Hooks & Runs · A podcast about baseball, music and culture.

265 - "They All Though I Was Crazy Anyway" w/ Scipio Spinks

·53 min·3 clips

Scipio Spinks says he struck out 20 hitters in his first professional start in Bismarck.

Craig and Rex begin in the present tense, with playoff talk and a Cubs loss setting the mood. From there, they bring in Sipio Spinks, a Chicago native whose baseball life has moved through playing, coaching, scouting, and college club baseball. His major-league career ran five seasons with Houston and St. Louis before injuries changed the path. The hosts treat that arc as the kind of baseball story worth slowing down for. Spinks talks about being a useful hitter for a pitcher, even if breaking balls made things hard. He says he could run well, handle a fastball, and was often used as a pinch runner late in games. Craig and Rex lock onto those details because they are the small truths that show how a player was actually used. The discussion keeps coming back to the practical side of a baseball job. The conversation also circles around the odd honors and bruises that come with a long career. Spinks mentions giving up his first home run and being part of Hank Aaron's home run-record moment, which the hosts treat as one of those facts that sticks. They ask about the hitters he handled and the pitchers he faced, and he answers in the conversational way that makes old baseball stories feel freshly put together. Fergie Jenkins and Don Sutton come up, along with the memory of a tough strike zone and an umpire who was not impressed by comparisons to Fergie Jenkins. From there, the talk opens up into ballparks. Craig brings up Candlestick Park and asks what it was like to pitch there, especially with the city's weather and the park's reputation hanging over the memory. That leads into the broader feel of playing baseball in places that carried their own weather, quirks, and history. The ballpark talk gives the episode a geography of its own. Spinks also explains where his baseball life has gone since his playing days. He has coached in colleges and in the Padres and Astros organizations, and he has worked as both an affiliated and independent scout. He lives in Houston and is head coach for the University of Houston Downtown Gators, a club team in the Great American South Conference. The hosts are especially interested in club baseball, and that interest shapes a long stretch of the interview. That club-baseball thread matters because it shifts the conversation from nostalgia into ongoing work. Spinks describes a program that plays regional and national club teams, including Rice and TCU. Craig and Rex seem drawn to the idea that baseball can keep going outside the usual college and professional lanes. The episode keeps connecting the old game to the current one, which is one of the show's strongest habits. Throughout, the hosts let Spinks's details do most of the work. They move from the major leagues to scouting reports, from pinch-running to ballparks, and from old opponents to the present-day college club scene. The tone stays warm and informed without getting stiff. It is the kind of baseball conversation that values memory, context, and the occasional correction along the way. By the end, the episode feels like a set of connected baseball rooms rather than one straight hallway. There is career history, ballpark history, and a little institutional history too. The hosts close by thanking listeners and pointing them to the show notes, where the baseball-card notes and extra reading live. It leaves the sense of a show that knows its audience likes the long way around.

As heard by us

A lived-in baseball portrait shaped by pitching, ballparks, and detail.

The episode treats Sipio Spinks as a baseball lifer, moving from pitching to coaching and scouting, with enough bat and speed to round out the picture. It also tracks his major league time with Houston and St.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a career arc that runs from the majors to club baseball and the dugout.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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