Big League Chew: The Rest of the Story

Fangraphs is awesome, obviously, and not just because their page title comes up as "Baseball Statistics and Anal..." if you're using Google Chrome.  Between that and the way they calculate Wins Above Replacement slightly differently than some other people calculate Wins Above Replacement, they really don't need to give us anything more.  But they do!  Maybe you already know that their podcast is pretty much the best?  In case you didn't: well it is, and last week's was easily the best one they've done, not because of groundbreaking statistical analysis of back-up catchers or whatever, but because they (by which I mean Carson Cistulli) talked at length with Rob Nelson, inventor of Big League Chew!  Nelson talks about playing for the Portland Mavericks and hanging out with Jim Bouton and coming up with the best idea ever and then they get into some seriously Willy Wonka-level talk about gum shredding machines and processes that ensure the gum doesn't just wad back up after shredding (note: the gum totally just wads back up after shredding).  Actually I am not being fair to the gum: it sometimes ends up all wadded together if you get a particularly old pouch, or if you accidentally sit on it, which, in fairness to Rob Nelson, is not something they can necessarily control for on the production end.


In summation, you should probably listen to this episode of the Fangraphs Podcast. Also it is probably worth noting that if you do not make Big League Chew part of your Opening Day routine then you and I are very different people.