PRETTY GOOD

Hey everybody! Jon here again, this time with the first episode of the largest Pretty Good project to date. Throughout humankind’s journey, we’ve often been led forward, or backward, by Tims and Als. Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, the face of the beloved 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement,” was a thoughtless, inconsiderate, and calamity-prone doofus. Al Borland, his co-host of the show-within-a-show “Tool Time,” was the counterbalancing figure Tim required: wise, mature, empathetic, and an exceptionally skilled craftsman. In the 1800s, the Internet began with a Tim and an Al: the guy you know, Samuel F.B. Morse, and the guy you probably don't, Alfred Vail. In Part 1 of "Fool Time," we explore a partnership that should have worked beautifully if one of them wasn't an attention-desperate entitled no-talent crybaby hack piece of shit.

Hey folks! Jon here again, and I’ve got Part 2 of FOOL TIME ready to roll. In Part 1 (check it out here if you haven’t seen it), we saw the proto-Internet of the 1840s expand throughout North America and Europe in the form of telegraph networks. Now, in the 1850s, the geniuses and dummies in charge of these networks shift their ambitions toward one of the most spectacular engineering feats in human history. Additionally, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor glues his head to a board.

Hidey-ho, neighbors. I'm Jon, and this is Part 3 of FOOL TIME. In Part 1, we examined the invention of the Internet via Morse code and the expansion of telegraph networks. In Part 2, we got to know the noble mensch who made it his mission to lay a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean and the doofus tycoon who stole his idea. Now, in Part 3, we'll watch as the Atlantic Telegraph Company tries to pull off this near-impossible feat. Yep, this episode is The One With The Ships. Hope you enjoy.

Hey everybody. I'm Jon, and this is the series finale of FOOL TIME. Thank you so much for showing up for this. This is one of the most interesting and fun projects I've ever had the chance to work on, and I hope you enjoy the final episode.

Hey everybody, it's Jon again. Today, Alex and I have something special for you: the first episode of SCORIGAMI, a four-part documentary series we've wanted to make for a very long time. It's been eight years since I published my original scorigami video on YouTube. Since then we've seen many more instances of scorigami pop up on the board that are of great historical significance. But the real reason we're running this back is that the first time around, I had to leave so many ridiculous stories on the cutting room floor. Scorigami, it turns out, offers a fascinating cross-section of some of the strangest, funniest stories that can be found within NFL history. In this first episode, we're diving into the league's early decades and surfacing with a whole bunch of stories that we bet you've never heard before.

Hey friends, it's Jon again. Alex and I have a brand-new episode of "Scorigami" just for you, completely ad-free and months before it hits YouTube. In the first episode (which is here if you'd like to catch up), we quickly found that scorigami is more than a trivial numbers game. It's a keyhole through which some of the weirdest, funniest stories throughout NFL history can be found, some of which we've been sitting on for many years. In particular, the Rams-Giants game you're about to see is one I've been waiting for an excuse to talk about for at least five years. It's perhaps the dumbest NFL game ever played, which means it is also one of my favorite NFL games ever played

Across nearly an hour of split-screen madness, we'll relive the entire history of the NFL's two-point conversion era with some help from special guest Mina Kimes. We'll also pay tribute to the modern heroes of scorigami: Bobby Hebert, Dwayne Rudd, Trey Junkin, Jeris Pendleton, and Nathan Peterman, the five best and most famous football players of all time.

Anyway, hey, it's Jon again. This final episode of Scorigami in particular is one that Alex and I have been planning, in some form or another, for many years. It features some of the wildest stabs at data visualization we've ever attempted, all in pursuit of questions that ultimately do not matter at all. And although we won't spoil it here, we finally identify the one score on the scorigami board that's technically possible to achieve, but that in practice would completely defy human comprehension.

Hey everybody! I'm Jon, and I'm launching a brand-new documentary series: THE HISTORY OF CHARGING THE MOUND. It is about the history of charging the mound. This is the series premiere. Since you're a Secret Base Patreon member, you have special early access to this episode, and you'll also get to see every subsequent episode months before they land on YouTube. As I explain in this episode, this series is a little different from those you're used to seeing from me. First, it's ongoing and has no definite end point. This subject matter is so rich with strange and funny baseball stories that I could make a hundred episodes if I really wanted to, but ultimately, I think I'll just keep making them until either I get bored or you get bored. Second, I thought it would be fun to offer y'all a peek under the hood as I produce these episodes. I'm doing something I've never done before: I'm sharing my primary research document. Over here in this post ... MOUND-CHARGING DATABASE ... you'll find

Hey everybody! It's Jon again. In the second episode of my new series "The History of Charging the Mound," we examine a 2001 bout between Mike Sweeney and Jeff Weaver. As you'll see, this is among the most unexpected and bizarre mound-chargings on record. Strap in for passive-aggressiveness, a sensational takedown, some solid ground-and-pound combat, a disgraceful cheap shot, and eventual crying.

Hello! It's 2026, I'm Jon, and I'm back with another episode of The History Of Charging The Mound, a documentary series about the history of charging the mound.

Hey, it's Jon again! My series "The History of Charging the Mound" keeps on rolling with an episode on one of the best and most accomplished fighters in Major League Baseball history, the one and only George Bell. You saw glimpses of Bell in the last episode. Now, we'll get to know a guy who's often remembered for his most disappointing moments, but is a more complex man and ballplayer than he's typically given credit for

Hello, I'm Jon, and this is the fifth episode of The History of Charging the Mound. You can think of this series as a trail mix. Every time you shake some out, you're bound to get some low-bitrate video of guys taking swings at each other, some baseball history, some broad commentary about the past and present state of the game, and some goofy hijinks. Well, this one's mostly hijinks. This one's 75% made up of those weird little off-brand M&Ms, and that's all thanks to Dave Rozema, a guy I knew very little about until a few months ago. This guy fit more petty misadventures into a single career than just about any other ballplayer of the last 50 years. I absolutely love this guy, and I hope you will too.

When Alex and I were piecing together the script for "The History of the Seattle Mariners" way back in 2019, our short Lenny Randle segment went through a couple of revisions. Although he only spent a small fraction of his career in Seattle, Lenny established himself as a Mariners legend, and we had to rein ourselves in from writing an extensive tangent covering his entire story.

Hey again, I'm Jon, and we've hit the seventh-inning stretch. This is a special, super-sized episode of The History of Charging the Mound, and unlike the others, it's not about any particular mound-charging. Instead, I decided to call an intermission and take inventory of other once-hallowed baseball institutions that have faded from relevance like mound-charging has.

Hey, it's Jon again, and I've got Episode 8 of The History of Charging the Mound for you. It concerns the 1980 mound-charging between George Brett and Milt Wilcox, and as I divulge early in the episode, I do not have any video of the fight to show you, as it appears to not exist. As such, it was a fairly risky choice to make it the subject of its own episode, but I went forward with it for two reasons. First, these guys gave me excuses to wander off on several fun tangents, and I love tangents.

Hey folks, it's Jon. Nine episodes into The History of Charging the Mound, it is finally time for The Big One. I originally planned to make a single episode out of the encounter between Robin Ventura and Nolan Ryan, but as so often happens, I found a lot more story than I'd bargained for. Accordingly, this story will stretch across two supersized episodes. The first, which you see here, runs about 44 minutes and takes us through 1990. The second, which will drop right here on August 3rd, will probably run another 40 minutes or so.