– the Cardinals’ quick offseason work and John Mozeliak’s apparent desire for a three-month vacation

– the Cubs’ impending trade of Jeff Samardzija

– the biggest sports viewing regret of one of our lives

– some random college footbally stuff

– thoughts on Hunger Games 2: Hungrier Games

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

Bryan Joiner writes for The Classical and SB Nation’s Red Sox blog, Over the Monster. He joined us on short notice late Tuesday night to chat about his team’s chances of vanquishing the world’s evil/winning one more game, what it’s been like to root for a worst-to-first team, why Ben Cherington doesn’t need to be new Theo, and lots of other stuff.

He also wrote/compiled this, an “oral history” of sorts of this Red Sox season. I’ve never seen anything done quite like it, and it makes you feel transported back in the same way a good sports documentary does, like June 17, 1994 or something along those lines. As someone with no strong feelings toward this Red Sox team, I loved it and hope you’ll check it out, too.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

– what the Cubs will do now that they fired their manager, Svele Daeum.

– how interesting it is that the Cards are playing playoff games for the 11,453rd straight year (a record).

– whether enough people on the internet have discussed the end of Breaking Bad.

It’s all good.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

– Adrian Beltre: weirdest awesome player or awesomest weird player?

– the David Freese dilemma

– how dumb Selby is for being four episodes behind on Breaking Bad

– much more

This is the first episode we’ve ever done without an agenda, so I honestly just don’t remember a lot of the rest. It’s a grab bag.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

– Wrigley Field defenders

– our teams’ various unattractive bullpen options

– where the Cards will stick all their young’uns

– the true stories of two public school high school legends

– the agony and ecstacy of the Kansas/Michigan game from a month ago

– NICK SELBY’S BLOG

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

– all the swear words NL Central hitters won’t hear yelled at them by Chris Carpenter

– those sexy, sexy PED accusations against Ryan Braun

– mutual handjobbery over our teams’ high quality farm systems

– a certain Fangraphs writer friend of ours doesn’t know how to pronounce words

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

This week, we spent a half hour chatting with Spilly, internet chef and writer for SB Nation. Spilly began posting his cuisine a couple months ago on Progressive Boink, and has amassed a strong following by showing wanton, though cheerful, disregard for gastrointestinal dignity. Spilly is a marvelous American, his creations a nihilistic paean to all that is bold, true, and sprinkled with sriracha.

Audio difficulties cut off the beginning of the interview. If you want to jump to the Spillster (and miss us talking about Scott Baker), it starts about 11 minutes in.

Email us at thecentralmessage@gmail.com unless your name is Spencer Hall or Jon Bois. We’re not interested in helming the SB Nation podcast empire. Working on the internet sounds fun until the paycheck comes and it’s an envelope of lemon Mambas and Game Gear cartridges.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

Email us at thecentralmessage@gmail.com.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

Ooh boy. Hold on to your hats. Some buck-wild baseball talk is coming up.

Email us at thecentralmessage@gmail.com.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.

Email us at thecentralmessage@gmail.com.

Click here to listen. Or listen below.