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Speaker 1: The idea of Dodger Blue Dream is to bottle the

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Speaker 1: narrative excitement that a fan feels while following a baseball

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Speaker 1: season from start to finish, but use documentary storytelling aesthetics

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Speaker 1: to make it palatable for a casual fan. I hope

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Speaker 1: you'll check out our back catalog to hear stories about

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Speaker 1: the Dodgers players that will help you enjoy the most

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Speaker 1: exciting games of the season, with contexts for who these

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Speaker 1: men are and what their lives are like. Let's get

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Speaker 1: onto this one.

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Speaker 2: That's what what can be free?

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Speaker 1: After the Temptations warmed up the crowd on a full

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Speaker 1: moon night at City Field in New York on Friday,

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Speaker 1: the Dodgers lost Game five of the NLCS to the Mets,

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Speaker 1: which means the Boys in Blue are still one win

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Speaker 1: away from a trip to the World Series and two

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Speaker 1: losses away from going home. One more day of the

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Speaker 1: sun for these Mets fails. Mets Magic's still alive and

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Speaker 1: for Game six. Welcome to Dodger Blue Dream Daily. I'm

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Speaker 1: Richard Parks the Third. It is Saturday, October nineteenth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four. The Dodgers and Mets have a travel day

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Speaker 1: today and they resume the NLCS on Sunday evening at

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Speaker 1: Dodger Stadium at five eight, very specifically Pacific time. This

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Speaker 1: best of seven series is now three games to two

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Speaker 1: in favor of the Dodgers, but the Mets want a

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Speaker 1: blowout on Friday Night on their home turf, and that's

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Speaker 1: kind of par for the course. For this series. Mostly

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Speaker 1: it's been the Dodgers blowing out the Mets nine to

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Speaker 1: zero in Game one, eight to zero in Game three,

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Speaker 1: ten to two in Game four. But in addition to

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Speaker 1: the Mets seven to three win in Game two yesterday,

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Speaker 1: the final score was twelve to six, which is a route,

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Speaker 1: but six runs is not nothing. It's definitely more than

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Speaker 1: enough to win a ballgame. The story on Friday night

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Speaker 1: was the pitching. Jack Flarity, the starting pitcher for the

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Speaker 1: Dodgers on Friday Night, who'd gone seven shutout innings against

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Speaker 1: the Mets in Game one, just didn't have it. The

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Speaker 1: Mets scored early on Flarity in the bottom of the first,

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Speaker 1: taking the lead, and they never looked back. At one

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Speaker 1: point the game was ten to six, but that was

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Speaker 1: later on and it wasn't ever any closer than that.

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Speaker 1: By the end of Flarity's third inning of work. The

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Speaker 1: score was eight to one Mets already. Even Dodgers manager

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Speaker 1: Dave Roberts conceded in a postgame interview that his guy

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Speaker 1: just didn't have it.

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Speaker 3: He wasn't sharp, clearly he was. You know, he's been

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Speaker 3: fighting something. He's been under the weather a little bit,

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Speaker 3: so I don't know if that bled into the stuff.

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Speaker 3: The velocity, I'm not sure. I haven't talked to.

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Speaker 1: Jack Flaherty's fastball velocity was down, averaging ninety one point four,

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Speaker 1: which is the fourth lowest average of any start in

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Speaker 1: his entire major league career. His secondary breaking pitches weren't landing,

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Speaker 1: and for the most part, the Mets weren't chasing them

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Speaker 1: when they swung. They did not miss one pitch that

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Speaker 1: was very low and out of the zone that Mets

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Speaker 1: first basement Pete Alonso did swing. It was hit very

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Speaker 1: far and went over the center field fence so deeps

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Speaker 1: it out suits it of the air. Deep center field

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Speaker 1: goes pirzo great enough in New York. Jack, obviously, when

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Speaker 1: you look at this outing, I know it was frustrating.

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Speaker 3: Obviously how things went in Game one, you wanted to

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Speaker 3: continue that into this one.

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Speaker 1: But did you feel like just personally something was missing.

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Speaker 1: It came to your staff is on the mountain tonight.

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Speaker 4: I feel like they made some adjustments, did a good job,

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Speaker 4: and I felt like the first time in a while,

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Speaker 4: I kind of let the game speed up on me

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Speaker 4: a little bit and didn't make the adjustments in game

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Speaker 4: that maybe don't only get made, specially after that first

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Speaker 4: sinning where they put a couple of good abouts together.

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Speaker 4: Tip you had to copete there on. He put a

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Speaker 4: good swing on a pitch, but it kind of showed,

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Speaker 4: and yeah, it didn't make it. It did make it.

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Speaker 1: This was a game where a Dodger victory would have

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Speaker 1: meant the end of the series, no reason to fly

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Speaker 1: back to La no need to keep playing the Mets.

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Speaker 1: A victory on Friday would have meant the Dodgers going

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Speaker 1: to the World Series for the first time since twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: and so, while it was not an elimination game for

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Speaker 1: the Dodgers, it was a game everybody wanted to win,

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Speaker 1: and the offense showed up. Andy Pajes had a two

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Speaker 1: homer game, Mookie still looking good, and so some are

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Speaker 1: questioning Robert's decision to leave Jack Flaherty in the game

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Speaker 1: for so long as it got farther and farther out

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Speaker 1: of reach, and it was more and more abundantly clear

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Speaker 1: that Flarity was not being effective. We ended up using

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Speaker 1: Brent Honeywell Junior as our mop up guy. And so

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Speaker 1: you know that I love it because we got to

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Speaker 1: see the full turtleneck, the only full turtleneck I saw

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Speaker 1: in this entire series, with the long sleeves and the

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Speaker 1: high collar and the white embroidered Dodger script with the

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Speaker 1: red drop shadow. You know, he was rocking the chain

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Speaker 1: plus the perm and he had a chew in. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I love this guy, and he kept us in the game.

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Speaker 1: He did give up some runs. But the question is

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Speaker 1: why didn't we go to our shutdown guys, our Dowgs,

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Speaker 1: Michael Kopek, Evan Phillips, even Blake Trinan, although he had

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Speaker 1: already pitched a couple times in this series and maybe

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Speaker 1: he wasn't available. The question critics were posing to Dave

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Speaker 1: Roberts is why weren't you pulling out all the stops,

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Speaker 1: doing everything in your power to win this game? Looking

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Speaker 1: specifically at the bottom of the third inning, it was

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Speaker 1: already clear that Flarity didn't have it, but the score

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Speaker 1: was just three to one Mets at that point, and

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Speaker 1: Flarity let off the inning by walking Pete Alonzo and

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Speaker 1: then he walked Jesse Winker on four pitches. Roberts could

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Speaker 1: have called to the bullpen for one of the downs

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Speaker 1: to get us out of this jam, but instead he

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Speaker 1: left Flarity in and on the second pitch of the

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Speaker 1: next at bat, martins in the bats so Tech into

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Speaker 1: the field corner to Stolonzo, who comes to the head

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Speaker 1: of steam Pisco.

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Speaker 2: It's five to one Mets. True double Sterling Martwo.

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Speaker 1: Starling Marte hit a two run double to start a

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Speaker 1: five run rally. So why did we leave Flaherty in there?

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Speaker 1: Roberts was asked about this decision in his postgame interview.

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Speaker 3: You know, looking at the game, we have five leverage innings.

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Speaker 3: We're down three to one at the time, and you

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Speaker 3: know you can't cover the game with leverage and being down,

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Speaker 3: so you're trying to get some outs. And after the

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Speaker 3: walks in that third inning, and then Marte, you know,

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Speaker 3: you're still at that point trying to cover seven innings,

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Speaker 3: and so he gives up the double and then so

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Speaker 3: for me, at five to one, I'm not going to

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Speaker 3: deploy our leverage guys knowing that there's a cost in

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Speaker 3: the back end, and appreciating the fact that there's still

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Speaker 3: more baseball to play in the series, so you've got

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Speaker 3: to Those are thoughts that went to my head. But

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Speaker 3: I think for me and I have five leverage guys

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Speaker 3: that I wanted to make sure that you know you

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Speaker 3: got to deploy at the right time.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to play back one part of that quote

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Speaker 1: because you might have missed it.

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Speaker 3: Appreciate the fact that there's still more baseball to play

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Speaker 3: in the series. Series.

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Speaker 1: Whether you see this as smart managing or not, Dave

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Speaker 1: Roberts was making decisions in Friday's game that accounted for

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Speaker 1: the fact that we might lose that game and have

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Speaker 1: to come back to La to play a game six,

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Speaker 1: which is what is happening tomorrow when the Dodgers plan

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Speaker 1: to pitch a bullpen game, a game with no starting pitcher,

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Speaker 1: where you would expect we have to use most of,

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Speaker 1: if not all, of our high leverage guys aka our dogs.

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Speaker 1: Now you could say, well, if we had brought in

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Speaker 1: one of our dogs to get us out of that

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Speaker 1: jam in the third inning on Friday, and won that game,

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't have to play this game on Sunday. Instead,

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Speaker 1: our dogs with the rest of our team would be

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Speaker 1: resting up for the world's see already. And to that,

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Speaker 1: I say, congratulations, my Dodger Blue dreamer, You've crossed the line.

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Speaker 1: You're officially a Dodger fan. And also we're in the

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Speaker 1: situation we're in. Game six is tomorrow, Sunday, October twentieth,

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Speaker 1: at five eight pm, very specifically Pacific time. And no

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Speaker 1: matter of what I think of the managerial decisions in

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Speaker 1: Friday Nights game, I'm headed down to Dodger Stadium for

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Speaker 1: Game six. I'm going to get a beer and I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna get a Dodger dowg and I'm going to cheer

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Speaker 1: on my boys in blue, and I hope you'll join

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Speaker 1: me in rooting for the good guys. Dodger Blue Dream

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Speaker 1: is written and produced by me Richard Parks. The third

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Speaker 1: original music in this episode by The Blasting Company. Production

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Speaker 1: assistance from Tyler Hill. Special thanks to Joshua ca Fffman,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Parks, Kibbi, and Caitlin esh. If you like Dodger

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Speaker 1: Blue Dream, please check out our back catalog our episodes

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Speaker 1: are intended to be evergreen, as fresh and relevant today

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Speaker 1: as they were the day they were released. You can

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Speaker 1: follow us on social media at Dodger Blue Dream, and

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Speaker 1: once again, please leave a rating and a review for

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts or however you can. It

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Speaker 1: really does help. Thanks again for listening. Until next time,

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Speaker 1: my dogs,