Election Special: Season 7

Kimberly: Hello, listeners you are listening to take me out to the blall game the world's most average blaseball podcast. I'm your host Kimberly Dauber and I use she/her pronouns. Blaseball election season is here so today we are going to talk to Benson "Nutty" Newton the intern in chief of the blaseball news network. we're gonna get the low down on decrees and blessings and we're going to help you decide how to cast your votes. but first a word from our splonsors.

Kimberly (Splonsorship Segment): this episode of take me out to the blallgame was splonsored by the Mexico City Mild Wings.

CDMXWW Representative: last season the Mexico City Wild Wings fought a legal battle against the baseball gods for denying us our wild nature but we're also fighting a quieter internal battle. in the name of solidarity we voted for enhanced party time despite desperately wanting to bring the spice. this election we have new found hope in the shape of a little packet of hot sauce. we're a small team and we need your support. defy mildness. defy the gods. the support #SauceTheWings by voting for other less spicy blessings. unless you're a wings fan in which case uh you get it.

Kimberly: hello listeners we are back thanks for sticking with us. I am here in the studio with Benson "Nutty" Newton the intern in chief of the blaseball news network. thank you so much for coming.

Benson: Hey it's great to be here.

Kimberly: so can you just before we get started. what should we call you? what are your pronouns? and of course is the Commissioner doing a great job?

Benson: yeah you can, you can call me Benson. the nut the nutty nickname you know it's just kind of left over from college. I'm not really a big fan of it but people just keep calling me that. He/him are my pronouns and of course the commissioner is doing a great job. at the blaseball news network we are a very pro commissioner organization.

Kimberly: thank you Benson as we all know blaseball elections are coming up very soon. but before we get into it I want to give a quick rundown of what the elections are and what they mean in case anybody's tuning in who hasn't gotten familiar with them just yet. so for those of you unfamiliar with blaseball elections: these happen every season and they tend to have very far reaching consequences for blaseball. for example back in season one we passed a so called decree called open the forbidden book. and this caused the appearance of rogue umpires to incinerate players the subsequent incineration of player Jaylen Hotdogfingers and the beginning of the discipline era. So that's decrees do stuff like that: big things about all of blaseball. and then in addition to decrees participants in blaseball can also vote for what are called blessings which basically help out their teams. we're gonna talk about blessings first. so Benson let's get right back into it can you just tell us what do you think are the biggest blessings on the ballot this season, season seven.

Benson: well there's a few different ones that interest me. the most interesting ones to me actually are exploratory surgeries which re roll your team's three worst pitchers and very similarly paracausal event which re rolls your team's three worst hitters. these are blessings that have come up a lot throughout the first six seasons of blaseball history and they have created incredible pitchers such as Axel Trololol now the the Blaseball Crabs ultimate pitcher. he was I believe used to be two stars and now he's all the way up to six ever since he got randomized to five stars.

Kimberly: Woah.

Benson: yeah so it's high it's potentially high cost high reward.

Kimberly: Oh interesting, interesting so whoever gets those blessings could get something terrible to happen but could also get something incredible.

Benson: yeah potentially. I note for in particular the Baltimore Jazz Hands are trying to get exploratory surgery this season because their three worst pitchers all have a half star.

Kimberly: (laughter)

Benson: so what could go wrong it randomized?

Kimberly: wow that's super interesting especially because Axel Trololol has been in the top three of the idols standings for a long time now right.

Benson: yeah Axel Trololol's been one of the best pitchers in blaseball since season three I believe.

Kimberly: that's pretty wild wow. so those are the biggest blessings this season but there's also some blessings that have been just very intriguing and you might say they're a hot topic among the fans. can you explain to me what is the story with Sauce the Wings?

Benson: all right so Sauce the Wings requires a little bit of backstory from season six.

Kimberly: okay let's go.

Benson: in season six the Mexico Wild Wings were transferred to the mild league in a league wide shake up that transferred everyone from being in the evil league and the good league to being in the wild league and the mild league. of course the wild wings took issue with being in the mild league and took the Commissioner and the Blaseball Gods to court. over the course of the season the lawsuit played itself out until eventually rather than really anything being resolved the Blaseball Gods declared the new name of Wild Wings to be the Mild Wings. while this was all going down there was in fact a decree available for blessing called hot sauce which made everyone, it would make a player on every team in the league spicy. and the fact is that we don't, still don't know what it does since that did not pass. so instead of voting for the hot sauce decree the Mild Wings decided along with many other teams to vote for enhanced party time because that was a decree that would bring up the bottom tier of the league into more fair competition with others. now the now Mild Wings are asking that everyone allow them to win the blessing hot sauce packet which is on the docket this year. which would make a random player on the winning team spicy allowing the mild wings to spit in the face of the gods and re claim their spiciness.

Kimberly: I see, I see okay so I'm picking up on a couple of themes here. so first of all it sounds like team fan bases tend to vote together or at least try to coordinate themselves for one thing?

Benson: that is very true and actually kind of depends on the team. some teams are more coordinated than others but many, many teams they try to coordinate their votes toward what they think would definitely, definitely be best. yeah so if you want to know how you would perhaps direct your votes there's lots of different places you can check out. like Twitter discord and the like yeah.

Kimberly: okay, okay so you can ask your fellow supporters of the Boston Flowers or the Canada Moist Talkers who are they voting for.

Benson: what they've decided as a community is potentially best for the team this season and you can put in your own two cents as well before deciding how to spend your hard earned coins on all of those votes.

Kimberly: okay so it sounds like one way that people decide who to vote for is by voting along with their team. another theme that I'm noticing is that a lot of blaseball participants, a lot of blaseball participants tend to want to spite the gods? is this a theme now? is this what we're doing?

Benson: it does seem to be a theme that many people are on board with because I believe that many blaseball players blame the gods for incineration since all those sorts of things they might blame the commissioner and all those sorts of things. of course these players forget it was the players who very first voted to open the forbidden book in the first place bringing all of this punishment upon us.

Kimberly: Well I guess sometimes forbidden things are just too tempting. okay so one way you can decide who you're going to vote for is by voting along with your team. another one could be deciding where you stand on the spiting the guards front. what do you think is another way, what do you think is another way that people might decide who they should vote for?

Benson: another way that people like to vote for is just to see what kind of crazy things will happen. basically whatever you want to do. for example trying to figure out what kind of crazy things will happen is exactly what led us to raising Jaylen Hotdogfingers from the dead last season.

Kimberly: (laughter) Yeah, that happened.

Benson: with the lottery pick blessing yeah. by idolizing a incinerated player we were able to resurrect them from the dead using the lottery pick blessing. so that's another that's another way that people choose to vote just to see what would happen in crazy situations.

Kimberly: all right, all right well thank you for that insight on blessings Benson. listeners do not go away when we come back we will move on from blessings to the biggest changes in blaseball the decrees stay tuned we'll be right back.

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Kimberly (Intermission): Hey there baseball fans today we've got something really sweet. it's our very first listener soul scream. Frank in Los Angeli would like to send a soul scream to Katie Ann in Frisco on the material plane. Katie Ann here it is

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Kimberly: Hey there listeners I am Kimberly Dauber and you are back in listening to take me out to the blallgame. it is blaseball election season for season seven we're still in the discipline era and I'm here with Benson "Nutty" Newton who prefers just be called Benson intern chief of the blaseball news network. last time we talked about blessings and now we're going to get into the biggest happenings in all of blaseball decrees. so let's talk decrees Benson what do we have this season.

Benson: all right we have three decrees up for offer this season. the first one fifth base the top four teams in the regular season have to run an extra base to score next season. walk in the park the top four teams of the regular season will walk batters on the third ball of an at bat instead of on the forth. next season only. and then bless off the top four teams of the regular season can not win blessings in this election.

Kimberly: huh those all seem like they're going to be bad for the top four teams no matter what.

Benson: for sure.

Kimberly: okay so, so that's I think that's pretty clear at the outset but what will each of these decrees mean for the game of blaseball maybe just go one by one and tell us about each of them.

Benson: yeah sure so obviously these are a way to try to bring a little bit more fairness into blaseball. especially in season six and now definitely in season seven we've seen a lot of specifically the wild high teams beating up on other all the rest of the teams in the league because there's such a huge skill disparity present. so fifth base obviously is going to make it a lot harder for these high octane offenses to score because well going on a fourth base instead of only having to go three it's like twenty five percent more work right? yeah and I'm not good at math sorry I'm a writer.

Kimberly: (laughter)

Benson: walk in the park well a lot of these Wild High teams secretly don't have that great of pitching except for the Baltimore Crabs so forcing their batters to walk batters on the third ball of an at bat instead of the fourth next season it's going to make their pitching staff way worse and it's gonna make teams score a lot more against them as they get free people on base. sorry I can't believe it I left out the San Francisco Lovers. they are the strongest pitching team in blaseball but their offense not great they still beat up on people because their pitching's so strong. if they start walking people more often who knows what will happen?

Kimberly: Benson, you're doing a great job, you've got this.

Benson: (audibly tearing up) thank you. Bless Off, top four teams in the regular season can't win blessings in this election. I'm gonna be honest with you it's something that people don't talk about very often but one of the reasons why the top four teams are A: usually the same teams the last few seasons and B: so much better than everyone else is because they have a huge fan base compared to other teams that can just pump out the votes giving them a huge chance to win blessings. especially if they coordinate very well. so by suddenly cutting them off from blessings it gives the underdogs a chance to get all the good stuff this season and bring everyone else up a little bit.

Kimberly: okay so my initial assessment was reasonably accurate and all three of these decrees are going to bring down the top four teams but they're going to do it in slightly different ways.

Benson: of course yeah.

Kimberly: I'm glad we heard about what each of the decrees really means in detail but can you differentiate between them a little more? like I am totally behind leveling the proverbial field but how can I decide which of these decrees is going to be the best way or at least the way I want to vote for in order to make the game of blaseball well more fun and you know a little more equitable? how can I choose between three similar appearing decrees?

Benson: Yeah, I mean I think, I think it just depends on where your priorities are. if you want the game of blaseball to become more interesting as a whole then something like bless off might be in your best interest to vote for because that'll help bring up all the teams all around a little bit more you know? where if you know that your team specifically has really good defense and is going to be able to hold people off bases well then maybe you want to vote for fifth base and make it even harder for them to get around that many bases. if your team has really good baserunning and is really good at stealing bases but isn't great at hitting the ball get that third ball in there you know make it easier for your people to get walks so they can get on base and start stealing them.

Kimberly: interesting okay so you're saying if you want to help teams that have worse pitching then adding fifth base is the way to go.

Benson: Mm-hmm.

Kimberly: if you want to help teams that have worse batting then walk in the park is the one you should vote for.

Benson: Mm-hmm.

Kimberly: and if you just kind of want to all around bump up all of the other teams except for the top four then bless off is the one that you should vote for.

Benson: Mm-hmm. and it also does seem that both fifth base and walk in the park would be specifically a little bit better at neutering some of the more uh top teams. for example walk in the park would be very effective against the Jazz Hands. they're a very powerful team off the back of their offense their base running and their defense but their pitching isn't great. so if they're gonna be throwin you know they throw a bit more balls than the ace pitching staff of San Francisco. so if they hit that third ball and walk ya they're gonna be doing that a little more often you're going to get the win more often.

Kimberly: one other thing that I am noticing about the decrees which didn't necessarily come up is that fifth base and walk in the park are both in just for next season.

Benson: Yeah.

Kimberly: and bless off gives blessings which you know blessings stick around for a long time.

Benson: yeah for sure. well yeah at first glance all three of these decrees only affect basically immediately however the blessings held off from the top four teams by bless off definitely will have much more long ranging implications than just season eight like fifth base and walk in the park do.

Kimberly: all right, all right well that is super helpful thank you so much for that Benson you did a fantastic job.

Benson: thank you, thank you.

Kimberly: before I let you go though I have one last question for you hope that's all right?

Benson: Of course.

Kimberly: as you know we are all love blaseball. so Benson "Nutty" Newton can you tell me what are you love about blaseball?

Benson: I just love watching the players play. I love fans passion for the game. I love covering blaseball every day so that more and more people can get to know the splort that I love.

Kimberly: me too Benson, me too. all right that is all the time we have for today listeners. Benson what do you gotta plug? where can our listeners find you if they have not already?

Benson: all right you can find me specifically at @BNNIntern on Twitter. you can find my big bad boss the A. I. sentient news network blaseball news network the best news that you can find on the mortal plane at @BlaseballNews on Twitter. you can read my writing and all of the writing of my co workers at blaseballnewsnetwork.com and actually right now B. N. N. is hiring we want more people to create content and work with us so you're trying to create content about blaseball get in touch. DM at least @BlaseballNews on Twitter. join our discord reply to a random tweet anything like that. get in touch with us we would love to work with you.

Kimberly: all right thank you Benson. listeners remember to follow us on Twitter at @blaseball_pod and send us your blaseball questions opinions and soul screams via email. we would love to hear your reactions to the latest blaseball events. we'd love to hear your suggestions for topics we should cover. and we especially love to get recordings of your voices since this is in fact a podcast. please email them to us at blaseballpodcast@gmail.com . I am Kimberly Dauber this has been take me out to the blallgame and as always thank you for participating in the cultural event of blaseball.

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Kimberly: God I can't believe that we've been on this phone call for like one hour and three major events in Blaseball have gone down.

Benson: yeah that's that's yeah exactly.

Kimberly: What the...

Benson: exactly!

Kimberly: (groans, then breaks out into laughter) maybe I'll put that as the, as the title.