellie Della Cruz is back with the Reds. Both the Reds and Pirates have come down to earth after good starts this year. And the Cardinals are in a bit of a slum, still just one half game behind a potential wild card position.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

The NL West, the most intriguing race of all with the Dodgers, the best team in baseball. I think they're like 10 games up on the Padres. Colorado Rockies, 33 wins on the season. That ranks them last in the MLB. So the best and the worst. However, we're going to talk about both of those teams here. Will Smith sidelined with a neck injury a little bit longer than the Dodgers would want. Dalton Rushing, rookie catcher stepping in. Imagine having to catch for Shohei Otani every five days. Well, it's not going according to plan for Mr. Rushing either. He's doing the best he can, but he and his pitcher can't get on the right page, keep shaking off his pitcher, and Shohei, I got way more. Hold on. Shohei has taken over pitchcom duties, calling his own pitches, taking over for the rookie, showing him how it's done. Also, Rockies set a record. What's the most crazy thing, the rarest thing ever done in baseball? Four home runs in a game. Perfect game? No. I say a game ending triple with the bases loaded, done by the Rockies. Walk-off triple with the bases loaded. It's only been done seven times. Your Colorado Rockies have done it.

Jerry 8:01

Clearly, I win based on time. Next episode: Will the Tigers move Scoobyl and who will get him? Stay tuned. Hello

Why Earl Weaver Still Matters

Jerry 8:15

and welcome to Fungos and Fastballs, the podcast of baseball history and trivia. I'm your host, Jerry Dines. Let's jump into today's episode. Every so often, we love to dive into the world of high culture, including literature.

Brooke 8:33

Literature.

Jerry 8:35

Well, baseball literature. Today, as we discuss Oriole Manager Earl Weaver. Okay, okay. I definitely want to mention this wonderful book I had lately.

Brooke 8:46

I don't think people can understand you with that pipe. Yes. Those not watching uh those not watching us on YouTube or Spotify or Amazon, a Jerry just popped a pipe in his mouth and an ascot, very refined, but completely comical. Yeah, the ascot and pipe.

Jerry 9:01

This is how we uh deal with high culture. Literature, cinema, right?

Brooke 9:06

I I love I love it. And it goes so well with the jersey.

Jerry 9:09

We'll take a picture later.

Brooke 9:10

Yes, no doubt.

Jerry 9:11

But for now, I'll just should I remove I'll remove the ascot.

Brooke 9:13

The Yankees would appreciate how there.

Jerry 9:16

I think it goes great with the Yankees jersey.

Brooke 9:17

It was very nice colors for almost the 4th of July. Start again.

Jerry 9:21

So as I was saying, today we discuss Oriole Manager Earl Weaver. I definitely want to mention this wonderful book that I finished lately, John W. Miller's The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver tricked, tormented, and reinvented baseball. This book came out last year and uh won the Casey Award. What's that, you might wonder? Well, the Casey is an annual award given since 1983 to the best baseball book of the year. It's awarded by the literary baseball magazine Spitball. Guess who got his first issue of Spitball last week, Brooke? Me.

Brooke 10:00

It's really it's a real magazine?

Jerry 10:02

It's a real magazine, and it has this annual award.

Brooke 10:04

How did I miss this? How I I get the mail every day. I I know.

Jerry 10:08

Is it digital? It came in a uh uh dis uh it came in a discreetly wrapped brown wrapper.

Brooke 10:15

I want to see this magazine. You know, I'm gonna have to get a picture of it and put it on.

Jerry 10:18

I will. We'll eventually put it on the shelf. Well, if you are looking for good baseball books to read, fiction or nonfiction, go look up the nominees for the Casey online. Some great finds. I I go there every year. 23 managers in the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is actually the first one we've done. Earl Weaver, a fantastic choice.

Brooke 10:37

Well, that holds us set. 270 more players to go, because 11 down. That'll be 22 managers to go. This'll be one down, plus 10 umps, and 40 execs slash others. I think I'm hyperventilating.

Jerry 10:52

Just breathe. When you look back on this in 10 years, you'll see how much we've accomplished. Wow, that's a lot. Now the 1970s and 1980s were a great era of managing. Some fascinating characters, personalities, some real headcases, too. This was the era of Tommy Lazorta, Billy Martin, Sparky Anderson, Whitey Herzog, and of course the Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver, whose entire Major League career was with one team, the Baltimore Orioles from 1968 to 1982, with an inauspicious return to the O's for a couple of seasons in the mid-80s. When one saw an Orioles game back then, not only was there winning baseball and Hall of Famers like Brooke Rock Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, but Earl was indeed part of the show. He seemed to definitely soak it in. He was straight talking, foul mouthed, and crowds loved whenever he would get into heated arguments with umpires and ejected. Miller in his biography, though, is able to strike that balance. It would be easy, all too easy, to focus on Weaver's fiery personality alone. Miller never looks track loses track, excuse me, of Weaver's stellar managing and his use of statistics and strategy, ooh, a lot of S's, uh well before the analytics age of baseball. We'll get to Weaver's personality later, but we wouldn't even be discussing Weaver here in this podcast if he wasn't a fantastic manager and a winning one. In 17 years as manager, Weaver only once had a losing record, his final season. He had back-to-back seasons in 1969-1970 with 108 or more wins. Only 13 big league teams have ever won 108 wins or more in a regular season. Now, the 1969 and 1970 Orioles are the only team still in baseball history to win 108 or more back-to-back seasons.

Brooke 12:45

To show its impact to the Orioles, I have some numbers. Now, as their predecessor team, the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Browns, they averaged from 1901 to 1953 70 winning games per year. Then when they came became the Baltimore Orioles from 54 to 67, they averaged 82 winning games per year. But under Earl for 14 and a half years, their average flew up to ninety-four point five winning games per year. And after it went back down to an average of 76. That really shows the impact he had on the players and the team.

Jerry 13:23

That is, that's pretty impressive stuff. Well, in his career, uh the Orioles would win the American League East six times, uh winning the American League Pennant five times, and only winning the World Series once in that in 1970, although one could argue the 1983 World Series, the year after Weaver left, had Earl's fingers all over it, given it was his core group of players and the philosophy he left behind.

Weaver’s Rise Through The Minors

Jerry 13:48

So where did it all start? Weaver was born in 1930 in St. Louis. He was around baseball early. His father, Earl Sr., was a dry cleaner who cleaned uniforms for the Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns, who would become, as Brooks said, the Baltimore Orioles. Weaver would accompany his father to Clubhouse, but was also around his uncle, Bud, who was a mobster and uh, you know, a bookmaker, bookie, all the time. He learned about odds, numbers, probabilities. Many people, including the author John Miller of that book, attribute his appreciation of stats and early analytic thought to being around his uncle the bookie. Weaver would play City League baseball. He would be signed by the Cardinals to be their second baseman in 1952. But reality hit as the Cardinals then brought in player manager Eddie Stanke to be the manager from New York Yankees, New York Giants, excuse me, 1952. Stankey chose himself to play second over Weaver. Earl never got to sniff the majors again. Quite down about this, he did start drinking more. Issues with alcohol would continue throughout his life.

Brooke 14:55

He had a quote on the historical site Saber. The only thing I'd ever wanted in life was to be a major league ball player. But I had to admit to myself I wasn't good enough, and it broke his heart.

Jerry 15:07

Well, you know, when a door is closed, a window's open, and Weaver found that in managing. He started managing in 1956 as a young man. He was only 26 for the South Atlantic League, the team Knoxville Smokies, another great name. But soon after, the Oriol scouted him out to manage in their farm system. Now, after World War II, prior to 1963, the minor leagues did have AA and AAA baseball, but also had lower levels B, C, and D Leagues. Now, Weaver started out in the D League, and over the course of the next nine years, he would gradually move up the ranks to the AAA Rochester Red Wings. Now, in Rochester, fans were delighted that Weaver was managing a winning team, but also enjoyed his frequent arguments and ejections when he battled with umpires. Finally, in 1967, the Orioles brought up Weaver as the first base coach, but definitely there was a plan, perhaps if Hank Bauer, the manager then and the former Yankees right fielder, faltered more that Weaver would replace him. Now, Bauer was just one year off a World Series winning season in 1966, but you know, things had done poorly and memory is short. Bauer was indeed fired in July 1968. Weaver took over with a one-year contract. Now, throughout his entire career with Orioles, he would spend as a manager with a series of just one season contracts. So it took a little while to get there, but Weaver would stay as the Orioles manager until 1982, and all total would rack up a record of 1307 wins to 885 losses. As I mentioned before, he only went to the Fall Classic once, Brooke, in 1970.

Brooke 16:53

Fall Classic.

Jerry 16:54

The Fall Classic, winning five games in five games over the Cincinnati Reds. But he brought winning baseball consistently to the city of Baltimore. And what teams? I had mentioned Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer, who Weaver was constantly feuding with, even on mound visits. And one criticism from pitchers, especially Palmer, that Weaver didn't know his pitching. But Miller's book disagrees. He says, quote, four of Weaver's pitchers, Mike Quayar, Jim Palmer, Mike Flanagan, and Steve Stone, won a total of six Cy Youngs. No Oriole won the award before Weaver or since Weaver. Now, the 1971 Orioles became only the second team in baseball history, trivia alert, with four 20-game winners as their pitchers. The only one otherwise was the 1920 White Sox. The Orioles had Jim Palmer, Mike Weyar, Dave McNally, and Pat Dobson, all with 20 wins that season. Despite Weaver's southern roots and a turbulent time in civil rights in the late 60s, he was very supportive of his African-American players. First baseman Eddie Murray has been called Earl's favorite son. And Earl spoke in the press supporting Frank Robinson to be a Major League Baseball manager. Took a little while, but Robinson did become the first black manager of the then the Indians in 1975. Reggie Jackson, who we know could be opinionated when it came to managers, he named Earl Weaver his favorite manager. It certainly wasn't going to be Billy Martin. I love this quote from Reggie, which the book brings up. Quote, Earl Weaver smokes too much and drinks too much. He has a voice that sounds like broken glass. He's short, feisty, and has a ferocious temper, especially with umpires, and doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He's never been accused of being a diplomat and has never set out to win any popularity contests with his players. He's also one of the few baseball geniuses I've ever met. Weaver later in his career also helped mentor Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripkin Jr., who was actually originally at third base. Now at the time, shortstops were really not of the power hitter variety. And Weaver, who had known Jr. for years because Cal Sr. was a coach in the Oriel system, he moved Cal Ripkin Jr. to shortstop, where of course he would have a Hall of Fame career.

The Early Analytics Playbook

Jerry 19:12

Now Weaver is often credited, though not certainly the first one to use statistics, but approaching baseball from that statistical standpoint years before the Moneyball and Sabermetrics system. He was the first to use batter pitcher matchups with index cards on each pitcher in baseball, player in baseball, how his batters did versus pitchers, and vice versa.

Brooke 19:33

I did know his second wife, Marianna, was by his side for decades. She went to the games, she traveled with the team, and she even participated in post-game conversations where she would uh be with him during reviews and update statistics, and that said during many of the games she was in the crowd writing down notes for him.

Jerry 19:54

That's fantastic.

Brooke 19:55

Just like you always support me. Exactly. I'm right there for you, babe.

Jerry 19:59

Alan Schwartz in his 2005 History of Stats in Baseball called The Numbers Game, I wonder if that won the Casey's Award. Casey Award said Weaver saw and used more data than any other manager before him. And from Miller's book, quote, every time a modern manager looks at an iPad to check on matchup data, a TV screen flashes stat charts, or a blogger makes an argument on X using matchup data, they're channeling Earl Weaver. In 1975, he actually pioneered the use of radar guns, adapted from police radar guns to analyze pitching.

Brooke 20:35

I heard that he took his radar gun everywhere. He took it on the planes, he traveled with it, he would love it. He would point it at people walking by, cars. Uh he would also use it actually on the baseball field because he'd had to point it at the players to see when their numbers started going down to tell if they were getting tired or not. And also he would suggest to pitchers if they threw, say, a 88 mile an hour fastball and then threw an eighty-eight mile an hour curveball, he would say take the speed off the curveball because he realized the change in speed was more difficult for batters to handle.

Jerry 21:11

I wonder if Earl they thought he was a little kooky uh going around zapping everything with a radar gun.

Brooke 21:15

I'm sure. Could you imagine some guys?

Jerry 21:18

Well, also that year, he phased out iron mic pitching machines and purchased Jugs machines. They were curveball throwing pitching machines.

Brooke 21:27

Right. They're the ones with the the tires on the different angles, and they're still around today. 94% of baseball players have hit against a Jugs machine. And it's named for, just in case you were wondering, the Jug handle curveballs of the time. And Juggs also made Weaver's radar gun for him.

Jerry 21:47

Is that where the Jugs magazine comes on? It's like a consumer report review. I don't think so. Pitch the machine. Let's move on. Given his managerial approach, Weaver was actually approached also. Interesting, by EA Sports to assist in the strategy of one of the first video games to use AI, Electronic Arts Earl Weaver Baseball, which came out in 1987, a year before Madden football. It was the first baseball video game where you could simulate an entire season. You could play in specific stadiums, even vintage stadiums like the polo grounds, with their dimensions, and it paved the way for modern video games like

Umpires, Ejections, And Antics

Jerry 22:24

the show. Well, of course, you can't talk about Weaver without talking about his personality. It was Earl's irascible, fiery nature that fans love. Irrascible, good SAT work. We mentioned the feuding with umpires with 96 career ejections. Aaron Boone has a lot of catching up to do. He's only at 49. Now, Earl, shorter than most umps, would crease his brim of his hat in anticipation so he could poke Umps in the chest with his cap. Eventually wound up getting in trouble for that and he had to turn his cap around.

Brooke 22:58

My favorite manager move to Umpires, and they've done it is when they would kick dirt on home plate. And I have a video of Earl actually taking a handful of dirt and dumping it on home plate right in front of the umpire. That's just my favorite move. It's a shame they don't do it anymore.

Jerry 23:13

Yeah, I mean Earl's uh umpire antics were crazy. I don't think he threw a base, stole a base and threw it like Lou Pinella. But now Umpires, though, retaliated. They knew that Earl snuck cigarettes throughout his game. He had a special pocket sewn in his uniform for smokes, and they would poke him where they knew his cigarettes would be to crush them. Once Weaver got ejected for smoking, and the next game, before the game starts, Earl decides to go up and talk to the ump with a taffy, a candy cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Uh the ump didn't realize it, ejects him before the game's over. Weaver takes off the wrapper, eats it right in front of him, and walks away. Many of Weaver's great quotes, and you can go on YouTube and see the fantastic explosions with umpires we can't mention here. They tend to be a little salty. But I do like the story of when an umpire gave him a rule book uh to look up something when he was disputing a call, and Earl says, That's no good. I can't read Braille.

Brooke 24:14

Seeing all of his videos and reading his quotes, let's just say the F bomb was one of his favorite vocabulary words. Um in his Hall of Fame speech, he thanked the umpires for their integrity during the game, and he did say, of all of the millions of pitches you saw, it's a shame you got those 94 wrong that I complained about.

Jerry 24:35

Yeah, I think umpires like his players sometimes was just like that's just Earl being Earl, and Earl didn't hold grudges, and you know, the best way is to not hold grudges against him.

Brooke 24:46

Yeah, they said the players said the next day the lineup card, if he had a fight with any of the players, it just did not reflect anything from the day before.

Jerry 24:54

Right. Now it wasn't just players and umpires that felt Earl's ire, sometimes reporters too. I do like the story how Earl lectured a Miami Herald reporter when the reporter misattributed a polonious quote to Ham uh from Hamlet to Horatio.

Brooke 25:09

Oh, Shakespeare. Can you say that with the pipe and the ascot?

Jerry 25:13

Yes, Horatio. Be or not to be. Take too much time to put the ascot back in.

Brooke 25:20

Yeah, good point.

Jerry 25:20

Uh and Earl was a character. Even his gardening made the news. Weaver grew vegetables, peppers, zucchinis, eggplants, but especially tomatoes. He had over 30 plants. He challenged Boog Pal and Oriel's groundkeeper, Pat Santoroni, to contests. The tomato wars made headlines. In 1970, Santorone started growing tomatoes in the left field foul grounds. You can actually see the plants there. He planted like 10 plants a year in a combo of infield dirt and ground sod, uh, and the two of them would talk uh trash. Weaver said that Santorone, quote, grows nothing more than scrub tomatoes, all pulp. Meanwhile, Santorone Santorone said, Earl's never grown a big tomato in his life. Santorone would brag that his manure came from the horse champion secretariat, uh, whereas Weaver got his fertilizer, quote, from a horse that ran ninth in a ninth place ninth nine-horse race. Now, with reporters after games, Miller mentions that Weaver sometimes held court in the nude, smoking rollies, drinking schlitz with salt, I guess that's a thing, munching on fried chicken, also salt. There was a urinal next to the manager's office. Earl could sometimes continue his soliloquies while peeing. So Weaver would spend uh 15 seasons originally managing the Oriole, then returned in 1985 for two-year uninspiring stint before finally retiring. He would be inducted in 1996 to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. He would pass away on 2013 of a heart attack while on an Orioles fantasy cruise. We mentioned the Alaska cruise, Brooke. Can we do a baseball cruise too, please?

Brooke 27:03

I Well, you know, I just say cruise and I'm there. I didn't know do they still do baseball cruises? Someone's hey, email us fungosandfastballs at gmail.com and let us know if there are baseball cruises.

Jerry 27:16

Now you're gonna get all spam from these cruise companies like Carnival.

Brooke 27:19

I'll still look at the emails. Blue water, or that hey, that's you got me.

Jerry 27:23

Well, Earl Weaver had quite the baseball mind and was quite the character as we've discussed. You're not gonna see managers like that today. Weaver was always, though, about winning and finding a way to get the most from his players.

Brooke 27:36

Aaron Powell From the start of the divisional era, the 1969s to present, Weaver holds the highest winning percentage of any manager with at least a thousand career wins, and definitely the highest for any Orioles manager, and those are some huge shoes to fill.

Weaver’s Mantras And Trivia Answer

Jerry 27:52

Yeah, his philosophy always was pitching, defense, and then later three-run homers, the latter emphasizing the importance of getting players just on base, even by walking, uh, so that maybe eventually it could benefit them. Those philosophies still win championships today. I love this mantra too. On becoming manager to the Orioles, he hung a sign in the clubhouse. It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

Brooke 28:18

That's a good one for kids these days.

Jerry 28:19

And overall, John Miller's biography is a great read. Triple play stuff here, Brooke. Like like four and a half stars.

Brooke 28:26

Oh, yes, I've got to put the rating up. Watches it on, I'll put it up on YouTube. Four and a half. Excellent.

Jerry 28:32

Well deserved of its Casey Awards. Great. Well, great episode today, full episode. Let's get back to that trivia question before we go. What major league manager had the most career ejections? Well, we mentioned Weaver had 96. That's a lot. But the answer is Bobby Cox, the Hall of Fame Braves manager, also the Blue Jays, who passed away this past May. Bobby had a whopping 162 ejections. Yowza. Well, coming up Monday, our interview with baseball historian Ralph Carhartt about his book and project Hallball.

Brooke 29:06

Great interview.

Jerry 29:07

Yeah. Don't miss it. Thanks always to Brooke, my producer. You're welcome. And shout out especially to our friend and fellow fantasy baseball owner Zachary, who assured me that he'd be listening. We're always happy you're listening and hope you'll keep listening. Don't forget to subscribe on YouTube. You can watch us there if you'd like and want to see an ask on the pipe. Or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Heading back to the locker room. This is Jerry Dynes and Fungos and Fastballs.