Blog Oklahoma Podcast / Blog Oklahoma Podcast 050: Baseball Season

It this week's episode I talk about one of the greatest seasons of them all, I share some quick thoughts on a new social network, and I share a comedy classic.

Welcome to Blog Oklahoma

It's Baseball season! One of the greatest seasons of them all. There are so many ways to enjoy the sport of baseball. Little league, High School, College, Minor and Major leagues. And yes I would even include the great sports of fast and slow pitch softball. I make no secret about it, I love baseball. No I'm not one of those fans that memorize every statistic, knows every player, and can recite the rule book chapter and verse. I don't even play fantasy baseball. I just enjoy the sport. One of the things I enjoy most is baseball radio. To me there's nothing like listening to a game. Especially since a lot of games are played in the afternoon while I'm at work.

For any baseball fan I would encourage you to install these two apps: MLB at Bat and MiLB First Pitch for iOS or Android. The MLB at Bat app will give you access to all the latest news from the major leagues, detailed team information, statistics, and of course the latest scores. For a subscription fee you can listen and or watch any major league game live or on-demand. Now the MiLB First Pitch app gives the same access as the MLB one except it's for the minor leagues. So you can follow your local team. There is also a subscription fee to watch minor league games via the app. But here a neat thing, you can use TuneIn to listen to most minor league games including the Oklahoma City Dodgers and Tulsa Drillers.

Speaking of the those two teams. did you know Oklahoma has a rich history when it comes to baseball. There is a fascinating article about it the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture by the Oklahoma Historical Society. I'll have a link to it in the show notes.

The first organized baseball game in Indian Territory was played on July 4, 1882 in Krebs. To quote the article I mentioned:

"A crowd of three hundred gathered to watch Krebs host nearby Savanna. Using sacks of hay and cans for bases, the game included fan violence, gambling, and anguish for the Krebs catcher, who played without a glove or mask. Krebs prevailed thirty-five to four."

Between 1904 to 1960 Oklahoma had 37 towns with professional baseball teams. We're now basically down to two. The Oklahoma City Dodgers and the Tulsa Drillers. Both of these teams are affiliates of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Tulsa Drillers are a Double-A team and the OKC Dodgers are Triple-A. So there's a good chance someone you watch play in Oklahoma City could be called up to play in Los Angeles and be that next Hall of Famer.

Oklahoma and baseball just go together. So please go out and watch a game or two this season, support your local team and players.

This episode's writing suggestion

is to share your love of baseball.

Top 5

No top 5 this week.

Special Presentation

Abbott & Costello-Who's On First Routine (Recorded 6-18-1944)

Mastodon

I've been playing around with a new social network this past week called Mastodon. Mastodon is a free and open-source social network. It works much like Twitter, except it doesn't have a 140 character limit, isn't owned by a corporation, and is decentralized. Anyone can launch a Mastodon server or instance, and anyone who signs up on that server can communicate with all the other Mastodon servers to form one federated open network. It's actually been real interesting to see how this works. I hope one day to dig into the source code, but that'll have to wait for another time. The current Mastodon interface is much like Tweetdeck, but I have to say it's a bit clunky in how it's laid out and functions. It's new I'm sure improvements will roll out over time. If you're interested in yet another social network. I'm on the mastodon.cloud instance. From there you can find out more about Mastodon. And please feel free to follow me at mastodon.cloud/@programwitch. I'll have a link in the show notes to all this. And please let me know what you think about Mastodon.