JotCast | FanGraphs Book Club - The Only Rule Is It Has To Work

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Sam

9:49

It wouldn't surprise me if, in an alternate universe, Taylor came back and was the secondbest hitter in the Pacific Association in 2016

Ben Lindbergh

9:49

I would've waited three hours after the game and then sent the umpire a somewhat critical email

Sam

9:50

I would've done that, too, at first

Matt Ely

9:50

Were you guys ever interested in narrating the audiobook? Was that presented as an option?

Sam

9:50

but by the third or fourth week I'd get there

I was trying to remember the answer to this. Ben and I talked about it and decided not to (mostly I was opposed, I think), but I can't remember if we decided not to before it was ever raised as a possibility. I don't know if we could have done it or not.

9:51

I don't think we would have done well. It would have been good for the podcast listeners, but not for the larger world of MILLIONS of readers we hoped to have. And a lot of work. But mostly I was skeptical we'd do it well.

(This is quite possibly another thing I was wrong about because I was too passive to step into the ring)

Ben Lindbergh

9:52

Yeah, I wanted to, just to say we'd done it. I figured our built-in audience would like it, but I wasn't sure the rest of the audience would

Sam

9:52

oh, also,

I didn't want to have to do Feh's voice. I thought it would be a whole other level of disrespect to impersonate him.

Paul Swydan

9:52

I would think it's very hard to do. Whenever my wife listens to audiobooks the one person doing lots of people's voices always annoys me.

Sam

9:52

That was a HUGE factor for me

Ben Lindbergh

9:52

I subsequently read my chapter for the audiobook of Mike Pesca's book, Upon Further Review, and discovered that reading is hard

Matt Ely

9:52

You guys mentioned that the book could be equally useful as a business/organizational management book or as a baseball book. Do you have any sense of how most readers have used it? Did any reactions or applications readers found for it surprise you?

Sam

9:52

plus, like, ben and I would have totally different Feh impersonations!

9:53

Ben, did you get paid extra for reading that chapter?

Ben Lindbergh

9:53

I did not. Mike said I could write it off.

Sam

9:54

Well, thre have been some business classes that used it as a text, i belive. hang on, national anthem

Ben Lindbergh

9:54

I think they were going to pay us something to read the audiobook for The Only Rule, but it was going to be a small amount and we were going to have to spend many hours in the studio, stumbling over words

We were surprised and gratified that the book got written up by, like, the Harvard Business Review

Chris

9:55

We in the voiceover industry appreciate you leaving it to the pros :) - speaking from experience narrating audiobooks is a thankless task.

Ben Lindbergh

9:55

In retrospect we wondered whether we should have emphasized the business-y, management-y elements more, but probably they wouldn't have worked as well if we'd been more obvious about them

Sam

9:56

The HBR review was probably my favorite one, too! "A great yarn, even if you don't like baseball at all," or something like that.

Paul Swydan

9:56

Haha.

Mark Steubinger

9:56

I enjoyed you guys trying to get certain San Rafael players out of the league by showing higher independent leagues how good they were. Was there ever any thought about sharing some of the scouting reports and data you had on San Rafael with Pittsburg and Vallejo to try and keep the Pacifics from winning a few more games?

Ben Lindbergh

9:56

We got to speak at a CEO conference. I don't think we've ever felt more like imposters

Sam

9:56

Lol they wouldn't have spent two seconds looking at our data

9:57

There was an alternate reality version of the book that soooort of almost happened--

Ben Lindbergh

9:57

Those teams could barely make payroll, so yeah, I don't think they had anyone who would or could have used any info from us. Would've been fun, though

Steve

9:57

Do either of you have any regrets about leaving something out of the book? Alternatively, I’d there anything you wish that you had left out of it?

Sam

9:58

the Pittsburg owner was, I dunno, going to quit or something, before hte season began. I wanted Ben to take over Pittsburg and then we could actually GM against each other

but the labor would have been outrageous and on such short notice and we woudn't have got to kick it as much as we did!

Ben Lindbergh

9:58

I don't. The publisher let us go longer than we'd initially planned to, and by the time we were done there was nothing else I wanted to say

9:59

Sam recently told a story on The Infinite Inning podcast about getting resin on his hands in the dugout that I'm mad that he didn't tell in the book. At least I don't think he told it.

Sam

9:59

Regrets about leaving things out. I have to think about that. I forget what's in it. I think Andrew Parker was totally and completely wasted by the authors. He was an A+ character and he appears like three times. Such a waste.

That resin story had nothing to do with the season!

Mike O

9:59

Have you been back to Sonoma since? Does the town recognize you guys at all ?

Ben Lindbergh

9:59

Still a good story about being uncomfortable in a dugout. Would've worked somewhere!

10:00

The town definitely did not, does not, and will not recognize us

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