Episode1 with Lyle Overbay

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Who’s On First: The Podcast

Hi,

I’m Robert Baumander.  

Who, you ask?

No, Who’s on First.

I spent over 40 years with The Toronto Blue Jays. In 1980 I was on the ground crew studying film and television production in college.  I wasn’t cut out for manual labor, so I put my education to good use and in 1981 I was asked to run the camera to record the players when they were hitting or pitching during the games. From then on I was known as Captain Video.  It was the early days of huge portable video machines and I captured the players on individual VHS with a large, by today’s standards, black and white video camera.  No HD, no color, no super slow motion.  Just a pause button, that if you hit it rapidly enough, as if sending Morse Code, you could simulate a form of frame by frame analysis.  Oh, and we only had one angle.  

Over the next 40 years I helped revolutionize how video was captured in baseball and viewed, being the first to use SVHS, DVD recorders, 1000 frame per second slow motion, multiple camera angles and digital capture using a Mac Pro and iMac viewing stations, before commercial video systems ever hit the market.

Over the years with the Blue Jays, I learned a lot about baseball and was in on some cool behind the scenes drama and wackiness that goes along with a long Major League Baseball season.  But one thing that I never got in on were the conversations that took place at first base.  

Since retiring from my position as video coordinator in March of 2021, I had moved on, but still loved baseball.  So, I have returned, this time asking the questions I’ve always wanted to get the answers to.  One of the great mysteries of baseball.  What the heck do they talk about at First Base?  Sorry, What’s on Second Base.  I don’t know.  THRID BASE!

So, who’s on first today?  Well, it’s my old friend Lyle Overbay, former first baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Lyle was born in 1977, the inaugural year of the Toronto Blue Jays, and was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1999.  He made his Major League debut in 2001 and joined the Blue Jays in 2006, playing in 723 games with the Jays, before finishing out his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, a return to Arizona, Atlanta, the Yankees and in 2014 121 games with Milwaukee.  

These days he’s enjoying life on the west coast and coaching High School baseball.  And for you stats nerds out there, he had a career .266 batting average, slugged 151 home runs, and most importantly these days, had a WAR,(Wins Above Replacement, of 16.5.

On that note, let’s dial up the old telephone and see if we can get a juicy story or two about his career at First base.  I hope you enjoy my first episode and request that you please like, subscribe and leave a kind comment or two, so I know you’re out there enjoying my show.