Around the Beat: Yahoo’s Passan talks free agency, the O’s, ‘The Arm’ and a random dog

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I know there are some podcasts that are polished and impressively produced. Some are like audio chapters of books, weaving you from start to finish in expert fashion.

I hope you enjoy those. But that’s probably not what you’re gonna get here. Sorry.

One of the things I enjoy about my “Around the Beat” podcast is it basically is a phone call with one of my writing buddies. We BS about baseball and, often, random stuff with absolutely no script. During my series of podcasts this year, we’ve talked barbecue in Kansas City, blood-curdling screams in Cleveland and beach bars in Fort Myers, Fla.

Today, a stray dog finds its way into the podcast.

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Well, that’s not the entire podcast, of course.

Jeff Passan, baseball columnist for Yahoo Sports, breaks down the offseason so far. He gives us his impression of the Orioles, and offers up who he thinks is the Orioles’ closer of the future.

Passan explains why he could see a work stoppage five years from now due to changes in the most recently ratified collective bargaining agreement.

We talk some Matt Wieters, the 2018 draft class and Passan’s well-regarded book, “The Arm,” which came out in 2016 and shines the brightest of all lights on Tommy John surgery and its effect on baseball from the sandlot to major league stadiums.

We also discuss my fitness level, and a stray dog that may send Passan to the hospital.

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So, my podcast may never make National Public Radio. But hopefully you’ll find it informative, and just goofy enough to keep listening.

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Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.