September 15, 2025 • 41 mins
Eric Proffitt reveals his hidden past as a summer collegiate baseball player for the Wichita Fury, a surprise revelation despite years of friendship with the host. His baseball journey spans from childhood to podcasting, with unique experiences like playing and working at historic Lawrence Dumont Stadium.
• Co-hosts the Earn Fun Average Podcast focusing on minor league and summer collegiate baseball
• Played summer collegiate baseball for the Wichita Fury in the now-defunct River City Victory League
• Worked for the Wichita Wranglers in 2003-2004 when 19-year-old Zack Greinke pitched there
• Follows baseball traditions including collecting ice cream helmets and stadium pins
• Participates in "Baseball Around the Clock" - 11 games in 33 continuous hours
• Aims to attend 100 baseball games annually (already at 74 games this season)
• Values baseball's slower pace for building friendships and conversations
• Learned scorekeeping from his mother, contrary to the typical father-son baseball narrative
• Played on Lawrence Dumont Stadium's unique turf infield/grass outfield configuration
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to my show, where I'm giving you all the
stuff you've never heard andyou've known me for like five
years now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We've known each other for a long time and I just
found this out on my newsection of the podcast of Five
Questions.
This is insanity.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I can't wait until everybody hears this.
Okay, let's go.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
All right, welcome everybody to, I guess, five
Questions, and today we have mygood friend and fellow podcaster
and co-host also of the DHCSports Show, eric Prophet.
How are you doing today, myfriend?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I'm doing well.
Appreciate you having me on Ed.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Oh yeah, so before we go on, if you don't mind
telling us a little bit aboutyourself, as far as your podcast
and all that fun stuff, soeverybody can know all about it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, so I co-host a podcast called the Earn Fun
Average Podcast, part of theCurvebroom Media Network with
you.
I do it with my good friend,Johnny Bolin and it comes out
every Wednesday morning.
Talk a lot about minor league,summer collegiate's kind of our
big thing right now.
We love the good summercollegiate teams out there,
(01:18):
independent professionals, sohave on some friends, have on
some GMs.
We've had some head coaches andso talk a lot of baseball.
But yeah, Earn Fun Average isJohnny and I's podcast that we
do.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You really have found a niche in collegiate summer.
Man Like you really have a goodniche there.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, we love summer collegiate and we've gotten a
little bit.
It's not all summeregiate up inCanada, but we started to get
some teams from Canada to comeon as well, that's pretty cool,
so we like to call ourselvesCanada's Podcast.
But yeah, we seem to just reallyenjoy any time they come on
(02:01):
Summer Collegiate, I don't knowfor whatever reason.
Their episodes seem to do thebest.
They're loyal fans that go tothe games.
They tune in when they teamshares the podcast on their
socials and so, yeah, we've notsolely, uh, strictly uh, summer
collegiate, but that's kind of abig thing of what we're doing.
We really enjoy it.
A lot of fun getting to learnabout kind of these smaller
(02:23):
teams.
We've also done some of thebigger Northwoods Leagues and
the Cape and the Coastal Plains.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
League.
I was just going to say you'vedone.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Coastal Plains Leagues as well.
Yeah, so we've done some of thebigger summer collegiate, but
also some of those smaller onesthat people aren't familiar with
.
Yeah, just a lot of fun gettingto learn about them.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
The team the towns they're from.
And so, hell yeah, dude, I loveit.
All right, you ready forquestion number one, my friend?
Yes, sir, all right.
So, and, and this one, uh, ispretty simple what?
How did you fall in love withthe game of baseball?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
a lot of people you know talk about.
Yeah, I used to, you know,growing we'd go outside and play
catch with you know my dad, orkind of those type of stories,
and my dad was always there.
He was super supportive.
I played baseball basicallywhen I was five years old, up
through the year after mybasically my freshman year of
(03:19):
college.
I didn't play like for college,but I did play, and not a whole
lot of people know this.
I did play for a summercollegiate team in a league that
no longer exists here inWichita.
Wait, hold on a second.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
We've been friends this long and now you're just
telling me this thing, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so I was 19.
I played, as they were called,the Wichita Fury and they, right
out of high school, I playedfor them for one season.
It was the River City VictoryLeague, the RCVL, here in
Wichita and I talk a lot aboutlike on my show and sometimes on
the show you and I do about theNational Baseball Congress
(04:01):
World Series right, which at thetime of this recording actually
starts this Thursday and thenthis Saturday and Sunday is
baseball around the clock.
So I'm going to be doingbaseball around the clock for
the first time.
I didn't get to do it last yearwhen they brought it back, so
it'll be the first time for mein like eight or nine years.
But RCVL was a partner leaguewith the NBC and if we would
(04:23):
have won our league we wouldhave got to play in the NBC
World Series but unfortunatelywe ended up taking second in the
league so I didn't get to playin the NBC.
I was close, but, yeah, onlyone year.
But I did get to play.
I did play summer collegiate.
So not a lot of people knowabout that, they're about to
find out.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
That's what they're about to do?
Dude, that's amazing.
You know how jealous I am.
I just wanted to play oneseason, that's it.
Even if it was summer, I wouldhave loved to do that.
Obviously, I suck and I'm justreliving my childhood dreams
right now in Sandlot baseball.
But man, that's what positiondid you play?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So growing up I pitched a lot, but in this
league I played mostly second orright field.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I wasn't as good with the bat but I was really good
defensively and wasn't afraid toget dirty.
So I made a lot of gooddefensive plays.
But yeah, when I played for theFury I was mostly second base
and a little bit of right field.
But growing up I pitched a lot,played first and even played
some third.
I played basically everythingbut even played some third.
Basically I did everything butcatcher.
(05:27):
Growing up One of the coolthings also kind of unrelated,
but it would have been my 7thand 8th grade years and then I
think even through high schoolnot the high school team but the
(05:50):
summer team that I played forthe league we had here in
Wichita.
Before we got the currentWichita wind surge we had called
Lawrence Dumont stadium.
That was built in 1934 and washere until 2018.
We actually got to play somegames every summer at Lawrence
Dumont stadium.
So it's where.
The last 10 years it was theWichita wing nuts of the
(06:10):
independent professionalAmerican association, but before
that it was the double a, theKansas city Royals, the Wichita
Wranglers.
So I got to play on that sameturf field and it was really
weird because when the wing nutscame in they switched it and it
was all turf.
But prior to that and I neverreally see this and I obviously
I don't think many people doanymore the outfield was grass
(06:34):
and the infield was turf.
What it's really weird, that'sthat's how lawrence dumont was
for many years.
Back in the day it was.
You could see the turf wasreally faded, this really weird
green color turf, but theoutfield was grass and when I
played there that's what it was.
So I played probably four orfive years and got to play two
(06:54):
or three games every summer at adouble-A stadium.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So welcome to my show where I'm giving you all the
stuff you've never heard andyou've known me for like five
years now we've known each otherfor a long time and I just
found this out on my new, on mynew section of the podcast of
five questions.
This is insanity.
I can't wait till everybodyhears this just yo I'm gonna be
(07:19):
like y'all wanna y'all gottalisten to this thing but just to
kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
you know, obviously I haven't really gotten to answer
your question.
So my parents were supersupportive.
They took me.
You know my parents took me toall my games and you know you
had on and I actually listenedtoday Kelly Robinson and then
Virgil Brooks, they scored allthe games.
Well, my mom kept score for allmy games and that's how I
(07:46):
learned is from actually my mom,because she kept score from my
games and so she taught me.
So you know, a lot of timesit's like, oh, I learned from an
uncle or dad or whatever, butfor me it was my mom.
But I do remember my uh parents, especially my dad, would take
me out to like the nbc worldseries at lawrence dumont
growing up.
But for for me I have two olderbrothers.
My brother, joe, is six yearsolder and then my oldest brother
(08:10):
, nick, is eight years older,and so for me I think I kind of
learned and loved the game, moreso for my brothers, I would say
, than anything.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
That's awesome dude.
And obviously I know one ofyour brothers, joe, which he's
an awesome dude.
You know, love hanging out withjoe, he's hilarious.
Oh my god, I cannot believe.
Almost five years, five years.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And then you just decided to just drop this
bombshell on me, jesus that'sright, so we would always go
either just outside in our frontyard or there is a park.
It's still there.
That was, oh, probably fiveminute walk from my parents
house growing up, and my momstill lives in that same house,
(08:53):
so it's still right over closeto actually where I live now, uh
, but we would always eitherwalk or ride our bikes to the
park yeah and there was a afield there.
Obviously it was not a very goodfield but it had a backstop and
dirt.
Or we a field there obviouslyit was not a very good field but
it had a backstop and dirt orwe would go out if it was being
used.
We would go out into the biggrassy area and would use our
bicycles as bases, yeah.
(09:14):
And then so we'd run and havethe bicycles and we kind of step
near it or kind of touch thetires yeah, yeah for the bases.
But yeah, for me I think it wasmore kind of with both my
brothers and then so I have twoolder brothers, as I mentioned,
but then next door there werethree boys, and so I was the
youngest of the six, betweenboth my brothers, myself and
(09:37):
then the three boys next door.
My brother, nick, was eightyears older.
So between me and the eightyears older there were six of us
within the eight year range.
So we'd always go outside andplay wiffle ball or whatever,
and then across the street therewas two more boys, so there's
basically eight of us, so we'dalways just go.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You almost had almost a whole full team dude.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, so I'd say more so for me instead of you know.
Obviously, like I said, myparents were super supportive
and took me to all my games andstuff, but I think more so with
my brothers and then theneighbor boys next door and
across the street growing up.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's cool as shit, dude.
I love that.
That's awesome.
I know you say you have twobrothers.
I've obviously never met theiroldest one, but met Joe.
All right, give me a couplestories, man, of you going to
games or growing up.
There has to be somethingthat's just really you gravitate
(10:40):
towards the game, becauseobviously we both have plenty of
stories.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So give me a couple of them yeah, like I mentioned
so with the uh, wichitawranglers.
They were here from the late80s up until 2007, so I remember
going to the ballpark quite abit and logo, something that I
think I've mentioned before.
But also another thing that mayshock you, if you don't really
know, is that I used to work inminor league affiliated ball.
(11:06):
So I used to work for theWichita Wranglers back in 2003,
2004.
And when I was there they hadZach Granke.
You know big MLB All-Star, cyYoung winner.
He pitched here for Wichita.
He was 19 years old at the time.
Jesus, that was right before hewent through his cycle,
whatever, he had to leave thegame for a few years and then he
(11:28):
came back.
I remember that, and when hecame back he was back with
wichita.
So then again in 2006, and thenin 2006 that team had, like
alex gordon, billy butler, sosome of the guys that went to
the world series yeah, so it wasfun getting to watch them.
Uh, so I think one of my funstories was when I was working
(11:50):
for the the wranglers.
I did a few different odd jobs,but mostly I was an usher, but
I was kind of the main usherright behind the home plate and
so I got to have a walkie talkieto talk to like the main
whoever you know that I wasworking for, main boss or
whatever, but the Wranglers hadwon the division and so they
(12:11):
were down on the fieldcelebrating and most of the time
you know, you see themcelebrating in the locker rooms
but they had the champagne downon the field, yep, and at the
time, grinky in 2003 was only 19.
And so the security guardpolice officer right next to me
goes hey, somebody watchednumber 13.
He's not old enough to drink orsomething.
(12:32):
Just kind of joking around, butthat's always a memory that
stuck with me.
And then that that 2006 teamthey end up losing the Texas
League Championship Series.
But I just remember going tothose games going to the playoff
games where they were rightthere about to win a
championship was a lot of fun.
And then when Lawrence Dumont,they tore that down 2018, my
(12:56):
brother I think both my brotherswere there.
But I remember specifically mybrother Joe and I were there and
just kind of the nostalgia ofbeing up, growing up at that
ballpark and knowing they weregoing to tear it down, and just
all those memories we had.
And then so like afterwards wewent outside and took pictures
with the stadium behind us andstuff.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And did you get to keep one of the seats?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
No, that's one thing I regret.
So they actually had it beforethey tore it down, where you
could go and get a stadium seat.
But they said, oh yeah, youhave to bring your own tools.
And I didn't have anything withme at the time.
I was up there at the stadiumbecause they had like a local
media versus some kind of funlittle celebrity softball game.
It's kind of like the lastlittle hurrah that they did.
(13:41):
And while they're there, like,oh yeah, if you guys want seats
and I didn't, I should have justhad somebody that was there,
just get one for me.
So absolutely.
Unfortunately, that's one thingI regret I did not get a seat
from that stadium.
I wish I would have.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Same with me with Municipal Stadium.
You know, obviously I got therewhen you know the Indians at
that point were moved into thenew where it is progressive
field right now.
I don't know if you know that,but it's called progressive
field.
You only have one sign, onlyone, not six or seven up front.
(14:18):
But I regret not getting a Munilot stadium seat I would have
been cool, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Another big memory that kind of jumps to mind just
because it was somewhat recent,so three years ago.
So you know, as I said, I grewup I enjoyed watching baseball,
but I never really traveleduntil I kind of met this little
group of friends through socialmedia.
So, 2022, everybody has this.
You know our friend Anna withthe baseball bucket list.
(14:42):
Everybody says I want to go seebaseball in Hawaii.
This you know our friend Annawith the baseball bucket list.
Everybody says I want to go seebaseball in Hawaii.
Well, I had a little bit ofadvantage on that, just because
my wife's, her sister and familylive.
They were at the on the bigisland at the time.
Now they're in Honolulu, but in2022 February, to start the
season, I flew out to Hawaii tosee her family and then went
over to Honolulu and got to seethe university of Hawaii.
(15:03):
They were playing Washingtonstate university, so I got to
see a baseball at less morecommie stadium and then from
there came home, went down toFrisco to see the Frisco classic
down at Frisco, texas, wherethe rough riders play, and then
ended up in 2022 was basicallythe first and last time they had
(15:23):
all three at the triple achampionships.
So the international league, theuh pacific coast league and
then the ultimate triple, anational championship.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So ended up, 2022 saw my first hundred baseball games
in one season this dude, I'mtelling you guys, this dude,
what goes through so many trips,so jealous right now, like I
mean, oh god, I'm just trying tostill trying to work on booking
my flight to vegas for inseptember yeah, that ballpark is
gorgeous.
(15:55):
I'm scared, I'm scared to bookin my flight.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm not lying.
If you get there, though, thatI love.
I've been there five times now,yeah, and I've yet to see the
aviators play at their homeballpark.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I know, but you've seen everybody else.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Because I went last year to the AAA National
Championship between Sugarlandand Omaha, which is a lot of fun
getting to see the Royals AAA.
And then we actually went twoyears ago.
They have a thing calledEnchant Christmas and it's a
bunch of Christmas lights andChristmas trees and they have an
ice skating rink and sleddingand vendors and stuff.
(16:30):
So we actually went out thereand went to that at the ballpark
, didn't see a game, obviouslyit was December.
It was a lot of fun getting togo there and then the three
games then in 2022.
So I've yet to see.
Now this year Vegas has won thefirst half, so they're going to
host the championship seriesand then if they win that, then
(16:55):
they'll be able to host thenational championship game.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
But it's funny how I've been out there and yet to
see the actual home team game.
Yeah, an excellent aviators.
Yeah.
And for those of you that don'tknow when I say that I'm
nervous is I was supposed to golast year, but a hurricane
completely destroyed those plans.
It pushed my flight, theycanceled my flight, then they
switched my flight and then theysaid oh, by the way, you don't
(17:18):
have a seat, you got to go backin, and so it was a whole ordeal
just to get in there and it wasjust.
I was just, I was disappointed,I was sad.
So I'm trying to get back thisyear.
It's going to be interesting,but we'll see.
All right, okay.
So question number three myfriend, give me some of your
(17:42):
traditions that you follow, thatyou do as far as baseball.
I know for one of them that youtruly do love is doing the wave
at baseball games.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
So please indulge me in your traditions so if this is
, uh, not only audio but video,you can tell that ed was not
serious about that.
Because there's two things thatI cannot stand with baseball.
The first one is the wave, yeah.
The second one is the shift.
Now they've kind of gotten awayfrom being able to do the shift
(18:09):
, but they still can, becauseyou can basically have the
shortstop play right up behindsecond base.
Yep, and funny quick story.
So last week.
So we here in wichita haveseason tickets to the wichita
wind surge, and I know ourfriend patrick will love that.
I say that here, all right,because he's like oh whoa, you
have season tickets, but he'snot.
He hasn't been on the on thefive questions podcast I know
(18:31):
he's gonna be, he's gonna be madabout that, but last tuesday
night a week ago, tuesday thewind surge were at home and the
game was tied with San Antonionine to nine in the ninth inning
I think, two to two, and theyhad a runner at first and maybe
a runner at second, and a secondbaseman was shifted over
(18:55):
towards the first baseman wherehe was pretty close to the first
baseman and I said I told myson, Zach, I'm like he needs to
move to his right.
The hitter is going to hit theball right up the middle.
He's not going to be able tofield it.
They're going to score move.
He goes no analytics say thisleft.
He's going to hit it right tohim at playing just past first
(19:15):
base or whatever.
I'm like he needs to move tohis right.
Sure enough, first pitch rightup the middle.
If he would have moved over tohis right like two steps, easy
field ground ball and gotten outof the inning, could have gone
in and maybe walked it off.
Instead gave up two runs in theinning and lost like four to
two or whatever.
I was so frustrated and I'mlike so yeah the shift and the
(19:36):
wave are not my favorite.
One thing I will do when I go tothe games now uh, like our good
friend paul, I'll get a icecream helmet, uh, with whatever
you know logos they have onthere.
I also started because of ourfriend charles dennis.
I will collect the little lapelpins, yes, and put those on the
(19:58):
map.
And then I also have been doingthe passport stamp and so I
have been doing the passport.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
The one I'm doing the same with you is the pins I the
last couple of for thecorporate media meetup.
We didn't get to have those,which was kind of sad.
That was like oh man yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
so I uh had started that in 2022 because, uh,
charles was doing that, so I hadthem from pretty much all of my
games.
Now they're only at my minorleague, affiliated and then
major league, but so, like theuniversity of Hawaii, when I
went to the college game theydidn't have it like that but
they had all the others.
So I got them at like thetriple, a national championship
(20:35):
and stuff for Las Vegas ballpark.
So I've had, I've had multiplebecause I've run out of spaces,
but basically I've done apassport stamp book at all the
stadiums since 2022.
And then I wasn't huge into ifI'm here at home we usually eat
dinner before we go to the game,but because of our friend Val,
now if I'm traveling somewhere Ihave to get what the exotic or
(20:58):
whatever food local beer orwhatever foods they have.
We got Donnie and I got deepfried moon pie when we're at the
ashville tourist game and thatwas phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It was so delicious.
So many calories, but soundsdelicious.
See, that's the thing, thoughit's like we have all, we have
all been influenced by, um, someof the people that we have met,
uh, across social media, right,uh, on some of the things that
we do.
Like you said, charles dennis,you know what, um, what uh val
does, what you know all thesepeople do, just because we talk,
(21:29):
and I was like you know what,that's actually a pretty good
idea.
You know, like, as far as majorleague baseball hats come for
me now is I, if I don't visitthat ballpark, I won't get a
major league baseball hat fromthem, like I just won't yeah, I
have.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So I'm a kansas city royals fan and I have a few of
the royals hats but for the mostpart any of the hats I have are
either summer, collegiate orminor league affiliated.
I have almost all of thewichita windsurge 59, 50s
they've had out over the otherfive years that they've been in
existence and.
But yeah, I'm just, I go to.
I have nine, I think, mlbstadiums left and I just don't
(22:05):
really get any hats from them.
Just I don't.
I I enjoy going to theballparks and stuff but, like I
said, I have a few royals but Idon't even have that many.
I have maybe three or four.
So my majority of the hats thatI have are all minor league
affiliated or summer collegiateor independent professional.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Some of those yeah, I can see that I unless I got a
bunch of um durham bowls, that'slike.
I think I have almost everysingle one of the like the dad
had versions of the what thehell durham bowls have put out
there.
Uh, just because every time Igo I pick something else.
You know, it's just you know.
You know how that goes.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, and I've that's kind of funny this where you're
at now.
So I've been to the Durham bowl, the bowls athletic park, what
three times now.
So it's a fun ballpark and Ihave a few of their hats, but,
yeah, local teams, usually youtry to get as many as you can,
just cause it's prettyaccessible for the most part,
yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So what other traditions you got?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
well, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a
tradition, but just now, at thispoint, trying to get to 100
games a year, that's cool Iafter 2022 I was able to hit 100
games.
2023 I only had 81.
Last year I hit 100 and thisyear I think I'll I'm gonna fly
over it because we just hit theall-star break, just finished
(23:28):
the all-star break.
Just finished the all-starbreak, I'm already at 74.
It's pretty easy for me to do,just because we do have the
season tickets to the wind surge.
They're home this week, sothat'll I'll be there tomorrow
through Friday.
So that's four more games andthen baseball around the clock
is 11 games in 33 hours.
(23:49):
It runs from noon Saturdayurdaythrough the uh, 6 pm.
Is it 6 pm or9 pm game onsunday?
And so it's noon 3, 6, 9midnight, 3 am sunday, 6 am
sunday, 9 noon3 and then I think6 is the last one.
So which will get over nine, soI'll have 11 games right there
(24:12):
in two days, basically.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So so let me ask you um well, are you going to stay
the whole time?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, so with baseball around the clock,
basically, they have where youcan pay 30 bucks to see all 11
games which, if you think of itin a normal uh aspect, that's
like like really good uh youknow just be that many games.
Even you know summer it's thepremier summer collegiate
tournament, right, uh, thatwichita hosts.
(24:41):
This is the 91st season and soaround the clock.
Basically, you start out withthe noon game on saturday and
they do at least one check-inper game and if you make it all
the way through they havedifferent prizes.
They have a I survived aroundthe clock t-shirt you get at the
end.
So, yeah, my wife and I aredoing it.
Our friend terry mccutchen'scoming up from abilene, he's
(25:03):
gonna do it oh, terry's gonna beup there yeah, so he's coming
up, he'll be here for then.
I know, like Donnie said, hewants to do it sometime.
He won't be able to do it thisyear but maybe in the next
couple years he'd probably comeand do it.
But yeah, the plan is to staythere.
You only have roughly 40minutes in between each game for
the next teams to warm up,where you can go out to the car
(25:27):
or whatever.
But you can't really leavebecause if they do the sounder
and they'll say okay, around theclockers, go down by the first
base dugout and check in at thecheck-in table or whatever, and
if you miss the check-in you'retechnically out.
Now you could theoreticallystill stay there, but yeah, the
plan is to try to make it theentire time.
Lack of sleep is gonna be apain.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, it's gonna be wild.
Good, god bless you.
I think it'll be cool, likewhen donnie does go to.
You know I'll try to do that,so that'd be cool just to do
some like live streaming.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
At the same time, it's a lot of fun because in the
past, when we've done it sothey've changed it up so they
didn't have it for about eightor nine years, just because they
had changed the format of thetournament.
There used to be 32 to 40 teamsand it was easier to do with
more teams.
Now they only have 16 teams,but they brought it back last
year and the format's changed alittle bit.
(26:17):
When I used to do it in thepast it was 17 games in 56 hours
.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So it's obviously six more games more time.
So they started at 5 o'clock onFriday and ran, ran through the
10 pm game on sunday.
Yeah, but they would have thelast game friday night and
saturday night at 12 30 am.
So when that ended, 3, 34o'clock, you didn't have to be
back till the 8 am game,saturday or sunday.
Well, here it just runsstraight through and you don't
(26:47):
have those breaks other thanthat 40 minutes, I think this
one's going to be harder oh,it's 100 harder is what we would
do, is we would just go homesleep for three
hours and then come back,whereas this one, you don't have
that break.
The cool thing is so they thishappened one of the tournaments
we did where, because of rainand stuff, it pushed the
(27:09):
tournament back.
We saw a game that started likeat 3 am.
We watched the sun rise.
So normally you know, you're ata ball game, you see the sunset
.
Because it was 4 or 5 am6 am,you got to see the sun rise from
the outfield.
And that's going to happen thistime too, because there's a 3
am and then a 6 am game.
So it's a lot of fun to get tosee a sunrise of the ball game
(27:32):
instead of a sunset.
Yeah, dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I'm gonna have to add that to my bucket list, right,
because right now, like yeah,the uh, the midnight sun game is
, it's one of my bucket listthat I've just always wanted to
do so I gotta find a way to doit.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It's just speaking of midnight sun game, so that's
usually the alaska goldthersfrom the Alaska Baseball League.
Well, they are coming back forthe first time in seven or eight
years, so they're going to behere and they just put out the
schedule today.
So we get to see every teamplay this weekend during around
the clock, but we get to seethem twice.
So they play the 3 pm game onSaturday and then the final 6 pm
(28:08):
game on sunday during aroundthe clock.
Now they'll get to continueplaying because they have pool
play before bracket play yeahbut get to see alaska for the
first time and, uh, it'll be alot of fun because we used to
have multiple alaskan teams here.
We used to have puerto ricannational team come, chinese
taipei, so they used to havewhen it was a lot bigger, they'd
have a lot of big teams come into play.
(28:30):
Unfortunately it's still goingnot quite as many teams, but
yeah, alaska is coming back forthe first time in seven or eight
years so it'll be fun to get tosee them.
But yeah, you've got to bringthat and it's a lot of fun
because if you do it with agroup of people, then in between
games you can go out and grillor just hang out, chat with
friends.
So, yeah, sometime, if you makeit here in the next few years,
(28:52):
you got to check it out aroundthe clock.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
A lot of fun, 100 uh.
Are they going to bebroadcasting this like on
youtube or something like that?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
they will be.
Yeah, they always have it onyoutube.
Uh, nbc world series andthey've partnered um, I forgot
the name of who they werepartnering with this year, but
there's some social media team.
I'd have to look it up.
That's going to be.
They've partnered with that.
We'll be able to.
Not only I don't know thatthere's specifically streaming
(29:22):
the games, but they will have alot of content.
Oh, prospect dugout.
So yeah prospect dugout onTwitter and they're going to be
bringing like exclusive coverageand stuff.
So they're going to have a lotof content.
So, yeah, if you follow theprospect dugout and then just
through like YouTube, nationalbaseball Congress world series
or NBC world series, they'llstream all those games.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I can't wait, I want to, I'll watch it.
So all right, man, we're, I'llwatch it.
So all right, man, we're, we'redone, we're done, we've done
three.
We're done to two questions, myfriend.
All right, um, tell me how hasbaseball changed your life?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
well, for one, I've made a lot of new friends that I
hadn't had previous, and one ofthe kind of weird things with
uh getting into this group hereum, I never really.
I just kind of came across.
It's actually started with paulyep, and what was funny is that
I uh back in around 2020 or so,before I kind of got into the
(30:25):
our twitter group where we havea lot of minor league baseball
friends yep, I had, uh, maybelike one or two helmets, like
little ice cream helmets, ohyeah, and it was the kansas city
royals.
And for work I travel quite abit.
Normally it's to a customer'soffice, but this time it's one
of our uh satellite campus and Iwent out it's about 30 minutes
(30:48):
from here and I was over thereand got done with our little
training or whatever, and one ofthe workers there had walked in
their break room and that wasaround the time that the New
Orleans baby cakes were movingto Wichita Yep, and they had a
New Orleans baby cakes ice creamhelmet sitting there and I
mentioned to the guy that worksat my company.
I was like that's a cool helmet.
(31:09):
He's like take it.
He's like nobody wants it, I'mokay, so I took it.
I'm like don't mind if I do.
I was like, wait a minute, okay, I got the royals, I got the
new orleans baby cakes, there'sgot to be more than this.
So I just googled like icecream helmets.
Of course paul was the firstone that popped up, of course,
of course.
So I started following him andand from there just kind of
evolved.
Where I started following andso you know, for me obviously
(31:31):
that's a big thing is just a lotof friends that I've made and a
lot of my friends I've beenable to meet in person at the
ballpark, whether they've cometo Wichita or I've traveled out
to see them or have gonesomewhere completely separate
that we've met up at.
And then, obviously I've beenable to start a podcast, talk a
lot about baseball and just getto meet a lot of cool people
(31:51):
authors, coaches, gms, fans.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
And so it's just such a long list of people that you
get to meet when you're doingthis, and it's so much fun.
Yes, for sure it's not so muchfun editing afterwards sometimes
, but it's just, you know havingconversations.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The toughest time I had with that was when Johnny,
paul and I hopped on a veryearly part of the podcast and we
went on a Friday night forprobably two and a half hours
and we just kept talking andtalking and Paul's like I'm so
sorry I put off editing thatepisode for the longest time.
(32:30):
I did not want to tackle that.
I've gotten a lot better since,but that was one of the first
ones I remember having to do.
That was like torture, justtrying to, because it was just
so long, trying to piece ittogether and I ended up putting
that into a couple episodes justbecause it was so long.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It was just so big.
Yes, it's a big episode two anda half hours.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, that's a massive conversation.
But I've also just been able togrow my love of the game, you
know, being able to go to somecities and towns that I never
would have otherwise because,like I said, I used to watch
baseball growing up here locallybut never really traveled
outside much, maybe went tokansas city here or there, but
now obviously I travel to allparts of the country and and
it's fun, isn't it Like it'sjust, you know, meeting all
these people and, just like yousaid, it's like exploring and
all that.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It's such a fun environment that we get to do
that now.
So, all right, my friend, areyou done for you?
Ready for number five?
Yes, sir, All right, so why?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
baseball For me.
I've always been a sports fanin general.
I'm a big college football fan,big NFL fan.
Don't really care if like theNBA, but love college basketball
.
For those those games are fun,but they're pretty fast paced
for the most part, and withbaseball I just think it's just
relaxing.
And, like you know, with ourshow that we do Tuesday and
(33:50):
Tuesdays and Thursday nights, Idon't think there's any way that
I could sit there, try to watcha football game and broadcast
live like I do with the what?
they're in the game.
It's just the slower game now.
They obviously try to speed itup as much as possible.
But I just think that you havethe opportunity where you can
have these friendships, you canhave that conversation and get
(34:13):
to talk with somebody.
So we came to Durham and we justsat at a ball game and got to
chat with you and get to youknow, being able to watch the
game, just because it is slowenough to a point where you can
just enjoy the camaraderie withyour friends and that's why we
try to have these meetups andstuff but just because it is
(34:35):
gives us opportunity where we'renot going to miss anything If
we go and walk around, becauseif we were to try to walk around
the football stadium orwhatever, you're probably going
to miss quite a bit of the gameIf you go to the concession
stands or whatever, just becausethose are more of a fast paced
type environment.
So for me, just the being ableto have those you know
(34:56):
friendships and thoseconversations and still get to
enjoy the game and not reallymiss much of it, and then just
being able to, it's affordable.
I know sometimes the games arecan be pricey depending on if
it's mlb or whatever, but eventhen it's more affordable than
what, like, an nfl game would be, uh, basketball game, that type
(35:18):
of thing.
And then just there's way moreopportunities, way more teams.
You know 120 minor league teams, 119 stadiums.
That doesn't include mlb.
Obviously there is a lot offootball stadiums, but to me I
just think it's a lot more funto go, travel and see baseball
stadiums than it would be to seelike an NFL or basketball state
venue.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I love it.
By the way, kudos to you onsaying 120 with 119 stadiums.
That's a good little triviathere for you guys.
If you guys know exactly whathe meant by that, what are the
two teams that play in the samestadium?
I'm not going to say it, but Ido know them, and so does Eric.
Look it up.
I know you got to look it upand put it in the comments
(36:00):
because that is actually areally good trivia question.
Good job, man, I like that.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
All right, thank you, eric.
Thank you, eric.
This has been a lot of fun.
Our friend Patrick is going tobe mad that he hasn't been on,
and then you have.
So whoopsie daisy Love you.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Patrick, he'll be okay.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You'll be all right, you get over it.
Where can people find you?
On the socials, my friend.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, so I have like 10 Instagram pages, but the main
one to follow is just theinfluencer EP.
So my nickname on our show isthe influencer, so I go by the
influencer ep on instagram.
So that's where I post all mygames and then, if you follow,
if you're on twitter, I'm e pro04, e pro 04.
And then for the podcast uh,earn fun average.
(36:44):
We abbreviate average avg.
We're on instagram, twitter andblue sky love it, my friend.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Thank you so much.
And then make sure you guys arefollowing the DSG sports show.
It is every Tuesday andThursday nights at 9 PM Eastern
time.
Also, I am on.
I've been my lot more, a lotmore conscious of where I spend
most of my social media time, soit's Instagram threads and blue
skies and then obviously on onYouTube as well.
(37:12):
Well, if you're watching thisepisode on YouTube and then the
podcast is the Data HackChronicles podcast, you can find
it wherever you find or listento your podcasts, and we will
see you guys in the next one.
Welcome to my show, where I'm giving you all the
stuff you've never heard andyou've known me for like five
years now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We've known each other for a long time and I just
found this out on my newsection of the podcast of Five
Questions.
This is insanity.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I can't wait until everybody hears this.
Okay, let's go.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
All right, welcome everybody to, I guess, five
Questions, and today we have mygood friend and fellow podcaster
and co-host also of the DHCSports Show, eric Prophet.
How are you doing today, myfriend?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I'm doing well.
Appreciate you having me on Ed.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Oh yeah, so before we go on, if you don't mind
telling us a little bit aboutyourself, as far as your podcast
and all that fun stuff, soeverybody can know all about it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, so I co-host a podcast called the Earn Fun
Average Podcast, part of theCurvebroom Media Network with
you.
I do it with my good friend,Johnny Bolin and it comes out
every Wednesday morning.
Talk a lot about minor league,summer collegiate's kind of our
big thing right now.
We love the good summercollegiate teams out there,
(01:18):
independent professionals, sohave on some friends, have on
some GMs.
We've had some head coaches andso talk a lot of baseball.
But yeah, Earn Fun Average isJohnny and I's podcast that we
do.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You really have found a niche in collegiate summer.
Man Like you really have a goodniche there.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, we love summer collegiate and we've gotten a
little bit.
It's not all summeregiate up inCanada, but we started to get
some teams from Canada to comeon as well, that's pretty cool,
so we like to call ourselvesCanada's Podcast.
But yeah, we seem to just reallyenjoy any time they come on
(02:01):
Summer Collegiate, I don't knowfor whatever reason.
Their episodes seem to do thebest.
They're loyal fans that go tothe games.
They tune in when they teamshares the podcast on their
socials and so, yeah, we've notsolely, uh, strictly uh, summer
collegiate, but that's kind of abig thing of what we're doing.
We really enjoy it.
A lot of fun getting to learnabout kind of these smaller
(02:23):
teams.
We've also done some of thebigger Northwoods Leagues and
the Cape and the Coastal Plains.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
League.
I was just going to say you'vedone.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Coastal Plains Leagues as well.
Yeah, so we've done some of thebigger summer collegiate, but
also some of those smaller onesthat people aren't familiar with
.
Yeah, just a lot of fun gettingto learn about them.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
The team the towns they're from.
And so, hell yeah, dude, I loveit.
All right, you ready forquestion number one, my friend?
Yes, sir, all right.
So, and, and this one, uh, ispretty simple what?
How did you fall in love withthe game of baseball?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
a lot of people you know talk about.
Yeah, I used to, you know,growing we'd go outside and play
catch with you know my dad, orkind of those type of stories,
and my dad was always there.
He was super supportive.
I played baseball basicallywhen I was five years old, up
through the year after mybasically my freshman year of
(03:19):
college.
I didn't play like for college,but I did play, and not a whole
lot of people know this.
I did play for a summercollegiate team in a league that
no longer exists here inWichita.
Wait, hold on a second.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
We've been friends this long and now you're just
telling me this thing, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so I was 19.
I played, as they were called,the Wichita Fury and they, right
out of high school, I playedfor them for one season.
It was the River City VictoryLeague, the RCVL, here in
Wichita and I talk a lot aboutlike on my show and sometimes on
the show you and I do about theNational Baseball Congress
(04:01):
World Series right, which at thetime of this recording actually
starts this Thursday and thenthis Saturday and Sunday is
baseball around the clock.
So I'm going to be doingbaseball around the clock for
the first time.
I didn't get to do it last yearwhen they brought it back, so
it'll be the first time for mein like eight or nine years.
But RCVL was a partner leaguewith the NBC and if we would
(04:23):
have won our league we wouldhave got to play in the NBC
World Series but unfortunatelywe ended up taking second in the
league so I didn't get to playin the NBC.
I was close, but, yeah, onlyone year.
But I did get to play.
I did play summer collegiate.
So not a lot of people knowabout that, they're about to
find out.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
That's what they're about to do?
Dude, that's amazing.
You know how jealous I am.
I just wanted to play oneseason, that's it.
Even if it was summer, I wouldhave loved to do that.
Obviously, I suck and I'm justreliving my childhood dreams
right now in Sandlot baseball.
But man, that's what positiondid you play?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So growing up I pitched a lot, but in this
league I played mostly second orright field.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I wasn't as good with the bat but I was really good
defensively and wasn't afraid toget dirty.
So I made a lot of gooddefensive plays.
But yeah, when I played for theFury I was mostly second base
and a little bit of right field.
But growing up I pitched a lot,played first and even played
some third.
I played basically everythingbut even played some third.
Basically I did everything butcatcher.
(05:27):
Growing up One of the coolthings also kind of unrelated,
but it would have been my 7thand 8th grade years and then I
think even through high schoolnot the high school team but the
(05:50):
summer team that I played forthe league we had here in
Wichita.
Before we got the currentWichita wind surge we had called
Lawrence Dumont stadium.
That was built in 1934 and washere until 2018.
We actually got to play somegames every summer at Lawrence
Dumont stadium.
So it's where.
The last 10 years it was theWichita wing nuts of the
(06:10):
independent professionalAmerican association, but before
that it was the double a, theKansas city Royals, the Wichita
Wranglers.
So I got to play on that sameturf field and it was really
weird because when the wing nutscame in they switched it and it
was all turf.
But prior to that and I neverreally see this and I obviously
I don't think many people doanymore the outfield was grass
(06:34):
and the infield was turf.
What it's really weird, that'sthat's how lawrence dumont was
for many years.
Back in the day it was.
You could see the turf wasreally faded, this really weird
green color turf, but theoutfield was grass and when I
played there that's what it was.
So I played probably four orfive years and got to play two
(06:54):
or three games every summer at adouble-A stadium.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So welcome to my show where I'm giving you all the
stuff you've never heard andyou've known me for like five
years now we've known each otherfor a long time and I just
found this out on my new, on mynew section of the podcast of
five questions.
This is insanity.
I can't wait till everybodyhears this just yo I'm gonna be
(07:19):
like y'all wanna y'all gottalisten to this thing but just to
kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
you know, obviously I haven't really gotten to answer
your question.
So my parents were supersupportive.
They took me.
You know my parents took me toall my games and you know you
had on and I actually listenedtoday Kelly Robinson and then
Virgil Brooks, they scored allthe games.
Well, my mom kept score for allmy games and that's how I
(07:46):
learned is from actually my mom,because she kept score from my
games and so she taught me.
So you know, a lot of timesit's like, oh, I learned from an
uncle or dad or whatever, butfor me it was my mom.
But I do remember my uh parents, especially my dad, would take
me out to like the nbc worldseries at lawrence dumont
growing up.
But for for me I have two olderbrothers.
My brother, joe, is six yearsolder and then my oldest brother
(08:10):
, nick, is eight years older,and so for me I think I kind of
learned and loved the game, moreso for my brothers, I would say
, than anything.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
That's awesome dude.
And obviously I know one ofyour brothers, joe, which he's
an awesome dude.
You know, love hanging out withjoe, he's hilarious.
Oh my god, I cannot believe.
Almost five years, five years.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And then you just decided to just drop this
bombshell on me, jesus that'sright, so we would always go
either just outside in our frontyard or there is a park.
It's still there.
That was, oh, probably fiveminute walk from my parents
house growing up, and my momstill lives in that same house,
(08:53):
so it's still right over closeto actually where I live now, uh
, but we would always eitherwalk or ride our bikes to the
park yeah and there was a afield there.
Obviously it was not a very goodfield but it had a backstop and
dirt.
Or we a field there obviouslyit was not a very good field but
it had a backstop and dirt orwe would go out if it was being
used.
We would go out into the biggrassy area and would use our
bicycles as bases, yeah.
(09:14):
And then so we'd run and havethe bicycles and we kind of step
near it or kind of touch thetires yeah, yeah for the bases.
But yeah, for me I think it wasmore kind of with both my
brothers and then so I have twoolder brothers, as I mentioned,
but then next door there werethree boys, and so I was the
youngest of the six, betweenboth my brothers, myself and
(09:37):
then the three boys next door.
My brother, nick, was eightyears older.
So between me and the eightyears older there were six of us
within the eight year range.
So we'd always go outside andplay wiffle ball or whatever,
and then across the street therewas two more boys, so there's
basically eight of us, so we'dalways just go.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You almost had almost a whole full team dude.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, so I'd say more so for me instead of you know.
Obviously, like I said, myparents were super supportive
and took me to all my games andstuff, but I think more so with
my brothers and then theneighbor boys next door and
across the street growing up.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's cool as shit, dude.
I love that.
That's awesome.
I know you say you have twobrothers.
I've obviously never met theiroldest one, but met Joe.
All right, give me a couplestories, man, of you going to
games or growing up.
There has to be somethingthat's just really you gravitate
(10:40):
towards the game, becauseobviously we both have plenty of
stories.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So give me a couple of them yeah, like I mentioned
so with the uh, wichitawranglers.
They were here from the late80s up until 2007, so I remember
going to the ballpark quite abit and logo, something that I
think I've mentioned before.
But also another thing that mayshock you, if you don't really
know, is that I used to work inminor league affiliated ball.
(11:06):
So I used to work for theWichita Wranglers back in 2003,
2004.
And when I was there they hadZach Granke.
You know big MLB All-Star, cyYoung winner.
He pitched here for Wichita.
He was 19 years old at the time.
Jesus, that was right before hewent through his cycle,
whatever, he had to leave thegame for a few years and then he
(11:28):
came back.
I remember that, and when hecame back he was back with
wichita.
So then again in 2006, and thenin 2006 that team had, like
alex gordon, billy butler, sosome of the guys that went to
the world series yeah, so it wasfun getting to watch them.
Uh, so I think one of my funstories was when I was working
(11:50):
for the the wranglers.
I did a few different odd jobs,but mostly I was an usher, but
I was kind of the main usherright behind the home plate and
so I got to have a walkie talkieto talk to like the main
whoever you know that I wasworking for, main boss or
whatever, but the Wranglers hadwon the division and so they
(12:11):
were down on the fieldcelebrating and most of the time
you know, you see themcelebrating in the locker rooms
but they had the champagne downon the field, yep, and at the
time, grinky in 2003 was only 19.
And so the security guardpolice officer right next to me
goes hey, somebody watchednumber 13.
He's not old enough to drink orsomething.
(12:32):
Just kind of joking around, butthat's always a memory that
stuck with me.
And then that that 2006 teamthey end up losing the Texas
League Championship Series.
But I just remember going tothose games going to the playoff
games where they were rightthere about to win a
championship was a lot of fun.
And then when Lawrence Dumont,they tore that down 2018, my
(12:56):
brother I think both my brotherswere there.
But I remember specifically mybrother Joe and I were there and
just kind of the nostalgia ofbeing up, growing up at that
ballpark and knowing they weregoing to tear it down, and just
all those memories we had.
And then so like afterwards wewent outside and took pictures
with the stadium behind us andstuff.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And did you get to keep one of the seats?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
No, that's one thing I regret.
So they actually had it beforethey tore it down, where you
could go and get a stadium seat.
But they said, oh yeah, youhave to bring your own tools.
And I didn't have anything withme at the time.
I was up there at the stadiumbecause they had like a local
media versus some kind of funlittle celebrity softball game.
It's kind of like the lastlittle hurrah that they did.
(13:41):
And while they're there, like,oh yeah, if you guys want seats
and I didn't, I should have justhad somebody that was there,
just get one for me.
So absolutely.
Unfortunately, that's one thingI regret I did not get a seat
from that stadium.
I wish I would have.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Same with me with Municipal Stadium.
You know, obviously I got therewhen you know the Indians at
that point were moved into thenew where it is progressive
field right now.
I don't know if you know that,but it's called progressive
field.
You only have one sign, onlyone, not six or seven up front.
(14:18):
But I regret not getting a Munilot stadium seat I would have
been cool, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Another big memory that kind of jumps to mind just
because it was somewhat recent,so three years ago.
So you know, as I said, I grewup I enjoyed watching baseball,
but I never really traveleduntil I kind of met this little
group of friends through socialmedia.
So, 2022, everybody has this.
You know our friend Anna withthe baseball bucket list.
(14:42):
Everybody says I want to go seebaseball in Hawaii.
This you know our friend Annawith the baseball bucket list.
Everybody says I want to go seebaseball in Hawaii.
Well, I had a little bit ofadvantage on that, just because
my wife's, her sister and familylive.
They were at the on the bigisland at the time.
Now they're in Honolulu, but in2022 February, to start the
season, I flew out to Hawaii tosee her family and then went
over to Honolulu and got to seethe university of Hawaii.
(15:03):
They were playing Washingtonstate university, so I got to
see a baseball at less morecommie stadium and then from
there came home, went down toFrisco to see the Frisco classic
down at Frisco, texas, wherethe rough riders play, and then
ended up in 2022 was basicallythe first and last time they had
(15:23):
all three at the triple achampionships.
So the international league, theuh pacific coast league and
then the ultimate triple, anational championship.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So ended up, 2022 saw my first hundred baseball games
in one season this dude, I'mtelling you guys, this dude,
what goes through so many trips,so jealous right now, like I
mean, oh god, I'm just trying tostill trying to work on booking
my flight to vegas for inseptember yeah, that ballpark is
gorgeous.
(15:55):
I'm scared, I'm scared to bookin my flight.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm not lying.
If you get there, though, thatI love.
I've been there five times now,yeah, and I've yet to see the
aviators play at their homeballpark.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I know, but you've seen everybody else.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Because I went last year to the AAA National
Championship between Sugarlandand Omaha, which is a lot of fun
getting to see the Royals AAA.
And then we actually went twoyears ago.
They have a thing calledEnchant Christmas and it's a
bunch of Christmas lights andChristmas trees and they have an
ice skating rink and sleddingand vendors and stuff.
(16:30):
So we actually went out thereand went to that at the ballpark
, didn't see a game, obviouslyit was December.
It was a lot of fun getting togo there and then the three
games then in 2022.
So I've yet to see.
Now this year Vegas has won thefirst half, so they're going to
host the championship seriesand then if they win that, then
(16:55):
they'll be able to host thenational championship game.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
But it's funny how I've been out there and yet to
see the actual home team game.
Yeah, an excellent aviators.
Yeah.
And for those of you that don'tknow when I say that I'm
nervous is I was supposed to golast year, but a hurricane
completely destroyed those plans.
It pushed my flight, theycanceled my flight, then they
switched my flight and then theysaid oh, by the way, you don't
(17:18):
have a seat, you got to go backin, and so it was a whole ordeal
just to get in there and it wasjust.
I was just, I was disappointed,I was sad.
So I'm trying to get back thisyear.
It's going to be interesting,but we'll see.
All right, okay.
So question number three myfriend, give me some of your
(17:42):
traditions that you follow, thatyou do as far as baseball.
I know for one of them that youtruly do love is doing the wave
at baseball games.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
So please indulge me in your traditions so if this is
, uh, not only audio but video,you can tell that ed was not
serious about that.
Because there's two things thatI cannot stand with baseball.
The first one is the wave, yeah.
The second one is the shift.
Now they've kind of gotten awayfrom being able to do the shift
(18:09):
, but they still can, becauseyou can basically have the
shortstop play right up behindsecond base.
Yep, and funny quick story.
So last week.
So we here in wichita haveseason tickets to the wichita
wind surge, and I know ourfriend patrick will love that.
I say that here, all right,because he's like oh whoa, you
have season tickets, but he'snot.
He hasn't been on the on thefive questions podcast I know
(18:31):
he's gonna be, he's gonna be madabout that, but last tuesday
night a week ago, tuesday thewind surge were at home and the
game was tied with San Antonionine to nine in the ninth inning
I think, two to two, and theyhad a runner at first and maybe
a runner at second, and a secondbaseman was shifted over
(18:55):
towards the first baseman wherehe was pretty close to the first
baseman and I said I told myson, Zach, I'm like he needs to
move to his right.
The hitter is going to hit theball right up the middle.
He's not going to be able tofield it.
They're going to score move.
He goes no analytics say thisleft.
He's going to hit it right tohim at playing just past first
(19:15):
base or whatever.
I'm like he needs to move tohis right.
Sure enough, first pitch rightup the middle.
If he would have moved over tohis right like two steps, easy
field ground ball and gotten outof the inning, could have gone
in and maybe walked it off.
Instead gave up two runs in theinning and lost like four to
two or whatever.
I was so frustrated and I'mlike so yeah the shift and the
(19:36):
wave are not my favorite.
One thing I will do when I go tothe games now uh, like our good
friend paul, I'll get a icecream helmet, uh, with whatever
you know logos they have onthere.
I also started because of ourfriend charles dennis.
I will collect the little lapelpins, yes, and put those on the
(19:58):
map.
And then I also have been doingthe passport stamp and so I
have been doing the passport.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
The one I'm doing the same with you is the pins I the
last couple of for thecorporate media meetup.
We didn't get to have those,which was kind of sad.
That was like oh man yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
so I uh had started that in 2022 because, uh,
charles was doing that, so I hadthem from pretty much all of my
games.
Now they're only at my minorleague, affiliated and then
major league, but so, like theuniversity of Hawaii, when I
went to the college game theydidn't have it like that but
they had all the others.
So I got them at like thetriple, a national championship
(20:35):
and stuff for Las Vegas ballpark.
So I've had, I've had multiplebecause I've run out of spaces,
but basically I've done apassport stamp book at all the
stadiums since 2022.
And then I wasn't huge into ifI'm here at home we usually eat
dinner before we go to the game,but because of our friend Val,
now if I'm traveling somewhere Ihave to get what the exotic or
(20:58):
whatever food local beer orwhatever foods they have.
We got Donnie and I got deepfried moon pie when we're at the
ashville tourist game and thatwas phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It was so delicious.
So many calories, but soundsdelicious.
See, that's the thing, thoughit's like we have all, we have
all been influenced by, um, someof the people that we have met,
uh, across social media, right,uh, on some of the things that
we do.
Like you said, charles dennis,you know what, um, what uh val
does, what you know all thesepeople do, just because we talk,
(21:29):
and I was like you know what,that's actually a pretty good
idea.
You know, like, as far as majorleague baseball hats come for
me now is I, if I don't visitthat ballpark, I won't get a
major league baseball hat fromthem, like I just won't yeah, I
have.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So I'm a kansas city royals fan and I have a few of
the royals hats but for the mostpart any of the hats I have are
either summer, collegiate orminor league affiliated.
I have almost all of thewichita windsurge 59, 50s
they've had out over the otherfive years that they've been in
existence and.
But yeah, I'm just, I go to.
I have nine, I think, mlbstadiums left and I just don't
(22:05):
really get any hats from them.
Just I don't.
I I enjoy going to theballparks and stuff but, like I
said, I have a few royals but Idon't even have that many.
I have maybe three or four.
So my majority of the hats thatI have are all minor league
affiliated or summer collegiateor independent professional.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Some of those yeah, I can see that I unless I got a
bunch of um durham bowls, that'slike.
I think I have almost everysingle one of the like the dad
had versions of the what thehell durham bowls have put out
there.
Uh, just because every time Igo I pick something else.
You know, it's just you know.
You know how that goes.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, and I've that's kind of funny this where you're
at now.
So I've been to the Durham bowl, the bowls athletic park, what
three times now.
So it's a fun ballpark and Ihave a few of their hats, but,
yeah, local teams, usually youtry to get as many as you can,
just cause it's prettyaccessible for the most part,
yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So what other traditions you got?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
well, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a
tradition, but just now, at thispoint, trying to get to 100
games a year, that's cool Iafter 2022 I was able to hit 100
games.
2023 I only had 81.
Last year I hit 100 and thisyear I think I'll I'm gonna fly
over it because we just hit theall-star break, just finished
(23:28):
the all-star break.
Just finished the all-starbreak, I'm already at 74.
It's pretty easy for me to do,just because we do have the
season tickets to the wind surge.
They're home this week, sothat'll I'll be there tomorrow
through Friday.
So that's four more games andthen baseball around the clock
is 11 games in 33 hours.
(23:49):
It runs from noon Saturdayurdaythrough the uh, 6 pm.
Is it 6 pm or9 pm game onsunday?
And so it's noon 3, 6, 9midnight, 3 am sunday, 6 am
sunday, 9 noon3 and then I think6 is the last one.
So which will get over nine, soI'll have 11 games right there
(24:12):
in two days, basically.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So so let me ask you um well, are you going to stay
the whole time?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, so with baseball around the clock,
basically, they have where youcan pay 30 bucks to see all 11
games which, if you think of itin a normal uh aspect, that's
like like really good uh youknow just be that many games.
Even you know summer it's thepremier summer collegiate
tournament, right, uh, thatwichita hosts.
(24:41):
This is the 91st season and soaround the clock.
Basically, you start out withthe noon game on saturday and
they do at least one check-inper game and if you make it all
the way through they havedifferent prizes.
They have a I survived aroundthe clock t-shirt you get at the
end.
So, yeah, my wife and I aredoing it.
Our friend terry mccutchen'scoming up from abilene, he's
(25:03):
gonna do it oh, terry's gonna beup there yeah, so he's coming
up, he'll be here for then.
I know, like Donnie said, hewants to do it sometime.
He won't be able to do it thisyear but maybe in the next
couple years he'd probably comeand do it.
But yeah, the plan is to staythere.
You only have roughly 40minutes in between each game for
the next teams to warm up,where you can go out to the car
(25:27):
or whatever.
But you can't really leavebecause if they do the sounder
and they'll say okay, around theclockers, go down by the first
base dugout and check in at thecheck-in table or whatever, and
if you miss the check-in you'retechnically out.
Now you could theoreticallystill stay there, but yeah, the
plan is to try to make it theentire time.
Lack of sleep is gonna be apain.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, it's gonna be wild.
Good, god bless you.
I think it'll be cool, likewhen donnie does go to.
You know I'll try to do that,so that'd be cool just to do
some like live streaming.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
At the same time, it's a lot of fun because in the
past, when we've done it sothey've changed it up so they
didn't have it for about eightor nine years, just because they
had changed the format of thetournament.
There used to be 32 to 40 teamsand it was easier to do with
more teams.
Now they only have 16 teams,but they brought it back last
year and the format's changed alittle bit.
(26:17):
When I used to do it in thepast it was 17 games in 56 hours
.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So it's obviously six more games more time.
So they started at 5 o'clock onFriday and ran, ran through the
10 pm game on sunday.
Yeah, but they would have thelast game friday night and
saturday night at 12 30 am.
So when that ended, 3, 34o'clock, you didn't have to be
back till the 8 am game,saturday or sunday.
Well, here it just runsstraight through and you don't
(26:47):
have those breaks other thanthat 40 minutes, I think this
one's going to be harder oh,it's 100 harder is what we would
do, is we would just go homesleep for three
hours and then come back,whereas this one, you don't have
that break.
The cool thing is so they thishappened one of the tournaments
we did where, because of rainand stuff, it pushed the
(27:09):
tournament back.
We saw a game that started likeat 3 am.
We watched the sun rise.
So normally you know, you're ata ball game, you see the sunset
.
Because it was 4 or 5 am6 am,you got to see the sun rise from
the outfield.
And that's going to happen thistime too, because there's a 3
am and then a 6 am game.
So it's a lot of fun to get tosee a sunrise of the ball game
(27:32):
instead of a sunset.
Yeah, dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I'm gonna have to add that to my bucket list, right,
because right now, like yeah,the uh, the midnight sun game is
, it's one of my bucket listthat I've just always wanted to
do so I gotta find a way to doit.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It's just speaking of midnight sun game, so that's
usually the alaska goldthersfrom the Alaska Baseball League.
Well, they are coming back forthe first time in seven or eight
years, so they're going to behere and they just put out the
schedule today.
So we get to see every teamplay this weekend during around
the clock, but we get to seethem twice.
So they play the 3 pm game onSaturday and then the final 6 pm
(28:08):
game on sunday during aroundthe clock.
Now they'll get to continueplaying because they have pool
play before bracket play yeahbut get to see alaska for the
first time and, uh, it'll be alot of fun because we used to
have multiple alaskan teams here.
We used to have puerto ricannational team come, chinese
taipei, so they used to havewhen it was a lot bigger, they'd
have a lot of big teams come into play.
(28:30):
Unfortunately it's still goingnot quite as many teams, but
yeah, alaska is coming back forthe first time in seven or eight
years so it'll be fun to get tosee them.
But yeah, you've got to bringthat and it's a lot of fun
because if you do it with agroup of people, then in between
games you can go out and grillor just hang out, chat with
friends.
So, yeah, sometime, if you makeit here in the next few years,
(28:52):
you got to check it out aroundthe clock.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
A lot of fun, 100 uh.
Are they going to bebroadcasting this like on
youtube or something like that?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
they will be.
Yeah, they always have it onyoutube.
Uh, nbc world series andthey've partnered um, I forgot
the name of who they werepartnering with this year, but
there's some social media team.
I'd have to look it up.
That's going to be.
They've partnered with that.
We'll be able to.
Not only I don't know thatthere's specifically streaming
(29:22):
the games, but they will have alot of content.
Oh, prospect dugout.
So yeah prospect dugout onTwitter and they're going to be
bringing like exclusive coverageand stuff.
So they're going to have a lotof content.
So, yeah, if you follow theprospect dugout and then just
through like YouTube, nationalbaseball Congress world series
or NBC world series, they'llstream all those games.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I can't wait, I want to, I'll watch it.
So all right, man, we're, I'llwatch it.
So all right, man, we're, we'redone, we're done, we've done
three.
We're done to two questions, myfriend.
All right, um, tell me how hasbaseball changed your life?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
well, for one, I've made a lot of new friends that I
hadn't had previous, and one ofthe kind of weird things with
uh getting into this group hereum, I never really.
I just kind of came across.
It's actually started with paulyep, and what was funny is that
I uh back in around 2020 or so,before I kind of got into the
(30:25):
our twitter group where we havea lot of minor league baseball
friends yep, I had, uh, maybelike one or two helmets, like
little ice cream helmets, ohyeah, and it was the kansas city
royals.
And for work I travel quite abit.
Normally it's to a customer'soffice, but this time it's one
of our uh satellite campus and Iwent out it's about 30 minutes
(30:48):
from here and I was over thereand got done with our little
training or whatever, and one ofthe workers there had walked in
their break room and that wasaround the time that the New
Orleans baby cakes were movingto Wichita Yep, and they had a
New Orleans baby cakes ice creamhelmet sitting there and I
mentioned to the guy that worksat my company.
I was like that's a cool helmet.
(31:09):
He's like take it.
He's like nobody wants it, I'mokay, so I took it.
I'm like don't mind if I do.
I was like, wait a minute, okay, I got the royals, I got the
new orleans baby cakes, there'sgot to be more than this.
So I just googled like icecream helmets.
Of course paul was the firstone that popped up, of course,
of course.
So I started following him andand from there just kind of
evolved.
Where I started following andso you know, for me obviously
(31:31):
that's a big thing is just a lotof friends that I've made and a
lot of my friends I've beenable to meet in person at the
ballpark, whether they've cometo Wichita or I've traveled out
to see them or have gonesomewhere completely separate
that we've met up at.
And then, obviously I've beenable to start a podcast, talk a
lot about baseball and just getto meet a lot of cool people
(31:51):
authors, coaches, gms, fans.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
And so it's just such a long list of people that you
get to meet when you're doingthis, and it's so much fun.
Yes, for sure it's not so muchfun editing afterwards sometimes
, but it's just, you know havingconversations.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The toughest time I had with that was when Johnny,
paul and I hopped on a veryearly part of the podcast and we
went on a Friday night forprobably two and a half hours
and we just kept talking andtalking and Paul's like I'm so
sorry I put off editing thatepisode for the longest time.
(32:30):
I did not want to tackle that.
I've gotten a lot better since,but that was one of the first
ones I remember having to do.
That was like torture, justtrying to, because it was just
so long, trying to piece ittogether and I ended up putting
that into a couple episodes justbecause it was so long.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It was just so big.
Yes, it's a big episode two anda half hours.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, that's a massive conversation.
But I've also just been able togrow my love of the game, you
know, being able to go to somecities and towns that I never
would have otherwise because,like I said, I used to watch
baseball growing up here locallybut never really traveled
outside much, maybe went tokansas city here or there, but
now obviously I travel to allparts of the country and and
it's fun, isn't it Like it'sjust, you know, meeting all
these people and, just like yousaid, it's like exploring and
all that.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It's such a fun environment that we get to do
that now.
So, all right, my friend, areyou done for you?
Ready for number five?
Yes, sir, All right, so why?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
baseball For me.
I've always been a sports fanin general.
I'm a big college football fan,big NFL fan.
Don't really care if like theNBA, but love college basketball
.
For those those games are fun,but they're pretty fast paced
for the most part, and withbaseball I just think it's just
relaxing.
And, like you know, with ourshow that we do Tuesday and
(33:50):
Tuesdays and Thursday nights, Idon't think there's any way that
I could sit there, try to watcha football game and broadcast
live like I do with the what?
they're in the game.
It's just the slower game now.
They obviously try to speed itup as much as possible.
But I just think that you havethe opportunity where you can
have these friendships, you canhave that conversation and get
(34:13):
to talk with somebody.
So we came to Durham and we justsat at a ball game and got to
chat with you and get to youknow, being able to watch the
game, just because it is slowenough to a point where you can
just enjoy the camaraderie withyour friends and that's why we
try to have these meetups andstuff but just because it is
(34:35):
gives us opportunity where we'renot going to miss anything If
we go and walk around, becauseif we were to try to walk around
the football stadium orwhatever, you're probably going
to miss quite a bit of the gameIf you go to the concession
stands or whatever, just becausethose are more of a fast paced
type environment.
So for me, just the being ableto have those you know
(34:56):
friendships and thoseconversations and still get to
enjoy the game and not reallymiss much of it, and then just
being able to, it's affordable.
I know sometimes the games arecan be pricey depending on if
it's mlb or whatever, but eventhen it's more affordable than
what, like, an nfl game would be, uh, basketball game, that type
(35:18):
of thing.
And then just there's way moreopportunities, way more teams.
You know 120 minor league teams, 119 stadiums.
That doesn't include mlb.
Obviously there is a lot offootball stadiums, but to me I
just think it's a lot more funto go, travel and see baseball
stadiums than it would be to seelike an NFL or basketball state
venue.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I love it.
By the way, kudos to you onsaying 120 with 119 stadiums.
That's a good little triviathere for you guys.
If you guys know exactly whathe meant by that, what are the
two teams that play in the samestadium?
I'm not going to say it, but Ido know them, and so does Eric.
Look it up.
I know you got to look it upand put it in the comments
(36:00):
because that is actually areally good trivia question.
Good job, man, I like that.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
All right, thank you, eric.
Thank you, eric.
This has been a lot of fun.
Our friend Patrick is going tobe mad that he hasn't been on,
and then you have.
So whoopsie daisy Love you.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Patrick, he'll be okay.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You'll be all right, you get over it.
Where can people find you?
On the socials, my friend.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, so I have like 10 Instagram pages, but the main
one to follow is just theinfluencer EP.
So my nickname on our show isthe influencer, so I go by the
influencer ep on instagram.
So that's where I post all mygames and then, if you follow,
if you're on twitter, I'm e pro04, e pro 04.
And then for the podcast uh,earn fun average.
(36:44):
We abbreviate average avg.
We're on instagram, twitter andblue sky love it, my friend.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Thank you so much.
And then make sure you guys arefollowing the DSG sports show.
It is every Tuesday andThursday nights at 9 PM Eastern
time.
Also, I am on.
I've been my lot more, a lotmore conscious of where I spend
most of my social media time, soit's Instagram threads and blue
skies and then obviously on onYouTube as well.
(37:12):
Well, if you're watching thisepisode on YouTube and then the
podcast is the Data HackChronicles podcast, you can find
it wherever you find or listento your podcasts, and we will
see you guys in the next one.
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