Let's Talk Baseball!

Let's Talk Baseball!

Ever wondered what it takes to decide who really is the greatest baseball manager of all time? This chat between poet–host Jim Hirtle and sports author Matthew is all about that age-old argument, approached with a stats geek’s brain and a storyteller’s heart. Jim kicks things off with a warm memory from the 1970s, sitting in the bleachers with friends, arguing about the best infielder with nothing but a radio and the newspaper to go on.

Matthew then ups the ante by laying out his three-part rating system from *Patriarchs of the Dugout: Baseball’s Greatest Managers*, covering more than 150 years of organised baseball. You’ll hear how he scores managers on career value, their best five-year runs, and their best individual seasons, using a plus–minus system built around winning percentages, pennants and World Series wins.

One of the strongest threads is his insistence on including Negro League managers alongside other major league skippers, following MLB’s decision to make Negro League stats official. That move, as Jim notes, finally makes the rankings feel like “a truly level playing field”. The conversation wanders happily through names like Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Dave Roberts, Billy Martin and Sparky Anderson, mixing numbers with stories about personality, showmanship and teaching.

Matthew also talks about researching obscure leagues, raiding sites like Baseball Reference, and turning mountains of box scores into readable stories. For anyone curious about independent writing, there’s plenty here too: why Matthew self-publishes through KDP, how his methods evolved across five sports books, and why he writes to fill gaps in sports history rather than to chase bestseller lists.

If you like spirited but harmless debates, smart stats, and the comfort of talking sport like you did as a kid on the bleachers, this one might be right up your street. Which manager would top *your* list?