Jacoby Podcast/IF-36.216

Rumor / Community Lore
This article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community. It is just one of many Rumors that we've found in the Interdimensional Rumor Mill. You can find more Rumors about Jacoby Podcast at their Rumor Registry.

Origins

Jacoby Podcast was once a simple recording device brought to life after years of loving use by a local college radio station (as well as several dips in the Inner Harbor, which some argue may be a more relevant factor). Jacoby dabbled in clawmentary as he was coming together as an entity, and the energy and passion of the Crabs fanbase was something he nucleated around like a pearl. He was real enough after a passionate clawmentary of the Crabs cinching their playoff spot that the umps signed him as the Crabs’ Postseason Birth. Jacoby was excited to be on his beloved Baltimore sports team, even if only watching from the Shadows - and then Crabs went up. It was "rough to wait out all that time with the rest of the Shadow Crabs," but Jacoby held out hope that one day the Crabs would come back and he would get to play. And, sometimes despite everything, dreams really do come true.

Jacoby's physical form is shrouded in mystery, though the rumours will change every time you look. Some say that Privately, Jacoby secretly hopes that actually playing on the field will give him the energy to manifest the physical, human body he wants, though we hope that in time he can come to accept himself as already the individual he wants to be, regardless of his physical embodiment.

On the Mound

Due to his lack of physical form, Jacoby is known for an unusual pitching style, which is to say that no one has ever seen him throw the ball, or swung at one of his pitches. At his games, you will instead hear the call coming from the clawmentator box of the Crabitat, and know the result of the hit. While some may have been concerned that this may be in violation of one of the most straightforward rules of blaseball ("the pitcher must throw the ball"), there has never been a batter who argued the calls being made and people keep insisting to the Umps that they "must have just missed it." This has also sparked a number of interesting relationships with other game commentators in the league, as they have found themselves suddenly sharing a space with a broadcast partner.

Casting a Wide Net

One curious side effect of Jacoby's pitching style is that several other pitchers for the Crabs have picked up on narrating their own games as they play. This has led to largely positive results. While Adalberto Tosser's cutting critique of forms seems to have started intimidating his opponents, Finn James has found similar success in simply coming up with new fish based puns to distract the opposing team. On the other hand Brock Forbes seems to have created a technique that is literally incomprehensible to most where he will start listing off facts about the players attributes that seem to have no bearing on their ability to bat, not to mention aren't all real words. Being spoken out loud seems to cause a disorienting effect, and people have reported that they have trouble hearing what he's talking about when calling attention to a batter's thwackability, moxie, patheticism or divinity when on the plate.

Finding a Rock

When joining the Crabs, Podcast was quick to see co-captain Brock Forbes as a mentor, both in play and outside the diamond. The two of them had similar pitching styles and Forbes was quick to explain the finer points of his plays when Podcast asked. The two fell into a comfortable routine of communication and practice, with Forbes being understanding of Podcast’s competitive nature and tendency to lay face down in the outfield when things weren’t going their way.

In season 16 after a tumultuous election Forbes was now playing for the Boston Flowers and Podcast playing for the Ohio Worms. Despite attempts from Forbes, Podcast was not receptive to attempts to reach out with cries of being abandoned in Ohio despite reminders from other Worms that this was a regular outcome of the election, and not a personal slight against Podcast themself. On Season 16 day 47 Podcast was forced into a reunion between when the Flowers played in The Wormhole, and the rotation lining up to leave Podcast and Forbes on the mound. The game went into extra innings, with Podcast letting up two home runs in the top of the 14th to end the game.

They refused to speak to Forbes afterwards.

After a reverb of the Flower’s rotation, Forbes was given another opportunity to pitch against his student on day 75. The game once again went into extra innings, with the Worms being shamed with 2 runs in the bottom of the 10th. This time when Podcast attempted to snub their mentor, Forbes simply applied their considerable experience in martial combat to immobilize Podcast while he talked about his feelings. It is not clear what was said in The Garden but in the weeks since the two have been seen hesitantly meeting up when not in games to practice together.

When speaking of their relationship, Jacoby was quoted as saying “Brock is great and all, but next time we play he won’t make it to extra innings.”

Returning to the Crabs

When Podcast was traded back to the Baltimore Crabs from the Ohio Worms in Season 19, they were aware that their mentor Brock Forbes had left the team, but actually experiencing Baltimore without him was another thing altogether. Podcast quickly found there were plenty of other things to take their mind off of this however, as this was also Podcast’s first time playing and practicing alongside Lorcan Smaht, who Podcast knew better as “that rookie pitcher who showed up to replace me”. Since Smaht emself was unaware of this rivalry, ey frequently took the time to invite Podcast to hang out after practice and be an all around excellent teammate. Luckily Podcast’s feelings on this were interrupted by the attentions of the Crabs newest player, Zeruel Kramer, who was fascinated by Podcast’s pitching, and frequently asked them to model it for zer as ze worked on zer “Arm of God” project. This kind of flattery alongside Kramer’s non-existent pitching skill was quick to win Podcast over, and Kramer even managed to get Podcast to practice what ze called “being okay with being bad at things”.

Before their journey took them across the league Podcast was delighted to discover that they had developed a strange form of carcinization that picked up where their blacklight mode ended. While at first it only appeared to be a strange noise that Podcast began to emit when angry or excited, with the help of resident Carcinization expert Pedro Davids they were able to pinpoint this as a growl produced by teeth in Podcast’s stomach, much like that of Ghost Crabs, and that Podcast could control the sounds they could produce. Furthermore when they entered blacklight mode it was possible to see them glowing through Podcast’s mouth which they described as “really cool actually”. Upon confirmation of their carcinization the first thing that Podcast did was call Forbes in Boston to tell him about it.