Kalin Boodman is one of the co-founders of Baseballism, a lifestyle company started by four former college baseball teammates that created catchy slogans and has become a must-own for baseball fans. The four friends come from different backgrounds and Boodman's is the most unique as a former military lawyer. We discuss Boodman's multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, jumping out airplanes and landing at 17 mph, returning to his native Oregon to work with his buddies, and how Baseballism grew so quickly. If you own a 6+4+3=2 T-shirt, then you'll love this podcast. If you're a math teacher angered by that T-shirt, you should really listen. Baseball is America's Pastime, and Baseballism is the ultimate American entrepreneurial company. 

Life Around The Seams

Episode 43 — Kalin Boodman

Dave Edlund, better known as McCovey Cove Dave on social media, is one of the few people to watch a Major League Baseball game in person in 2020. Of course, Dave is not sitting in the seats watching his beloved San Francisco Giants. He's in a kayak, beyond the right field fence, in the San Francisco Bay, listening to the game on radio and looking up into the sky. On Episode 42 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, Edlund explains life in McCovey Cove for regulars and visitors, when the water is packed and when he's alone, the most memorable "Splash Hit" home runs he's snagged, and how life has never been better for this lifelong Giants fan.

Episode 42 -- "McCovey Cove" Dave Edlund

Johnny Doskow returns to the Life Around the Seams podcast to discuss his new book: "GOODNIGHT EM: Baseball and Life Through Haiku."   Doskow is the voice of the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Dosky explained how he always enjoyed writing haiku poems, then used the pandemic to get serious about writing hundreds that could be turned into this book.   I picked out some of my favorites, read them aloud, and then we flapped about some of the details behind each haiku. Just like the book's title, we discuss baseball and life, with a focus on some of Johnny Dee's favorite players and coaches and restaurants from his time working in baseball. 

Episode 41 -- Johnny Doskow, 2.0

On Episode 40 of Life Around the Seams, it’s a Father’s Day inspired podcast. We talk fathers and sons, baseball and broadcasting, calls on the air and calls on the phone, with Tim Neverett and his oldest son Matt Neverett.  Tim currently broadcasts Dodgers games on the radio and TV. Before that, he was with the Red Sox and Pirates. Tim worked for nearly a decade in Las Vegas, broadcasting minor league baseball, hockey, basketball, plus UNLV sports and working in talk radio. He's broadcasted multiple Summer and Winter Olympics, and worked in the Denver market as a Rockies pre/postgame host and play-by-play announcer for a variety of sports. Matt graduated from Appalachian State a few years ago. He's worked with the collegiate league Nashua Silver Knights, double-A Birmingham as an assistant, was the lead broadcaster at single-A Bradenton last year, and joined Triple-A Las Vegas (where he was born) in a variety of capacities for 2020.

Episode 40 -- Tim and Matt Neverett

Dave Raymond was the senior class President at Stanford University and he was homeless. It was by design, somewhat, because it was practical. He was a stand-up comedian on the side. His articles for Forbes magazine are widely cited as bursting the internet bubble in the early 2000s. These days, Dave and his wife are the owner of a nanny and tutoring business. Oh yeah, he's also the TV play-by-play announcer for the Texas Rangers. Raymond's journey is fascinating. He quit his first broadcasting job in the minors before the season began. He was once traded for a blind announcing team. After over a decade in the minors and a few fill-in games in the majors, he finally got his first full-time MLB job with the Houston Astros. Six years later, he was fired and had basically given up on broadcasting. Now he's back in the majors, happier than ever with the Rangers, doing the job he always dreamed. His remarkable story takes awhile to tell properly, but all the twists and turns will make you shake your head in appreciation.

Episode 39 -- Dave Raymond

Josh Whetzel has spent 25 years broadcasting baseball games in the minor leagues, from Albany to Kinston to Binghamton and at Triple-A Rochester since 2003. He also calls games for the University of Buffalo men's basketball team and was named Broadcaster of the Year in 2015 by Baseball Digest. And his career was launched due to a serious illness as a teen-ager. On Episode 38 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, Whetzel explains the turn of events that led him from the hospital to Dodger Stadium to a small radio station in Kansas and eventually inside press boxes throughout the country. We also discuss his MLB debut when Mariano Rivera made history, and talk about some of his memories from three decades working in baseball.  

Episode 38 -- Josh Whetzel

Author Brad Balukjian, a biology instructor by day, came up with an absurdly delightful idea. Buy one pack of baseball cards (he chose 1986 Topps), then track down all the players on those cards, interview them about their life after baseball, and write a book about them. The idea was born in 2014. The roadtrip was in the summer of 2015 and spanned 48 days and 11,341 miles. Then the real work was beginning ... trying to find a publishing house that would publish his book. Balukjian discusses the journey of getting the book published, the theme of vulnerability, plus why some players are willing to discuss their careers and others want to leave it in the past.  

Episode 37 -- Brad Balukjian

If you were a young baseball player and were told that you would reach the Major Leagues one day -- but you would only play one game, and only one game -- would all the years of playing and sacrificing be worth it? On Episode 36 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, our guest is author Jacob Kornhauser to discuss his latest book, "A Cup of Coffee." Kornhauser identifies 11 players who are just like "Moonlight" Graham from the movie "Field of Dreams." (Graham is a real player, by the way.) Kornhauser's subjects are interesting, and so is Kornhauser for choosing this topic. We discuss similar themes for these 11 players, why their briefest of moments in the majors made it easier to walk away, the teammates who show compassion in helping ensure they get into a game, the managers who are cast as villains, and a lot of brotherly ties ... including how Jacob's younger brother is the editor of this book.  

Episode 36 -- Jacob Kornhauser

John Shea first approached Willie Mays about collaborating on a book 15 years ago. Why did it take so long to finish? “Are you saying I missed deadline?” Shea asks, with a laugh. Actually, Shea wanted to make sure the book wasn’t missing anything, and it was definitely worth the wait. On Episode 35 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, Shea details the 100-plus hours he spent with Mays in order to compile this book, “24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid.” We also discuss the four US Presidents who shared their stories about Mays, the Hall of Famers, and hundreds more. After all, everyone has a Willie Mays story. What is yours?   

Episode 35 -- John Shea

Author's week begins with Dale Tafoya, a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan who just released his second book on his hometown team, "Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A's." In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s went from on their way to Denver, to remaining in Oakland and becoming the toast of baseball, and then crashing back down to mediocrity. In the middle of it all was flamboyant manager Billy Martin, who brought, as the commercials famously told us, "a different brand of baseball." Tafoya's detailed research reveals how close the A's came to leaving for Denver, why they stayed in Oakland, how many times Martin was almost the A's manager before starting in 1980, and how Billy Ball put the A's on the covers of the biggest magazines.   

Episode 34 -- Dale Tafoya

Curt Bloom was the play-by-play announcer for the Birmingham Barons, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, in 1994 for the one (and only) season that Michael Jordan played professional baseball. It's a season he'll never forget and a season that forever bonds those who experienced it. On Episode 33 of the Life Around the Seams, hardwood meats hardball. Bloom was there for every game, every at-bat, every bus ride, every visiting hotel, every mob scene as fans wanted a glimpse of the greatest basketball player alive trying to play professional baseball. We discussed how the Barons front office scrambled to get ready for Jordan, the facts and fiction about the famous bus the Barons used, pickup basketball games, MJ rubbing his wife's pregnant belly for good luck, Jordan's work ethic and improvement as the season progressed, and much more. Bloom's memory is fabulous, and if you want original audio from 1994, we recommend his personal website for clips and interviews: https://curtbloom.com/?page_id=1323  

Episode 33 -- Curt Bloom

If you divided Ted Robinson’s broadcasting career into four parts, each of those individual sections would be impressive alone. Over 20+ years of Major League Baseball, tennis grand slams and NCAA Tournament broadcasts, plus 11 different Olympics, the 49ers, Warriors and much more. Add them all together and it’s legendary. On Episode 32 of the Life Around the Seams, I get the pleasure of interviewing one of the broadcasters who I grew up listening and idolizing as a kid. You could spend hours talking to Ted on any sport, but we stuck primarily with baseball, with a decided emphasis on his work with the A's and Giants. You won't believe how Robinson got his start with the A's by former owner Charley Finley. We also discussed how his voice ended up in the background of the movie "A Few Good Men," why he never got on the air for his first NBC network assignment, calling the gold medal for Team USA in the 2000 Olympics, his approach on legendary home runs, and our collective memories from Barry Bonds' single-season home run chase wrapped around the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Episode 32 — Ted Robinson

Ken Korach spent 10 years in the minor leagues, before finally getting his first full-time Major League job with the Oakland Athletics in 1996. He replaced one legend, Lon Simmons, and worked alongside another legend in Bill King, then took over as the A’s lead announcer after the death of King. Korach has kept the memory of King alive on the air, in a book, and his tireless stumping that helped King get immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Along the way, Korach has become a legend himself for a new generation of A’s fans. On Episode 31 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, we detail Korach's late start into broadcasting, buying tickets at Bay Area stadium to practice broadcasting into a microphone, plus his memories of minor league stops in Redwood City, Phoenix and Las Vegas. We discuss his four years as a fill-in with the Chicago White Sox, then the daunting task of taking over for Simmons and blending into the booth with King, two of his broadcasting idols.  

Episode 31 -- Ken Korach

Jim Watson is arguably the most versatile sportscaster in America. He's done play-by-play for an astounding 39 different sports in his career, including six sports in five different Olympics. He's also a studio host, sideline reporter, emcee, and won five Emmy's in the process. On Episode 30 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, get ready to laugh because Watty is hilarious and a fabulous storyteller. This seems ridiculous, but Watson's decade as a college student led to being a bartender, which led to being a Page on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which led to getting sportscasting jobs. Being a bartender also started his play-by-play career by doing turtle races -- yes, turtle races -- which paved the way for him to do any sport imaginable. Within all the laughs, and we laugh a ton, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of broadcasting advice and life advice in this podcast. But mostly, we just giggled like crazy for over an hour. 

Episode 30 — Jim Watson

Patrick O’Neal comes from a family of famous actors. Initially, he followed the family business, before switching gears and carving out his own niche as a sportscaster in Southern California. On Episode 29 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, a very candid O’Neal admits the pressure he felt to act, then the relief and joy that he found following his lifelong passion for sports. Over the last two decades, O’Neal has covered every major team in Southern California for Prime Ticket and Fox Sports Net, along with numerous national gigs well.  We talked about out how often O’Neal found himself in the first row of sporting events, like when Barry Bonds homered into McCovey Cove and then gave a bat to his brother-in-law John McEnroe. Or the time Shaquille O’Neal went flying into the stands and left a bruise on O’Neal leg. We dished about real and fake celebrity sports fans, all the different athletes that O’Neal has interviewed (Kobe, Manny, Gretzky, Trout) and ended with stories about Farrah Fawcett that you can't miss.  

Episode 29 -- Patrick O'Neal

Life between the lines, but mostly outside the lines, for those who work in baseball.

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Life Around The Seams

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