Episode 17 is another edition of Past Prime Pastime, wherein Matty and Past Prime baseball correspondent, Kevin Blake, try to explain the unexplainable career of Giant (and Met and Mariner and Padre and Red and Daiei Hawk) great, Kevin Mitchell. In 1989, Mitchell was on pace to break Roger Maris' coveted single season home run record. The man who was previously the twelfth best player on the 1986 Mets and who was allegedly traded because he freaked out Darryl and Doc (two men who were hard to freak out), came out of nowhere to capture the imagination of baseball fans everywhere. One of those fans was eleven year old Kevin Blake, who traded in every piece of baseball memorabilia he owned, plus every birthday card check and government bond, to corner the market on Mitchell rookie cards. Suffice it to say, Mitchell did not hit sixty two home runs and our co-host's card collection is now functionally worthless. But we will always have 1989 -- the year when Kevin Mitchell made "the catch" and won the NL MVP award and when Kevin Blake was certain that he was living through baseball history.

Join Matty and Kevin as they try to piece together what happened. What was the deal with Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark? Did Mitchell, as Doc Gooden once allege, really decapitate a cat? Was Mitchell really an elite high school water polo player? And, most importantly, just how bad was Kevin's investment in those Mitchell rookie cards?

So, get out your Beckett baseball card guide. Start taking some Creatine. And get ready to go "All In." To read more about Kevin Mitchell, check out the full essay at Past Prime.