The Buckshot Boogaloo Podcast Episode IV: Ted Walker
I am having fun with this podcasting thing. Podcasts are a time suck. I have more back loaded podcasts than I have actual time to listen. There is something intimate, cool, and loose with the podcast that makes it something I just really dig. This week, I got in touch with Ted Walker, he of the Pitcher's and Poets and the brand new Foamer Night. We touched on many a topic: the origins of Pitcher's and Poets, the aforementioned Foamer Night, Astrodome lore--we also chatted off air for a bit about varying things and stuff. The thing that stuck from our conversation was our mutual admiration for the Baseball Toaster.
My first entry into the world of internet baseball whatnot came with Jon Weisman and the discovery of Dodger Thoughts. I remember when it was a nothing, a thing, a blogspot. Then it grew and became something more and better. It became a baseball toaster. Ted, with tongue somewhat planted in cheek, made the observation that the Baseball Toaster, in retrospect, was sort of like Paris in 1928. Besides the Weisman, the Toaster was home to Ken Arneson, Will Carroll, Josh Wilker, Mark Donohue, Scott Long, Bob Timmermann, Alex Belth, and Cliff Corcoran (among others). It was a good place. The site is still up. It looks like a graveyard and it brings back memories of a time when I didn't have kids.
It's a strange thing, the internet and its graveyards. I recently found a blog invite for my bachelor party. We went to San Simeon. We camped and played baseball on the beach. The post was followed by a long thread discussion about the trip. It was fun and profane, as pre-bachelor party blog threads often are. I recently responded to my past self. I told the past me how I was doing. I told the past me that I was still married and that I had two kids. It was a strange thing. It was a thing, like the Toaster, that probably would have been lost to nothing in the past. I think I'm glad its up, even though we might someday yearn for a time when memories and past things just faded into the great ether of lost thought.