
Loading summary
A
It's Effectively Wild and it's wildly effective at putting baseball into perfect perspective. Impressively smart and impeccably styled. It's the wildly effective Effectively Wild spin. Braid along Shango. Better than War. You might hear something you never heard before.
B
Hello and welcome to episode 2485 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of fangraphs. Hello, Meg.
A
Hello.
B
I suspect I know the answer to this, but did you follow the Enhanced Games at all?
A
No.
B
Have you heard of the Enhanced Games?
A
I've seen mention made of it on social media, yeah. These are are sporting events between people on steroids.
B
That's right. Or mostly, yes. If they called it the On Gear Games, you would have known and you would have watched. Maybe. Probably not, but this was an event that was held this week in Las Vegas for the first time, the inaugural Enhanced Games. And given how it went, perhaps the final Enhanced Games too. I was gonna say.
A
There's an optimism to that designation, isn't there?
B
Yeah, I'm sort of surprised this happened at all. I talked about it way back on hang up and listen when it was just still perspective. But it did happen after a fashion. And yes, the idea is it's a multi sport event and people have kind of dubbed it the Steroid Olympics. It's basically just anything goes as far as substances, performance enhancing, drug use is encouraged, if anything. And the idea is that we'll just juice everyone up and we will see some sort of superhuman performance here and we will test the limits of human athletic achievement and everyone will understand what they're getting into and what they're signing up for and everyone watching will know what the deal is and we will just see how strong and fast everyone can be. Well, it was kind of a dud because nothing, all that superhuman happened. So there was one world record that was technically broken barely in a swim race, but hardly because it was not just someone who was enhanced, but also someone whose suit was enhanced. He was wearing this buoyant kind of outfit that would not have been legal anywhere else. So it was a doubly enhanced performer. And then it was also a guy who had in an exhibition basically done this already. So nothing new happened in particular. And meanwhile a few athletes who were clean, who had tested clean and were competing against the enhanced athletes, won their events, which was not a great proof of concept for the if we just juice everyone up, they will be amazing. So given that, and also the Backers of this event. It's extremely maga coded. So it's Peter Teal and Donald Trump Jr. They have money in this thing. And it's also in large part done to advertise these substances and sell these substances. So even though they kind of couch it in terms of like, this is just to remove all the shackles that are holding down humanity and all these things, this is humanity 2.0 or whatever, it's really just, we will sell you some peptides and stuff if you're interested. So that's kind of the gimmick here.
A
Okay.
B
However, you know how we were talking about Glenn Allen Hill recently and the home run he hits onto the roof and out of Wrigley, and how there is a. A sentiment. I don't know if it's a widespread sentiment, but it's not a niche sentiment either, that there's sort of a nostalgia for the steroid era in some quarters. And it's. It's kind of. It's in conflict because you have people like us who grew up watching Base in that era, and that was a formative period for us. And all the surveys always say that people's favorite version of whatever sport they follow or their favorite music, it's just whatever it was when they were 12 or whatever, you know, and so that's the commonality. It's not as if any one era is objectively better. It's just generation after generation says, oh, yep, I pinpointed exactly when this was the best. And it just so happens that we all agree that it was when we were 12, even though those were entirely different times. So it's kind of tough when you grew up in that era. And I was 12 in 1998, or I guess at the tail end of 1998. But you were 12 for that home run race. I was 11, maybe. But we were in that era when you're inclined to say, yep, that was the best of times. It's never been better than that. And yet that era is understandably tainted. And we do recognize that that was bad for Major League Baseball and baseball in general in a lot of respects. So it's tough to hold those two thoughts where it was like, well, that was fun. This was what made me fall in love with baseball. Also, it wasn't great that a lot of people were cheating and there was no enforcement mechanism or testing or any of those things. But because I do see some people say, okay, it is better that this seems to be under control now and that there's testing and that There are penalties and everything. I do still sort of miss when you had these big, bulky sluggers shaped like Glenn Allen Hill. And we didn't want to know the terrible truth, we just wanted to see them hit some dingers. And wouldn't it be kind of cool if there were an environment where they could do that and everybody knew what it was and it wasn't going to sour us on the actual clean competition? It would just be like, can we see some guys crank some dingers? Juice to the gills. And so I don't think that this event, the enhanced games, was at all evidence that this would work or would be compelling. But can you imagine any scenario where you have some enhanced baseball that would actually be attractive to people that you would want to watch or that some significant number of people would want to watch?
A
I'm of two minds about it because, I mean. Well, first of all, it's sort of hard for me to have gotten really animated by that era of baseball because I got to watch Edgar the clean slugger.
B
Of course, yes.
A
I'm not being weird. I'm just, you know, making my little jokes. I'm of two minds about it because I think that it was undeniably very, very fond to see that stretch of baseball. I have a hard time parsing how suspect people felt of it at the time.
B
Yeah.
A
You know what I mean? Like, I. And the reason I, I bring that up as something that matters is because think about, say, the way that we all reacted. And, and in some ways, maybe this is the, the only version of this that would really work because it allows you to maintain some distance from it tarnishing your guys. But like, think about how we have reacted to the juiced ball in the past. Right. I don't think that people looked back at 2019 and were like, wow, this is the pinnacle of baseball. I think people were like, who's hitting home runs? How many. Yeah, something weird's going on here. Now, maybe if you go in clear eyed about it and maybe if the
B
way that the cream or the clear.
A
Right, exactly. And maybe if the way that, you know, the commissioner talks about it is in a way that makes you feel like an adult rather than someone who's being gaslit, maybe the reaction to it is different. But that year, people's reaction was something's wrong with the ball. You know, something, something weird's going on with the baseball. Why can't you control the baseball? Why can't you guarantee some semblance of sort of consistency in the bounciness of the ball, season to season, it was viewed in negative terms. And I think that it would need to be something like that where you can sit there and say, well, it's not that. And I'm, I'm only going to pick him because of the, the way he hits home runs and his propensity to do so, not because I am implying in any way that I think Aaron Judge is using steroids, to be clear, but like you, you want to be able to say, look at him, he's amazing. And what could he do with, you know, a super bouncy ball? Now the answer is he hit a couple more home runs than he probably would have, but he's so stinking for strong and he hits the ball so far anyway, he didn't really need the help. But like, stick with me for an imperfect example here. We want to be able to look at the guy and, and feel like he is the embodiment of skill and practice and strength. And having the ball be a little bit different allows us to maintain that impression of the player while still enjoying like, oh, ball go far right, like special bouncy ball go dist. And so I think that would need to be the version of it because I think if you hear, oh, everyone you like in baseball is just using steroids again, well, we have a negative association with that. It feels like cheating. We spent so much time, we lived through not only the fun of that home run race and that era of baseball, but also the fallout of it. Right. Like they were, they were going up in front of Congress. You know, when Congress gets involved with sports, sport, it generally is a bad sign. So I think that it would be tricky given the culture of the game and all of this work that was done after the steroid error, to try to reign it in. And like, we would be naive to assume that we know, one, everyone who used steroids in that era. I'm certain we don't. And two, that we have a complete understanding of the universe of players who have ever juiced. Now, I bet we don't. We get, you know, a couple guys who get caught every year, but like, I'm sure there are more of them who are masking more successfully. I don't say that knowing who they are in particular, but it just seems reasonable that like, there's a profound incentive to be the best possible baseball player you can be. And that incentive is going to inspire innovation in a space that is probably going to outstrip our ability to test for it. So, you know, I don't mean to Imply like a sullied fallen time and then a pristine current moment. But I think that the general consensus among baseball fans is steroids bad. And so you'd need to have an equipment based reason for it. And even then I think people would find it a little unsatisfying, if only because like, in that year it seemed so weird that that, like D. Strange Gordon was hitting home runs and like, what, you know, like, yeah, that little wisp of a guy. That seems wrong. It doesn't, it doesn't feel like it's in. It feels incongruous to what we expect a slugger to look like. And so then you just, you get back into this, this tricky thing where it's like the, the body is not what you expect. And sometimes that's lovely, but sometimes you're like, somewhere's going on here. So I don't know, it just struggle to think it would ring quite the way they wanted to. It is also deeply funny that the entire thing was just like an excuse to sell questionable supplements.
B
Pretty much, yes.
A
Wow.
B
There's always some sort of grift, but I think they'd have to rebrand it as no, it's cool now because it's not cheating because everyone's on a level playing field. It's just an enhanced playing field.
A
And yeah, I think not everyone's going to want to do it.
B
Well, yeah, that's, that's an issue. So I think there are a lot of drawbacks here. One, there are still some ethical issues. There's not the cheating ethical issue, but there is still the, hey, this could very well be bad for these guys. And they may understand the risks and they may accept them and they may get compensated accordingly. But you still feel a little skeezy about that, as many people do if they're, say, watching football, watching boxing, whatever it is. Okay. Even if everyone involved understands and accepts the risk, it's still people kind of punishing themselves physically for entertainment. And so you might feel kind of complicit or bad about enabling that system potentially, especially if it's this where everyone's just on testosterone or growth hormone or whatever it is.
A
Right.
B
And then also I think there's the question of would it even make them better? Which certainly was not conclusively answered by these enhanced games in a way that made it clear that they would be better. And this was kind of a limited trial because they just did a few events and variations of those events. And it was swimming and it was track and it was weightlifting. And I think if you're just doing clean and jerk or something like that. Not that there's no technique to some of these things, but I think they didn't have sports that were, I don't want to say skill sports because they all involve some skill, but. But I think that the less correlated the outcome is to just pure input, output, strength, force applied.
A
Sports that happen within the construct of a game. Is that a fair way to put it? Right. Like they were doing. They were doing feats of strength and races and. Yeah, yeah. Skills rather than a sport that is. Is game based.
B
Yeah, I think you could say that's sort of a. Maybe it's arbitrary distinction to save game.
A
I'm not saying they're not sports, I'm just saying that the form of sport they are taking as opposed to like nascar, which is not a sport, I
B
won't get into that. But. But yes, this was about directly measuring speed and strength as opposed to measuring something where speed and strength are certainly components. Right. But that's not the ultimate thing that you're judged on. So I think that in this case it wasn't even clear that the enhanced athletes were better at these games. But then if you take that to baseball, there continues to be skepticism about what the effect of PDS was across the board. And certainly in some guys cases it appeared to make a difference, but in others, tough to tell. And it's not purely just strength based. And sure, if you hit the ball harder, all else being equal, we know that that's better. And there's some suggestion that maybe it could help enhance your eyesight and then maybe your bat speed is better and you could wait a little longer to swing and you can evaluate the pitch and all these things. But a lot of it does still come down to say pitch recognition and repeating your delivery or your SW or all of these things that do steroids, is that sort of a magic bullet in those areas? Not necessarily. So between that and the fact that you're probably not going to get the best athletes in the world to compete here.
A
Right.
B
And they had some quality athletes in the enhanced Games. They had ex Olympians and everything. But are you going to get the best of the best? You have to have a huge prize pool in order to do that. And they did have a big prize pool for this thing. It was 25 million for all the events, I think. 25 million? Yeah. And the individual events had your purses of half a million, quarter of a million, that sort of thing for the winner. Quarter of a million. But I think you would really have to ramp that up because there's going to be a stigma associated with this. There's the health risk that you're possibly incurring. There's the fact that whatever you achieve is just not going to have the same cachet as if you're doing it clean. Because the whole idea of, well, we will remove these limitations and we will see what humans can truly accomplish. But then are they accomplishing it? Because if it's not natural and it's just sort of artificially boosted, I think it's more compelling than just will make the ball bouncier or we'll lower the seams and now the ball will travel farther. I think that's probably less compelling than we will make the guys stronger and faster. Because at least then it is the athletes who are making the difference as opposed to the equipment. I guess technically it's what they are injecting into themselves that's making the difference. Maybe, but they are still the ones who are doing it. And it's not just the. They're doing all the same stuff and they are the same as they were, but now the ball just travels farther. That's, I think, even more sort of capricious or arbitrary or artificial. So I think there would still be something to just everybody's Glen Allen Hill now and they're hitting the ball to the moon. And that would be kind of cool to watch. But I think that the charm or whatever intrigue that generated would wear off because ultimately it's. It's much cooler if it's plausibly legitimate. Because yeah, if back then you didn't know any better and you were thinking, wow, maybe Glen Allen Hill is just working hard in the weight room and he is just able to hit the ball that hard. Well, that's incredible. But then if we find out, well, it wasn't really that or only that, and he had help that other people didn't have. And then also if the enhanced athletes are competing, competing against other enhanced athletes, maybe you wouldn't even necessarily notice the difference because it's just like, well, maybe the pitchers are throwing harder and the hitters are swinging harder, and maybe it kind of cancels out and doesn't even make that much of a difference. So I don't think. Yes. Like, would I be interested in. In just watching guys just hit titanic taters in batting practice the way Mark McGwire used to. Yeah, for a little while, I think. But then I probably. It would start to seem hollow because if you're not doing it naturally Then how interesting is that really when you remove the constraints, the whole conceit of sports is like we're, we're pushing the natural limits really. And if you're going beyond the natural limits, and I know that that's always a slippery slope, it's like, well, this surgery is okay and Lasik is okay, but not this. And you can't make someone into a cyborg and also you can't inject this substance and just where do we draw the line? And this is all sort of, yeah, it's slippery to define what is clean and what is not clean, but I think that ultimately it's, it's really a battle against your inherent limitations. And if you just inject something that enables you to transcend those limitations. Well, is that really entertaining?
A
It's a tricky thing. I'm surprised that they were able to attract, maybe I'm misunderstanding but like formerly clean, high level athletes to compete in this because it's really hard to wipe away the taint of steroid use. And I think that a willingness to indulge in it even after you're sort of athletic career is presumably over, would inspire some amount of like eyebrow raising about whether the feats that you had previously achieved were won cleanly or not. That's not a thought specific to baseball, but I'm surprised they had takers there. And maybe I'm not familiar with the exact composition of the athletes who competed. So maybe these folks were already tainted by steroid use and they were just like, eh, may as well try to make a buck while I'm at it.
B
In for a penny, in for a pound.
A
Right. But I think you're right that it's a more complicated question of like, what constitutes enhancement than simply saying, well, we know no steroids. Like, I do think that you have to kind of grapple with these things. And you know, I think the distinction that often gets drawn is performance versus recovery. But we know that one of the beneficial side effects of steroids is in the recovery space. So it's like that's not even a clean distinction necessarily. Right. Like we wouldn't expect if you tear your acl, well, tough luck. We have the, we have a surgery that could fix that, but it would be considered an enhancement. So you're simply either going to have to play on it torn or be done playing at all. Like, we wouldn't say that that would be an unreasonable thing to say. But you do have to kind of think about like, what does, what does playing it clean mean? I don't Know, I just, I think that, I don't know that it would be all that compelling even if you could get over the like, moral hang ups of it. Because I think the idea that they're trying to make you think is like, well, they're X Men now. You know, like the gap in their potential performance pre and post juicing is, you know, worthy of like a Patrick Stewart narration where like evolution takes a leap forward. That's a terrible Patrick Stewart. It wasn't even, I didn't even sound British. I'm not gonna take it again. I don't deserve to. But that, that's not what we would see. And even if we did, it's like, you know, our monsters impressed by other monsters. You know what I mean? Like, isn't that just the level you get used to? So I don't know. I, and I also think that like, I, one of the things that I find most compelling about Basics ball is that a lot of different kinds of bodies can play the game at a very high level. That athleticism can look a lot of different ways and that like, you know, Jose can hit a home run and so can Aaron Judge. And those are the, the gap between what their bodies look like. And your expectations are such that if you, if you hadn't seen all of Jose Altuve's career and you hadn't seen Oliver and Judge's career, just stood those two guys next to each other getting off the bus, you'd be like, one of them can hit a home run and one of them can't. But guess what? They both can. You know, that's amazing. Even if it were convincing, I don't want it to feel like a far gone conclusion that like you can do the most impressive version of a thing. I like that it can still surprise you and that it can look a lot of different ways and the result can be the same. I just, it feels like it just fundamentally misunderstands what's compelling about something sport. You know, if I want to see, I can just watch the X Men, you know, and, and, and apparently the new cartoon is really good. People. Yeah, people really like that. I, I, I like cartoons, so I'm gonna have to check it out because there's another season coming, right?
B
Yes.
A
I like how I talk about the TV I will eventually watch and then very often don't do it. But I am almost done with hacks and that ends ended yesterday. So I'm like, Ben, I'm on it. I'm on top of wow.
B
One got your finger on the pulse
A
and I. I got through the entirety of the second season of Monarch Legacy of monsters.
B
Nice. So there should have been more.
A
There should have been more Godzilla. You know, like more monsters. There should have been more monsters.
B
I have one note for you. More monsters.
A
All monsters, you know?
B
Yeah.
A
Anyway.
B
Anyway, we can build a baseball playing robot if we just want to see a ball go far or fast. Presumably you could just have an entirely fighter. Yeah, sure. But that wouldn't be very entertaining because if you just build a machine to do it, yeah, we know you could just launch a baseball very far. But it's the fact that humans can do that sometimes that's particularly impressive. So there's part of me that thinks it would actually be fun to see the enhanced guys go up against the clean guys and just get their clocks cleaned by the clean guys. Because I think if you took the actual major league baseball players and then you had whatever dregs you could convince to juice themselves up to go up against the clean guys, I think it would probably be a good case study and a lesson and a reminder that it's not magic and it can't convert you into an incredible player all on its own, and that we would find that other skills actually trumped that. And so, yeah, that would actually be sort of instructive not to completely downplay the effects of PDS in sports or in baseball even. But I think ultimately those effects would probably be dwarfed or outweighed significantly by just skill. So. Yeah, so that would be a little comeuppance, as we sort of saw at the enhanced games.
A
Wow. They were really just trying to hawk supplements though, huh?
B
That was a big part of it. Yeah.
A
I do skincare. Okay. So I'm. I'm aware of the. The glass house I'm living in when it comes to the potentially dubious scientific claims of the various potions I put on my face at the end of the day. But, like, why would that be? It doesn't matter. We don't have to spend time on this. Maybe we can contemplate the question for the next bonus pod. But I just find it funny that they're like, you should take this supplement because then you can run so fast. And it's like, okay, sure. What else you got? Like, I don't know, man. It's like, it's the child's understanding of the world.
B
Well, here is an email we got just as we started recording Milwaukee picture Uribe disciplined after Uribe. The. The hammer has come down on his crotch chops.
A
Yeah.
B
So this is we have graduated from the pelvic thrusts of the Giants. Maybe discouraged but not disciplined.
A
Sure.
B
To actual suspension and fine for what the MLP email says were inappropriate actions toward the St. Louis Cardinals dugout during the top of the eighth inning of Tuesday's game at American Family Field.
A
Okay. I am not laughing because I find what Abner Uribe did to be funny. Although it is, like, a little bit funny. We can get into the appropriateness of it in a second. I'm laughing because I'm. I'm imagining the length of the conversation that they had at the league office as they tried to decide, like, how to describe what he did.
B
And ultimately they settled on inappropriate. That'll do.
A
Inappropriate actions toward the dugout. Yeah, anything. You know, like the. The reason it's funny is because any amount of specificity they clearly found to be itself inappropriate here. And so they were just like, we're gonna. If you didn't see it, you'll have no idea what he did. This could be him. He could be flipping the bird at the dugout. He could have been spitting at them. He could have been throwing the baseball at the dugout. He could have been scre. Something rude at the duck. This could be anything. It is so Vegas to be completely useless, except we all know what it is, so that it's just kind of funny.
B
It is very funny. And I don't know that I knew that that was grounds for discipline. And he is. He is appealing. So if he can argue that he should not have been suspended and fined for doing the degeneration X crotch chop. I mean, I. It's funny because Pat Murphy condemned it immediately. And look, it was over the top.
A
It was a lot, you know, like,
B
look, it was extremely demonstrative.
A
Right. I'm pretty live and let live when it comes to this stuff, but, like, buddy, come on.
B
Yeah. And. And Uribe was apologetic, and he said he shouldn't have done it. And he seemed kind of cowed by it. And he said. Because it was confusing why he was so worked up because he finished the eighth inning, the brewers were up six to nothing. And then he did a triple crotch chop. He did the. Like. It was the. It really is. I mean, that key and Peele McCringleberry excessive celebration sketch is just more relevant than ever because. Was it the third chop that did it? Was MLB scrutinizing the video of two chops acceptable, three chops suspension plus fine? I wonder. But he evidently was doing this because he thought that Ali Marmal, Cardinals manager was making some sort of sign that made Uribe think that it was a call to plunk brewers batters on purpose. So I don't know. It is funny because it. It seemed like the brewers just handled it internally. And Murphy was like, no hard feelings. I talked to him. We. We have police this.
A
Watching it again.
B
So emphatic. Yeah.
A
It is sort of fundamentally ridiculous looking like it is. It is so. It is so emphatic and so silly as to. It isn't. I understand what. What happened here. Like, I understand why the league felt the need to be like, so, hey, buddy, come on. Like, you're at work. There are times where I think the league just has to remind these guys, hey, this is a workplace. Like, we have hr, you know?
B
Yeah. This is American family fields. We can't have American families subjected to. To DX crotch chops. I don't know if he said suck it or just did the.
A
Sorry.
B
It is just. It is really funny because what rule. They don't cite a rule. I assume it's just kind of a general unsportsmanlike conduct can kind of COVID everything. But is there precedent for just being suspended and penalized for crotch shopping? Because that's what this is just. It's. It's the latest front in the. The crotch wars, the pelvic thrusts with the limits of acceptability. We have moved from. As I said last time, it was. It's. We've gone from bat flip consternation to crotch chop consternation or pelvic thrust consternation, chop consternation.
A
Part of it is just that he's like. He's such a. He's such a spindly guy and such a, like, whippy athlete that extends into his excessive crutch. Jo. I don't know why.
B
Recoil. There's.
A
Yeah, yeah. He looks like a. You know, it's not quite like the noodle guys outside of a car wash, but it's closer to that than anything aggressive. Right. Like, there's just something fundamentally non aggressive in this. To me, because he's so, like, Gumby esque in the way that his body is moving.
B
Yeah. I just.
A
The arms. Because it's just like the full extension above the head. Oh, boy. What were you thinking, Abner? Come on.
B
I want to hear his defense.
A
Well, he clearly doesn't have one. I think part of what I. The other part of this that I find funny is that, like, there was a sort of immediate acknowledgment of, like, oh, God, what did I just do? And so what he should do is he should just eat the one game. You know what I mean? It would make. I think he was sincere in the moment in saying that, you know, it kind of got away from him a little bit and he overreacted and I understand that. You know, the Central is competitive and Abner, you need Abner. You're four games up on the Cubs. Just eat your suspension. Like, eat it. Especially against the. Aren't they playing the Astros next? Isn't that their next series? Just eat it against the Astros. Who cares? You know, you're probably going to win those games anyway.
B
Yeah, it is very funny, though, that all The Abners are 19th century guys. And then.
A
And then there's Abner. I love. I really like the name Abner. I don't know why. There's something about that name that I find very pleasing and I think that that's great. And also, this is the look, there's a lot in the world, including in baseball, that isn't. That's not funny right now. You know, there's a lot of seriousness to be had and then there's this. And it's so funny. I just, I. I agree. Again, I think that it is right to say, hey, this is a little much. You know, it doesn't strike me as a completely disproportionate consequence. And maybe what they'll end up doing is like removing the suspension but finding him still, I don't know. But probably he's just gonna have to eat it for a game, so that's probably what's gonna happen.
B
I guess he was kind of telling the Cardinals to eat it, which was the problem, potentially
A
several times.
B
Well, I have some emails to answer and I also want to ask you who holds the belt today? Because I think the answer changes by the series by the week. Most disappointing team of 2026 oh boy. That'll do it for the free preview of today's Effectively Wild. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to listen on and hear whatever wisdom and wit await, we would love to have you.
A
You.
B
You can visit patreon.com effectivelywild to access the rest of this episode and plenty of other exclusive content. Weekly subscriber only episodes, Monthly bonus shows, our discord group, our livestreams. Either way, we will be back with another episode soon, which will appear in full on this feed. Until then, we wish you well and thank you for your support of Effectively Wild, whatever form it takes.
Podcast: Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Hosts: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer) & Meg Rowley (FanGraphs)
Date: May 30, 2026
This episode centers on the recent "Enhanced Games," a sporting event in which athletes are encouraged—or even required—to use performance-enhancing drugs. Ben and Meg discuss the concept, execution, and cultural implications of such events, ponder parallels with baseball’s steroid era, and reflect on fan attitudes towards “enhanced” sporting performances. The conversation segues into a notably humorous review of the recent suspension of Milwaukee Brewer Abner Uribe for an on-field crotch chop, wrapping up with their signature blend of insight and wit.
[00:42–06:53]
What Are the Enhanced Games?
"It's basically just anything goes as far as substances, performance enhancing, drug use is encouraged, if anything... but it was kind of a dud because nothing all that superhuman happened." — Ben [02:52–03:32]
Skepticism and Grift
"It is also deeply funny that the entire thing was just like an excuse to sell questionable supplements." — Meg [12:31]
[03:59–12:34]
Nostalgia for the Steroid Era?
"We didn't want to know the terrible truth, we just wanted to see them hit some dingers." — Ben [05:40]
Would “Enhanced” Baseball Draw Fans?
"We want to be able to look at the guy and feel like he is the embodiment of skill and practice and strength." [08:09]
Ethics & Limits of Enhancement
[13:43–16:26]
[18:51–24:49]
Human Achievement vs. Artificial Boosts
"One of the things that I find most compelling about baseball is that a lot of different kinds of bodies can play the game at a very high level... That's amazing." [22:12]
The “X-Men” Myth
"If I want to see, I can just watch the X-Men, you know, and apparently the new cartoon is really good." [23:40]
[27:12–34:36]
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Abner Uribe suspended and fined for performing a triple "Degeneration X" crotch chop gesture toward the Cardinals’ dugout.
"Any amount of specificity they clearly found to be itself inappropriate here." — Meg [28:01]
Discussion about what constitutes over-the-line celebration, the gray areas of unsportsmanlike conduct, and the degree of proportionality in discipline.
"Was it the third chop that did it? Was MLB scrutinizing the video of two chops acceptable, three chops suspension plus fine? I wonder." [29:05]
"He's such a spindly guy and such a, like, whippy athlete that extends into his excessive crotch chop... it's not quite like the noodle guys outside of a car wash, but it's closer to that than anything aggressive." [32:04]
The event is seen more as harmless comedy than true scandal, but the suspension is seen as reasonable workplace policing.
"There's always some sort of grift, but I think they'd have to rebrand it as, no, it's cool now because it’s not cheating—the playing field’s just… enhanced." — Ben [12:34]
"Ultimately, it's really a battle against your inherent limitations. And if you just inject something that enables you to transcend those limitations, well, is that really entertaining?" — Ben [19:23]
"If I want to see— I can just watch the X-Men, you know... Apparently the new cartoon is really good." — Meg [23:40]
For listeners craving both levity and literate baseball analysis, this episode delivers thoughtful skepticism about the allure of “enhanced” sport, a refreshing defense of "natural" human achievement, and a memorable foray into the absurdities of sports decorum and modern discipline.