{"id":7266,"date":"2017-07-07T15:08:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T19:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=7266"},"modified":"2017-07-07T15:32:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T19:32:31","slug":"crowding-the-plate-podcast-episode-53-2017-home-run-derby-and-the-half-way-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/07\/07\/crowding-the-plate-podcast-episode-53-2017-home-run-derby-and-the-half-way-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowding the Plate Podcast Episode 53: 2017 Home Run Derby and the Half Way Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The MLB season has reached its actual half way mark, even if the official start of the second half isn&#8217;t until after next week&#8217;s All-Star Game. With that in mind, Joe Hojnacki and Greg Hessen pick out their favorite moments from the first half of the season.<\/p>\n<p>They also take on the <strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/morrilo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Logan Morrison<\/a><\/strong><\/strong> vs.\u00a0<strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sanchga02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gary Sanchez<\/a><\/strong><\/strong> Home Run Derby beef and ask the question of whether or not it really matters who is in the derby? I mean, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suzukic01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ichiro Suzuki<\/a><\/strong> says he can hit a bomb whenever he wants and he&#8217;s never been part of the field. Plus, is there any reason not to pick <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/judgeaa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Judge<\/a><\/strong> to win it?<\/p>\n<h2>Crowding the Plate Podcast Episode 53: 2017 Home Run Derby and the Half Way Point<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/media\/player\/jnwse-6cb768?from=yiiadmin\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Music in this Episode:<\/h3>\n<p>Intro\/Outro: \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame\u201d sung by Edward Meeker and \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame\u201d by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isotopespunkrockbaseballclub.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball Club<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Break 1: &#8220;Cheat&#8221; by The Clash, and a quote from\u00a0<em>Major League<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Break 2: &#8220;Bad Town&#8221; by Operation Ivy and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hunteto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Torii Hunter<\/a><\/strong> robbing <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bondsba01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barry Bonds<\/a><\/strong> of a home run in the 2002 All Star Game.<\/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 <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harpebr03.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-lwosonbaseball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryce Harper<\/a><\/strong> 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<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\/809499466\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 64.814815% 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\/809499466?et=N69_bmP3SQd6LS2xcia16A&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=t5hA62n84yKxxO2BRyMy2OBPDYuZ66jFtY_Erqh4rAI=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"385\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The MLB season has reached its actual half way mark, even if the official start of the second half isn&#8217;t until after next week&#8217;s All-Star Game. With that in mind, Joe Hojnacki and Greg Hessen pick out their favorite moments from the first half of the season. They also take on the Logan Morrison vs.\u00a0Gary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":721,"featured_media":7272,"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":[1071,2,45],"tags":[501,68,40,1504,69],"class_list":["post-7266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-featured","category-podcasts","tag-aaron-judge","tag-baseball","tag-gary-sanchez","tag-logan-morrison","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266","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=7266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}