Jerry Dynes
37 episodes listed below
Baseball history with trivia still on its cleats.
Fungos & Fastballs treats baseball history as a cabinet of strange souvenirs: no pepper signs, one-year teams, plush mascots, pitching machines, and rivalry lore. Jerry Dines leads with Brooke nearby to question, correct, tease, and keep the stat runs from wandering too far.
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Fungos & Fastballs is built for baseball fans who like the game best when it gets specific. It is not a headlines show, though it occasionally checks in on the current season. Its real home is baseball history, trivia, memorabilia, stadium lore, old rivalries, and the strange objects that survive around the sport. Jerry Dines brings the collector mind to the microphone. A plush Mariner Moose, a Rally Monkey, a no pepper sign, a beer can, or an old card can become the front door to a longer story. Brooke gives the show its comic ballast. She questions the detours, flags the jargon, worries about too many dates, and turns research-heavy stretches back into conversation. That back-and-forth is the appeal. The show can explain why the Polo Grounds mattered, then pause for a joke about seeing Yankee Stadium across the river. It can praise Tony Gwynn's consistency, then wander into the alternate timeline where he chose basketball instead. It can talk about Ball Four and the Seattle Pilots without treating either as homework. The pace is quick, but the explanations stay accessible. Basic terms and background get filled in before the conversation moves on. Mascots are treated with the proper mixture of affection and suspicion. The Nationals presidents race, Orbit taunting Yankees fans with a ruined pizza, the San Diego Chicken, and the Mariner Moose all fit naturally into the same baseball universe. Technology gets similar treatment, from gunpowder-powered pitching machines to the modern Trajekt machine. Rivalry episodes have a more personal charge, especially when Mike Walsh returns to revisit Yankees-Red Sox history through the Bucky Dent game. The show is fond of the past, but not trapped in it. It treats baseball as a living archive of jokes, grudges, inventions, vanished teams, and very persistent fans.
Made for: For baseball fans who enjoy history, trivia, stadium lore, mascots, memorabilia, and rivalry stories without needing a formal lecture. It suits listeners who like stats and dates, but prefer them delivered through banter.
What sets it apart: The show turns small baseball artifacts and oddities into full stories, using conversational pushback to keep the research from feeling dense. Its best moments come from the mix of Jerry Dines's deep-dive enthusiasm and Brooke's practical, teasing interruptions.
Join us on this podcast exploring baseball's history and lore, plus enjoy some fastball trivia all in under 30 minutes. Topics will be all over the place - players, traditions, baseball lingo, stadiums, baseball movies/books. Like you, we just want to talk baseball!
A hotel bell polices Jerry's baseball wonkery, which is exactly why you can relax.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Rally Monkey opener leads into the Polo Grounds' tangled, multi-team history.
The episode starts with the Angels' Rally Monkey, a fan favorite that even turns up as stuffed monkeys at games, then opens out into the Polo Grounds, its many names, rebuilds, and long run as a shared sports site.
Seattle's odd mascot history leads a tour of baseball's strangest side traditions.
Mascots end up carrying the episode, with Seattle setting the tone through the plush Mariner Moose, the 1979 Spacey the Needle contest, and the short-lived run with the San Diego Chicken before the 1990 choice stuck.
Tony Gwynn trivia leads the way, with enough ballpark weirdness and side chatter to keep it moving.
The episode starts with ballpark oddities and a homemade no-pepper sign, then settles into Tony Gwynn trivia. It moves through jokes and side notes, and the hosts occasionally catch themselves mid-tangent, which keeps the tone loose even as the facts come quickly.
A one-year team, a classic baseball book, and enough studio banter to keep the history moving.
The episode uses Ball Four to open a clean, funny lane into the Seattle Pilots, a one-year expansion team that still carries a link to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Nebraska athletics, close up and week by week.
Daily Tigers tension, sorted fast.
Jerry Dines and Jordan Dove rank their top 10 catchers in Major League Baseball history using longevity, awards, World Series success, statistics, defense, and leadership.
Jerry and Brooke open with the Rally Monkey.
Jerry Dines opens with a plush Mariner Moose in hand.
The hosts kick things off with a little baseball oddities cabinet and a homemade no-pepper sign.
The show opens with Jerry Dines' tennis injury joke.
A discussion about the modern Trajekt pitching machine and the history of pitching machines, starting with a gunpowder-powered device from 1897.
A discussion about the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox tiebreaker game, known as the Bucky Dent game, with a Red Sox fan guest.