Clearing The Bases - Issue 062

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Hello and welcome to Issue 062 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.

The latest episode of the podcast with MAYBELLE BLAIR went live on Wednesday, April 8, so if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that yet, make sure you do. Maybelle is a women’s baseball pioneer who is a former player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League with the Peoria Redwings. We talk about many of the different women’s baseball organizations operating today, as well as the work being done by the IWBC to renovate and preserve historic Beyer Stadium in Rockford, Illinois, the longtime home of the most famous team from the AAGPBL, the Rockford Peaches. And, among many other topics, we discuss how opportunities for girls and women to play both amateur and professional sports have changed over the years, thanks to trailblazers like her. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can do that HERE.

We release the new episodes of the podcast on the second Wednesday of every month, and send out the newsletters on the second and fourth Fridays of every month. Usually, that allows us to immediately promote the episode which was just released two days prior. However, sometimes, as is the case this month, the calendar doesn’t quite line up that way. Those instances give me an opportunity to talk about things I don’t normally talk about on the show, or in these newsletters, a little bit more in-depth.

For those of you who have been around for a while, you know that I am a White Sox fan. Oftentimes, particularly throughout these past several years, that has been both against my will and my better judgment. But nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Entering the 2022 season, the White Sox had legitimate World Series aspirations. They were coming off a 2021 season which saw them win the AL Central with a 93-69 record. Despite the team losing in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual AL pennant-winning Houston Astros, the Sox had a great, young core who was all seemingly in or ready to enter their prime. They were firing on all cylinders in a division which has basically been up for grabs for the past 15 years.

From the beginning of that 2022 season through the end of last year, the Sox went a combined 243-405 (good enough for a .375 winning percentage… or, bad enough), and set the all-time single-season mark for worst record by going a dismal 41-121 in 2024. Despite making some interesting moves this past off-season, which had them trending in the right direction long-term, entering the 2026 season, it seemed that the Sox would be flirting with a fourth consecutive 100-loss season. They traded Luis Robert, Jr., who everyone assumed was their best player, to the Mets. They cleared up some additional spots to get their young, promising prospects some big-league experience, and had some young arms ready to take the next step in their development, too.

But the big move of the off-season was one that landed in their lap (kind of like the bullet which somehow found its way into the leg of a woman in Section 161 at Comiskey during the fourth inning of a game against the Oakland A’s on August 25, 2023 – which we have still never gotten a legitimate explanation about). As Mark Feinsand pointed out back in December, “[Munetaka] Murakami’s two-year, $34 million contract with the White Sox is significantly shorter with a lower average annual value than the one Red Sox left fielder Masataka Yoshida signed three years ago (five years, $90 million).” Feinsand wondered if MLB teams were now skeptical of NPB hitters, in general, or if they were just wary of the type of hitter they thought Murakami was. While scouts loved his power and felt it would translate to the MLB game, his swing-and-miss approach may have scared off a number of suitors. That left the White Sox with a generational talent on a short, affordable contract, who now had something to prove.

And that’s exactly what Murakami has done so far this season: prove he’s worth every penny, and then some. As Sarah Langs has continually pointed out this season, Murakami has been an absolute force at the plate. His 14 home runs through his first 35 career MLB games rank third, all-time. There have been 24 home runs so far this season off 98.0+ mph pitches, and Murakami is the only player with multiple of those. He is one of only four rookies in the past 75 years to have at least a share of the MLB lead in home runs entering May. And he and Colson Montgomery set the MLB record for the most times teammates have homered in the same game through their team’s first 35 games, which the pair has done 7 times already.

But it’s not just that Murakami is dominating at the plate. It’s how he is. Among his first nine career home runs, three of them had exit velocities of 113+ mph, tied for the most ever through a player’s first nine since Statcast began tracking that in 2015. At the time of his third 113+ mph home run, there had only been 17 such home runs hit in all of Major League Baseball. Murakami had three of them and was the only player with that many. While the skeptics are being proven right, so far, about his swing-and-miss approach (Murakami is leading the league with 55 strikeouts after just 37 games played, and is batting only .237), he already has 28 walks and 28 RBI, and is on pace to finish with 123 of each, along with a .369 OBP and a 160 OPS+. The season is young, of course, and anything can happen, but it looks like the White Sox may have lucked into the free agent signing of the year, getting a player who will introduce their franchise to an entirely new international market.

Thanks for reading Clearing The Bases! This post is public, so feel free to share it.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which our friend ADAM DAROWSKI and the crew at Baseball Reference is celebrating by sharing a few stories about some baseball pioneers on their socials. If you’re not already following them, search for Baseball Reference on your favorite social media platform so you don’t miss any of their great content this month.

If you like stories along those lines, I think you’re really going to love the next episode of My Baseball History, which goes live on Wednesday, May 13^th. It’s unlike any episode we’ve ever done before, and while I am always confident in my ability to say “I promise, you’re going to learn something you never knew before” if you listen to any episode in the MBH archives, I can absolutely, unequivocally guarantee that this next interview will have multiple moments when you hear something you’ll be shocked by.

After every episode, I look at the analytics for the podcast. As I was researching to write this issue of the newsletter about Murakami, I was curious how many listeners we have in Japan. Japan is actually the region with the 12^th most listeners of the show, trailing (in order) the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Viet Nam, Australia, Poland, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and France. Rounding out the Top 20 regions of MBH listeners are the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Ireland, Sweden, Brazil, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain.

We have had listeners in a total of 109 different regions, and in the past 30 days, listeners in 49 of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and multiple other US territories. (If you’re reading this in North Dakota, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.) I am constantly blown away by the reach this podcast and this newsletter have given me to share these incredible stories with all of you. With 195 widely recognized countries in the world, My Baseball History is more than halfway to complete global coverage, something that boggles my mind when I really think about it.

This following has allowed me to drive around the country to meet and interview new people, and you all want to hear me tell their stories. That isn’t lost on me, and I’m always thankful for it. For you. The responsibility to properly tell the stories of my interview subjects isn’t something I take lightly, and I hope that comes across in the finished product. The fact that our numbers continue to grow month after month makes me feel like you all see the care I put into every episode. This show is something I’m extremely proud of.

As you know, we do giveaways associated with each episode, and the winners of the trivia contest from the latest episode with Maybelle Blair will either win a copy of All the Way: The Life of Baseball Trailblazer Maybelle Blair, by Kat D. Williams, or a copy of How Retrosheet Saved Baseball History, by Jay Wigley. If you don’t want to take your chances on the contest and want to be sure you get a copy, no matter what, you can buy Kat Williams’ book HERE, or you can buy Jay Wigley’s book HERE.

However, you can also enter for your chance to win a free copy by following @shoelesspodcast on Twitter or Bluesky and re-posting the pinned post at the top of our profile, which mentions the latest episode with Maybelle. That post asks a trivia question, which is answered during the episode. Answer that trivia question correctly with your re-post, and you’re automatically entered into the contest. We’ll pick a winner before the next episode of the podcast goes live on Wednesday, May 13^th. All you have to do to be considered is follow us on Twitter or Bluesky and quote that pinned post before then, but feel free to tag a friend in the comments or write why you think you should win. It may help your chances of winning…

Don’t forget, it’s a huge help when you Rate and review the podcast on whatever platform you choose to listen. 5-Star ratings help our podcast get shown on more people’s suggested podcast pages, which means more people will hear our show. It just takes a couple of seconds of your time, but it really helps us a lot. And of course, liking us on social media, interacting with our posts, and sharing things with your friends is great, too. Feel free to forward this email to anyone in your life who loves baseball, and hopefully they’ll enjoy the podcast and learn a thing or two. But no matter how you choose to support us, even if it’s just by listening, we appreciate you being here.

Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.