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#Pirates rookie 27 YO Matt Gorski hit a home run in his first #MLB at-bat this week! But maybe #Dbacks Eugenio Suarez outdid him by clubbing 4 home runs in a game versus the #Braves, that Arizona ended up losing! Are the #Giants & #Tigers built for the long haul? Is #Yankees Paul Goldschmidt really back in HOF form? We cover the big and little stories of the past week. Like the phantom triple play turned by the Nationals in their crazy win Friday vs. #Mets.

AND, then there's checked swings. In the Arizona Fall League last year Mets Drew Gilbert was the first player to call for a check swing review using the technology that was tested. The criteria is that the swing cannot go past 45 degrees beyond the edge of home plate. It worked just fine and we hope that along with ABS, ACS (automatic check swing?) will become part of daily life in the majors. Getting the call right is what all fans want most!

Here's the clip on the first check swing review in the Arizona Fall League in 2024 - https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-testing-check-swing-challenge-in-arizona-fall-league

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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About 1/8th of the season is past so you can pretty much take #MLB player stats and multiply by eight. Tyler Soderstrom of the #athletics s is not going to hit 72 home runs. But #yankees Aaron
Judge could definitely finish with 56 or more homers. Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt was taken out by a line drive foul ball last week in the #Mets #Twins series at Citi Field. Hoping that he's going to be ok but it was a scary thing.

Is the National League really that much better than the American League this season? It may seem so at first but it's too early to be certain. Might be that the top #NL teams #Padres #Dodgers #Cubs #Giants #Phillies and Mets are stronger than those in the #AL where the #Rangers & Yankees stand out.

Is Manny Machado a sure-fire HOFer? He plays 3B which is generally underrepresented in the HOF. He's closer than you think and is in his 14th season of a stellar career. We talk about the slam dunk HOFers playing (Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw), and others who are probably already there as well as those knocking on the door.

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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#Angels in first place is something we did not expect. Mike Trout leading the #AL in homers is not as shock but that he has 6 HRs and 10 hits is at least surprising! The #Tigers are in 1st place as are #Yankees, #Padres, #Cubs w #Mets & #Phillies tied for 1st place in the #NLEast as of Sunday morning.

Justin Steele may have an injury to his elbow that could change the Cubs fortunes. #Giants Wilmer Flores also has 6 HRs. #Mets Pete Alonso is off to a raging start which is good since many of the other hitters on the team are still not in full gear.

Since we are avid Mets fans we put them first in our round up of all 30 teams best five starting pitchers in franchise history. We will do this periodically through the 2025 season.

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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Baseball movies are rarer than they used to be. Has there been a great one that you love in the past 10 years? Gordon and Mark participated in a roundtable with 4 other baseball writers/podcasters/personalities - Vince Wetzel (author of "Lose Yourself" and a past Almost Cooperstown guest, Scott Bolohan (host of the Twin Bill podcast and content), Kelly Franco (Three Inning Fan the podcast), and former ESPN and The Athletic writer, current Substack author and author of "The Best Team Money Can Buy" Molly Knight.

We each picked two movies to feature as one's we'd recommend watching again or for the first time if you haven't seen it! Spoiler alert - nobody picked "The Natural" or "Field of Dreams" or "Eight Men Out". To find out which ones we did pick listen or watch the podcast!

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The #Dodgers finally lost & #Braves finally won. Yet it's the #Giants who are in 1st place in the NL West. #Padres also lost but still are off to a great start. #Cubs are looking good as are #Phillies who beat L.A. 2 out of 3 this weekend. #Mets bullpen is over-performing but they will take it for now. #D'backs have good news and bad news.

#Yankees are still clubbing home runs and the #ALEast is already a dogfight. At one point this week all the #ALCentral teams were 2-4 but it was the #Tigers who ended up in 1st place after this weekend. #Rangers are in 1st in the #ALWest over the surprising #Angels? #Astros are scuffling and the #Athletics are flawed but interesting.

#MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had some interesting thing to say about the future of baseball including Robo-Umps as well as competitive balance. We also talked about our podcast that will drop on Thursday with 4 other great #baseball personalities/writers/podcasters where we shared our thoughts on 2 baseball movies we felt fans should take another look at!

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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It's not really been a week in baseball but the Dodgers & Cubs have played 5 games now (Dodgers have won them all and are on a path to be undefeated) so that's close to a week. There are no narratives written in March for MLB teams. That goes for April too although teams will be almost 30 games into the season when April ends.

#Yankees Aaron Judge was on a pace for nearly 500 RBIs this season when he had 11 RBIs in his first 11 ABs. That goes with his 4 home runs in three games putting him second to Adrian Gonzalez for most homers in a season's first 3 games. Judge hit 3 HRs Saturday to become the 4th Yankee to do that including Babe Ruth and A-Rod. Lou Gehrig surpassed that with (4) 3-HR games! The Yankees spanked the #Brewers and gave Nestor Cortes a bad reception at Yankee Stadium in his first game pitching for the Brewers. It was a game in which the Bronx Bombers hit 9 home runs.

Shohei is hitting homers. Mookie Betts is back in the lineup and the 2024 World Series combatants are a combined 8-0 in 2025.

We pick who we think will win MLB awards this season. Rookie-of-the-Year, Cy Young, MVP, and Manager of the Year for both leagues. It's not as easy as it sounds after Ohtani!

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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As we launch our 6th season of Almost Cooperstown podcasts we start by saying thank you to our listeners and viewers. 280 episodes in the can and still going strong! Thank you for liking to hear and watch us talk about our favorite thing - baseball!

We go division by division picking all 30 teams in order of finish. It's a long episode for that reason but we just couldn't stop ourselves! Take it in bites if you can't listen all at once.

Will the #Dodgers go 162-0? Can any team beat them in the NL West? Which teams will surprise? Which teams will disappoint? What will happen in Sacramento this season? Or Tampa? Both are hosting #MLB teams who've not played regular season games at their ballparks.

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

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Author of 19 books, Keith O'Brien grew up in Cincinnati and had a front row seat to much of Pete Rose's career. Keith's 2024 book "Charlie Hustle" won awards from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The New Yorker. We both enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it highly.

Pete Rose was addicted to gambling, something he finally admitted, but only when he was trying to get baseball to reinstate him to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Pete always played to win and also always managed his teams to win. But his lifelong association with gamblers and gambling proved to be his ultimate undoing. He does have the most hits in MLB history AND a 44-game hitting streak that remains a National League record.

Keith has so many great stories from having interviewed Pete for 27 hours and talking with so many people who knew and interacted with Pete Rose on a daily basis. Keith asked us if what we thought about Pete Rose being in the HOF!

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. And please tell your friends!

www.almostcooperstown.com