{"id":282,"date":"2016-09-07T20:17:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T00:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=282"},"modified":"2016-09-07T20:17:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T00:17:45","slug":"crowding-plate-podcast-episode-23-tight-wild-card-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/09\/07\/crowding-plate-podcast-episode-23-tight-wild-card-races\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowding the Plate Podcast Episode 23: Tight Wild Card Races"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are two tight <strong>Wild Card<\/strong> races going on in baseball these days. Today, <strong>Joe Hojnacki<\/strong> and <strong>Greg Hessen<\/strong> break down the one in the <strong>National League<\/strong>. With three teams separated by a single game in the standings, it should be a fun race to the end. Because it could happen, the pair also go into all the crazy tiebreaking scenarios that can come up.<\/p>\n<p>Also, 21 years ago, <strong>Cal Ripken Jr.<\/strong> broke <strong>Lou Gehrig&#8217;s<\/strong> iron man streak. Does this record actually mean anything? Will someone come close to it? Who&#8217;s the closest now?<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the <strong>Twins Brian Dozier<\/strong> is on fire! How hot is he really?<\/p>\n<h2>Crowding the Plate Podcast Episode 23: Tight Wild Card Races<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/media\/player\/p2e9w-627605?from=yiiadmin\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Music in this episode:<\/h3>\n<p>Intro\/Outro: \u201c<strong>Take Me Out to the Ballgame<\/strong>\u201d sung by <strong>Edward Meeker<\/strong> and \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame\u201d by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.isotopespunkrockbaseballclub.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball Club<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Break 1: &#8220;<strong>Stranger Than Fiction<\/strong>&#8221; by <strong>Bad Religion<\/strong> and a quote from\u00a0<strong><em>The Natural<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Break 2: &#8220;<strong>Guns and Roses<\/strong>&#8221; by <strong>Paradise Lunch<\/strong> and Brian Dozier homering against the <strong>Kansas City Royals<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hosted by Joe Hojnacki and Greg Hessen, Crowding the Plate is a weekly baseball podcast here on Last Word on Sports. It aims to cover the fun, yet analytical, side of baseball once a week.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Joe Hojnacki writes about soccer for Last Word on Sports and is also co-host of the Crowding the Plate Podcast. An avid Red Sox fan, Joe idolizes Bryce Harper and feels that his fun showmanship is the way to save baseball from becoming overrun by old folks, and from dying out.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Greg Hessen is the resident Tigers fan on Crowding the Plate. As somewhat more of a traditionalist, Greg longs for the days of pitchers hitting in the American League and a landscape that doesn\u2019t include things like bat flips and PEDs tarnishing the greatest of all games.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 10px 0; max-width: 550px;\"><a id=\"ld-294-9705\" href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\/8915352855935768\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"auto\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Which of the following was the best moment of the first half:<\/a><span id=\"ld-294-9705-equiv\"> in <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LastWordOnSports&#8217;s Hangs<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LockerDome<\/a><\/span><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(function(d,s,id,elid) {window.ldInit = window.ldInit || []; ldInit.push(elid);if (d.getElementById(id)) return;var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];js=d.createElement(s); js.id=id;js.async=true;js.src=\"\/\/cdn2.lockerdome.com\/_js\/embed.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document, \"script\", \"lockerdome-wjs\", \"ld-294-9705\"));\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/div>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/598009362\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/598009362?et=AniUTqAIR3thkxqLI13TWQ&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=r5fUlvfGMqxdLZd07FAP1J1wNEzo_ZU0PpVKMsIyQwg=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two tight Wild Card races going on in baseball these days. Today, Joe Hojnacki and Greg Hessen break down the one in the National League. With three teams separated by a single game in the standings, it should be a fun race to the end. Because it could happen, the pair also go [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":721,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,2],"tags":[173,175,176,177,174,172],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts","category-featured","tag-al-wild-card","tag-brian-dozier","tag-cal-ripken-jr","tag-lou-gehrig","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-nl-wild-card"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/721"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}