The Barbecast (cespedes family barbecast)

Welcome to Barbecast 34.5! This isn't really a Barbecast. It's an interview. Jake and I are both very busy with final papers, exams, and other fun academic stuff, so we can't give you a full barbecast this week. What we do have is a spectacular interview with former major league pitcher Brian Bannister. We talked to Brian for over an hour about a plethora of baseball-related things, including...

  • His rookie year
  • Being on the same team as Pedro Martinez
  • Playing towards the end of the PED era
  • Why Barry Bonds was the best
  • Who Brian owned in the big leagues and who owned him
  • Brian's disastrously hilarious experience against Team Cuba
  • His unique retirement story
  • His current favorite teams

...and more. It was great, and we really appreciate Brian taking the time to chat with us. You can and should follow him on Twitter @RealBanny.

We honestly don't know when the next full Barbecast will be, but we hope this is enough in the meantime. Thanks for listening <3

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Direct download: POD_34_5.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 4:37pm EDT

Welcome to Barbecast 34! We took a week off, but we're back with big one. Our guest this week is Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley, Hardball Talk, and Being-A-Cool-Person-On-Twitter fame. We talked to Bill about the state of his beloved Phillies, Ben Revere not hitting any dingers, Barry Bonds doing Barry Bonds things, and his HOT TAKE on the recent bombardment of hatred pointed at Rays reliever Josh Lueke. Bill was great. We like Bill! Our next special guest is the OFFICIAL MINOR LEAGUER OF CESPEDES FAMILY BARBECUE, Indians right-hander Kieran Lovegrove. We talked to Kieran about life in extended spring training, his Rick Ankiel-like struggles, and what he thinks he would hit in the big leagues RIGHT NOW. Kieran is the best. In addition to our weekly b-ref battle of ridiculous names, we played a little guessing game where I had to guess the 15 active players with at least 300 career home runs. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry covered one of the more interesting hashtags we've seen on Twitter in a while. Oh, and people sent some pretty awesome e-mails. Because we love the whole world, our musical guest this week is a collection of national anthems. Thanks for listening <3

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Direct download: POD_34.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 11:38am EDT

Welcome to Episode 33 of the undisputed home run king of all podcasts. This episode is a bit shorter than usual, but that's okay. We're all busy people. Our special guest this week is far and away the youngest gust we've ever had. His name is David Shemie and he is already cooler than Chris Cotillo. Shemie is a 13-year-old Montreal native who attended the two exhibition games at Olympic Stadium during Spring Training. We talked to him about that, as well as what it's like being the smartest 13-year-old baseball fan in his entire city (probably). Instead of doing a full e-mail segment, we talked about the tallest and heaviest players at every position and debated which team was better, Team Fat or Team Tall. Our b-ref battle was top-notch, as we both came very prepared for the first time in a while. In the spirit of Passover, Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry covered what foods Lana has given up during her brief time here on Earth. Jake's Varsity Baseball Update had very little to do with baseball and much more to do with RALLY CHEESE #RallyCheese. Thanks for listening <3 

Our musical guest is apparently a random selection of Jake's music. 

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Direct download: POD_33.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 8:28pm EDT

Hello and welcome to BARBECAST 31 featuring 3.1 special guests. This is definitely a much better show than last week because Jake is actually awake for 90% of it! And yes, it's also a long one. Our THREE special guests this week, in order, are...

Dan Amodio, Baseball Operations and Facility Devlopment Manager at THE AUSTRALIAN BASEBALL LEAGUE. We talked to him about what it was like having Major League Baseball down under. He was in a coffee shop. We apologize for the background noise. 

Matt Ball, former Barbecast guest and right-handed pitching prospect for the Chicago White Sox. Matt gave some insight on what minor league camp in Arizona is like, talks about his year ahead, and shares a SPECTACULAR Alexei Ramirez story.

Matt Clark, former Barbecast guest, and first base prospect for the New York Mess. We talked to him about being in MAJOR LEAGUE SPRING TRAINING. Particularly, on the same team as Bartolo Colon. Matt is funny and we like Matt. Both Matts. Maybe even all Matts. Even Matt Stairs.

LANA BERRY. Just a plain ol' Tales from Logdog for the 20 something-th week in a row. Yeah. We talked about all the Rangers dying and who the hell Nick Martinez is. 

Our b-ref battle was solid, and our e-mail segment was brief but entertaining. Jake's Varsity Baseball Update was sobering to say the least. Barbecast 31! Thanks for listening <3

And yeah, our "musical guest" is beer commercials. Mostly just the same one over and over. 

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E-mail: cespedesfb@gmail.com

Direct download: PODCAST_31.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 1:38pm EDT

Barbecast 30 has finally arrived. It's been two weeks since our last podcast, and one week since we recorded our interview with special guest, National Baseball Writer for Sporting News,  Jesse Spector. Nevertheless, this mess of an episode is here for you to hopefully enjoy. Please excuse Jake's immense #slack and #sickness; as far as Lana and I know, he wasn't on anything, but rather very tired and somewhat ill. Anyway, we talked to Jesse about his spring training adventures and he shared his one personal experience with Barry Bonds. I came well prepared for the b-ref battle this week, but we both had some gems. Tales from Logdog with Lana, was actually one of our best Logdog segments in a while. We talked about how #Nelly1057 impacted us on all levels. If you don't know what #Nelly1057 was, you will definitely know by the end of this episode. Our e-mail segment was decent; we got lucky and received a last minute e-mail from OBP and Napoleon was wonderful as always. Thanks for listening <3

Remember to rate and/or review us on iTunes! It is very helpful!

Direct download: POD_31.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 10:03pm EDT

One week after Kelly Vs. Avril, we're back with a slightly more baseball-oriented podcast. Our special guest this week is...well it's a lot of people. We held our inaugural CFB fantasy baseball draft with some of our bestest friends including Carlos Rodon, Craig Goldstein, Chris Crawford, and my little brother David AKA Little Poop. We recorded during the whole thing and we've cautiously edited it down to 30 minutes of ridiculousness. It might be the funniest thing we've ever had on the podcast and we hope you enjoy it. Our b-ref battle featured the first appearance of Jake's girlfriend, so that was exciting. She provided a plus-plus amount of polite laughter at our bad jokes. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry covered Lana's experience with the Oscars and her WILD AND CRAZY SPRING BREAKS from her reckless youth. Our e-mail segment was missing a certain someone, but we managed. Our musical guest is all the best Backyard Baseball music. Thanks for listening <3

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Direct download: POD_29.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 2:11pm EDT

Because one huge post and constant tweets weren't enough, we've got an entire episode devoted to the most important rivalry in CFBBQ history. To help moderate our debate and provide a remarkably neutral perspective on the issue, we invited Bill Hanstock of SB Nation and Progressive Boink fame. He shared his personal experiences with both, his favorite Kelly/Avril songs, and explains how he deals with the whole Nickelback thing. We took a break from Kelly/Avril content to do our weekly b-ref battle in which I used a name that I've used before but I didn't realize I did. I'm sorry :( Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry was the lowpoint in the show for me, as Lana thoroughly embarrassed me with her enthusiastic failure to understand why I love Avril so much. Props to Logdog. We concluded with a summary of our feelings and why Kelly/Avril is so important to the BBQ in the first place. Our Kelly/Avril e-mails were also wonderful, and we appreciate those that contributed their equally passionate opinions. Thanks for listening <3

 

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Direct download: POD_28.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 2:23pm EDT

Welcome to Barbecast 27, the Mike Trout Is the Greatest Player of All Time and Wears No. 27 edition. Our special guest this week is the Mariners beat writer for the Seattle Times, Ryan Divish. We talked to Ryan about Robinson Cano ACTUALLY BEING ON THE MARINERS, how unbelievably slow Jesus Montero is, Felix's neck tattoo, Dustin Ackley's off-season hobbies, Geoff Baker's piece on the Mariners dysfunction, AND MORE. Our b-ref battle was a good one; it featured one of the more spectacularly contradicting names we've ever heard. Our e-mail segment was 94% Disney Princess talk. Tales from Logdog was definitely not nearly as good the second time around (oh yeah, Jake deleted a lot so we had to re-record some), so we apologize for that. And finally, Jake's Varsity Baseball Update is the most eventful one we've had in months. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-271.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 5:20am EDT

We're back! After some time to recover from the insanity of Barbecast 25, we're here with another obnoxiously long podcast. Our special guest this week is Eno Sarris, finally. Eno writes for all the baseball websites and loves beer. So we talked about beer. And baseball. He also talked about Darwin Barney calling him a nerd. We were also lucky to talk to Matt Clark, another PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER who spent 2013 in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons. We discussed Matt’s career to this point and heard some stories about his time in the minor leagues. Matt is particularly unique in that HE HAS MET LANA BERRY IN REAL LIFE. And of course, Tales from Logdog’s triumphant return was as crazy as ever, and managed to include two more special guests. Then, we talked to Siri. Yeah, that Siri.  Our baseball-reference battle was another fun one, and we received another extremely strong crop of e-mails that we greatly appreciate. You guys are funnier than we are. Also, I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE MUSIC. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-26.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 12:32pm EDT

It happened. After weeks of anticipation and mental preparation, Barbecast 25 is here. This is the big one. AND THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST PART. We spent an hour talking to the best worst college baseball pitcher since Stephen Strasburg, Carlos Rodon. Carlos is a left-handed pitcher for NC State and you might have heard of him at some point. So that was a thing that happened. Next, Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus joined us to talk about the new Baseball Prospectus 2014, as well as participate in our heated Baseball-Reference Battle. Oh, and before all that, we had about a dozen of our best e-mails yet. Little Poop included. Yeah, it’s close to three hours, but this is only part one...

Direct download: podcast-25.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 4:39pm EDT