Starting 9: Dallas Braden and Jared Carrabis
The real winner of the 2019 MLB Spring Training was the Starting 9 crew of Barstool Sports. Starting 9 has aired over 70 episodes of podcasts filled with amazing behind-the-scenes baseball content, but they really stepped up their game this spring with the “Spikes Up Tour”.
Starting 9 is hosted by former MLB pitcher Dallas Braden and Red Sox fanatic Jared Carrabis. Each episode of Starting 9 is a spectacle for any baseball fan as they bring on a guest, most of whom are players, for each episode. Braden and Carrabis do a phenomenal job of creating and maintaining a very casual atmosphere with their guests. As a listener, it almost feels as if you’ve just stumbled upon and joined in on a conversation between some crazy baseball fans at a sports bar. Some common topics covered with the guests on the podcast include their childhood, their day-to-day life, and random funny incidents. Braden and Carrabis also ask two questions to all their big league guests: “If you could go back in time to any baseball moment to watch live, which moment would you go back to?,” and “when was your a-ha moment that made you feel like you finally made it into the big leagues?” While they will often revisit certain themes and topics, Braden and Carrabis always make sure that the podcast isn’t a strictly formatted interview and that each episode tells a unique story of the guest of the episode.
The guests are often a big aspect of Starting 9, but Braden and Carrabis offer a lot more than that: the two baseball enthusiasts go over everything baseball related, from obscure baseball sabermetric stats and random baseball videos that have gone viral to the biggest trade rumors and MVP predictions. It often ends up being a friendly, yet aggressive, debate between two diehard Athletics and Red Sox fans.
This spring, Braden and Carrabis went to the Major League spring training camps in Arizona and Florida, but this time it wasn’t for the training games and the brews. They met up with star players like Nolan Arenado, Trevor Bauer, Luke Voit, Walker Buehler, Josh Donaldson, etc. to record podcasts (both in audio and video formats) for their fans. The “Spikes Up Tour” gave exactly what every baseball fans want: a casual, intimate, and genuine conversation between the regular fans and the star players. Not only did Braden and Carrabis have genuine conversations but they also had some fun outside with a wiffle ball challenge that went on for the entire spring training.
Now that spring is over and the 2019 regular season has kicked off, the “Spikes Up Tour” has come to an end. Fortunately, we can still turn on an episode of Starting 9 for weekly baseball updates and lively conversations.
Photo of Dallas Braden, Jameson Taillon, and Jared Carrabis (from left to right)
Source: Jared Carrabis’s instagram @jaredcarrabis
