0107 - Joey Mellows
Joey Mellows is a cheerful British chap who loves baseball and set out to learn as much about it as he possibly could by going to games in Korea and taking a summer-long road trip across America. You may know him as @BaseballBrit on twitter. During our conversation, he referenced a handful of things and people upon which you may want to do more research. Consider this page to be your “liner notes” for the episode so you can follow along.
Me and Joey Mellows after recording our interview in my old living room in Skokie, Illinois.
Tulane University
On September 21, 2019, Joey spun a wheel to help him randomly select an American college football team to support for the rest of his life. It landed on Tulane, and Joey has been an ardent supporter since.
Morning Routine
Joey starts every day he can by boiling a kettle of water to make some Yorkshire tea.
Joey’s Dog
An American Cocker Spaniel
Time Difference
Joey initially became a baseball fan because of the fact that he couldn’t watch the soccer games he wanted to while in Seoul, Korea, thanks to a 9 hour time difference from England.
Young Joe
Got the block on smash.
Joey and His Parents
Joey’s first baseball game was a contest between the Chiba Lotte Marines and the ORIX Buffaloes at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan in April of 2015.
Korean Baseball Cards
One of the first ways Joey started to learn about baseball and its statistics was by having his students translate the backs of Korean Baseball cards for him
Joey’s First MLB Game
June 27, 2016 at Yankee Stadium, hoping to see his favorite player, Shin-Soo Choo.
2016 European Championships
Iceland stunned a poor England side at the Stade de Nice, coming from behind to win, 2-1, and reach the quarter-finals of UEFA Euro 2016.
Ken Burns
Ken’s Baseball documentary is legendary, and has definitely helped teach people about the game by telling little-known or long-forgotten stories.
Billy Martin
After his incredible playing days, Billy Martin became a manager who had an incredibly wild career. From being fired by the Yankees numerous times, to managing during 10-cent Beer Night, he lived through a lot of chaos.
SABR Bio by Jimmy Keenan and Frank Russo
2016 MLB All-Star Game
The 2016 All-Star Game was played in San Diego on July 12. The American League won 4-2, thanks to a home run by MVP Eric Hosmer.
Wild and Outside
Stefan Fatsis’ 1996 book details how a renegade minor league revived the spirit of baseball in America’s heartland.
Buy It HERE
Independent League
Something Joey loves doing is making maps. Here is his map of all of the Independent League baseball teams.
Field of Dreams
A magical place. Joey can attest.
Listen to the My Baseball History episode with Field of Dreams Movie Site tour guide Craig Purcell HERE
Joey and Andy Brown
Great friends and great travel partners, Joey and Andy have seen a ton of baseball games together. We’ll hear Andy’s story in a later episode of My Baseball History.
Joey’s twitter account started mostly as a joke, but has turned into a unique global platform.
Bullpenning
The 2018 Tampa Bay Rays were supposed to be one of the worst teams in baseball. By creating a brand new strategy for starting pitching, they surprised the league and sparked a new conversation.
Wins
One of the oldest statistics in the record books is one that has recently come under some scrutiny: Pitcher’s Wins.
As sabremetricians rethink the way statistics are valued, the emphasis has shifted away from traditional statistics in many cases.
WAR
Wins Above Replacement, commonly abbreviated to WAR, is a non-standardized sabermetric baseball statistic developed to sum up "a player's total contributions to his team".
Dictaphone
Joey was talking about using a modern, digital recorder, but Dictaphone was a company started in 1907 which produced recording devices that eventually became synonymous with the company’s name (like Xerox, or Kleenex).
As the name implies, the Dictaphone is a dictation machine which works like a tape recorder.
How To Improve Major League Baseball In 3 Easy Steps, according to Joey Mellows:
1. Make The Game More Accessible
Ending local TV blackouts (some of which aren’t very “local”) would be a good start.
2. Make The Game Look More Fun
Allowing emotion and celebrations would attract a younger generation of fans.
3. Make The Game More Affordable
Having to pay $30 to park, $85 for each ticket, and $20 for a beer isn’t sustainable for most families.
Elvis Night
The Chicago White Sox run many promotions and special events at the stadium, one of which being Elvis Night, a fan favorite.
Joey on the South Side
The White Sox gave Joey a warm welcome when he was in town to catch a game.
The Culture at Fenway
It hasn’t always been one of inclusion and acceptance, something that the Red Sox, themselves, have recently been forced to address.
Polanco Hits For The Cycle
On April 5, 2019, the Twins’ Jorge Polanco hit for the cycle against the Phillies. It was the earliest cycle, by date, in MLB history.
London Series
The Yankees and Red Sox played the first ever MLB game in Europe on June 29, 2019. Neither team’s starting pitcher made it out of the 1st inning.
Old Uniforms
Joey couldn’t even understand playing baseball wearing pants. When I told him they used to play in these old wool/flannel uniforms, his head almost exploded. Though he admitted they looked great.
Ichiro’s Last Game
On March 21, 2019 at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, Ichiro played the final MLB game of his illustrious career. Word broke during the game that it would be Ichiro’s last.
Scoring A Game
There are a million and one ways to score a baseball game. This is how Joey does it.
Joey In Atlanta
Where he learned how much pressure is truly involved in picking which hat the ball is under on the jumbotron.
Green Monster Seats
During the 2002-03 off-season, the Red Sox constructed a new seating section atop the wall to accommodate 274 fans.
Mile High Seats
While most of the seats in Coors Field are dark green, the seats in the 20th row of the upper deck are purple to mark the elevation of one mile (5,280 feet) above sea level.
Rafael Palmeiro
Despite the fact that Palmeiro is one of only six players in MLB history with 500 Home Runs and 3,000 Hits, he has not been voted into the Hall of Fame. Perhaps if he regrew his famous mustache, he could curry some favor among the voters…
(The other five members of the 500/3,000 club are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Alex Rodriguez, and Albert Pujols)
Mick Mellows
Joey’s dad, Mick, was a professional soccer player from 1965-1982. He made 15 international appearances for the English national amateur team, including the 1969 FA Amateur Cup final. He won “Player of the Year” of 1975 while playing for Portsmouth.
Shoeless Joe Jackson
After spending some time at my house, learning all about Shoeless Joe and reading up about some of his statistics, Joey is convinced he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Sexual.. I mean… Performance Enhancing Drugs
This tweet from Jeff Passan uncovered a pretty wild story.
Joey with Jeff Passan
Joey has gotten some incredible access, along with international media coverage, during his trips.
wRC+
wRC+ takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for important external factors - like ballpark or era. It's adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average, and 150 would be 50 percent above league average. Mike Trout is even better than that.
OPS
On-base plus slugging (OPS) is a sabermetric baseball statistic calculated as the sum of a player's on-base percentage and slugging average. The ability of a player both to get on base and to hit for power, two important offensive skills, are represented. Babe Ruth is 1st (1.1636), Mike Trout is 8th (0.9999), and Shoeless Joe Jackson is 28th (.9401) on the all time list.
FIP
Fielding Independent Pitching - or FIP - measures the events that are directly under a pitcher's control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs. It is a "rate" statistic, that resembles how many runs a pitcher might give up per nine innings, given these peripherals. There are some very familiar names on the list of best single-season FIP performances ever.
Hamm’s Beer Commercial from 1979
Check out more from Tiny Moving Parts on their bandcamp page
Jamsil Stadium
Joey’s favorite place in the world to watch a baseball game is high in left field at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.
Joey Mellow’s Mount Rushmore of Kansas City Royals
Mount Rushmore
Before becoming what we know today, Mount Rushmore was actually a sacred Lakota Sioux site known as "The Six Grandfathers."
Lorenzo Cain
Cain was a Royal from 2011-2017, helping them make the World Series in 2014 and 2015. He was an All-Star in 2015, the year the Royals won the title.
Whit Merrifield
Merrifield has been a Royal since 2016. He has a .296 lifetime batting average, and was an All-Star in 2019.
Adalberto Mondesi
Mondesi has been a Royal since 2016. He led the Major Leagues with 10 triples in 2019.
Alex Gordon
Gordon has been a Royal since 2007. He is a 3-time All-Star, a 7-time Gold Glove winner, and helped lead the Royals to the 2014 and 2015 World Series, winning it in 2015.
Paul Hollywood
Another Brit who loves going on road trips.
