Our Backstory: Inside the Barrel

A story of trash, trash, and even more trash. Just kidding, it is actually pretty interesting...

The Backstory of The Trash Can League Network

Seeing as I am the only host that was around when the idea for The Trash Can League Network was first born, I am literally the only person qualified to tell the story. No I am not saying I am better than every one of our hosts, but I am saying that I am the only one who can tell the true story. Well, a good percentage of it anyway. I am not going to add the "Hollywood touch" to it, but I am going to tell it how I remember it. Sadly, the original conversation has been lost to the delete button due to my own stupidity because I did not realize the value of it until it was too late. But I will tell the story to the best of my ability; this I can promise.

The idea for The Trash Can League first started out around July of 2020. A friend and I were talking about baseball on a chat app and the conversation was centered around the 2020 Major League Baseball season. On that day, we were specifically talking about all of the new rules they added due to the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus. Most of the rules we kept bringing up the two of us did not like, such as the elimination of situational pitchers and the National League having a designated hitter for the pitcher. After a good hour or so of us ranting and rambling, I made a comment along the lines of, "I wish we could just put all of these ideas into one gigantic trash can."

The initial event leading towards the creation of The Trash Can League Network had unknowingly just taken place.

After this comment, my friend posted a picture of a trash can into our chat room. Now this trash can had been edited to include a Houston Astros logo dead center of it. Fun fact, that trash can is also where I have taken some inspiration from to make the logos of our podcasts. So yes, even three years after the Houston Astros' cheating scandal it was affecting parts of our baseball related lives.

So this idea of a "trash can of dislikes" floated around a bit until my friend suggested that maybe we should actually turn it into an actual thing. Why not create a total new news network specifically designed for two friends to talk about sports (and act like idiots from time to time because why not). We discussed this for a while, but I was not sure if at the time he was joking or if he was actually being serious about the idea. Well, i think a week passed by and the conversations stayed relatively the same. "How cool would it be to have our own news network!" That sort of thing. But we were just two kids with an imaginary vision. What the heck could we even do?

Turns out, a lot more than one might think.

Kids with a dream, that is what I admit we were. I found myself thinking, "Yeah it would be cool to have our own podcast, but do I really think it will get off the ground? Even then, is this something I would like and be committed to?" Around this point it was around late July to early August; my high school senior year was quickly approaching. All of a sudden, our conversations became more serious. The talk shifted from talking about to a whole news network to just a podcast. The ball started rolling faster and faster; like a snowball rolling down a hill. We kept coming up with details that we both liked: structure, style, apps to record on, etc.

It was at this point early August when things started falling together. And boy did they fall together fast! By around the second week in August that we decided that we would in fact have an actual podcast. I wanted to start my high school senior year before we recorded our first episode. It was going to be best if I could have enough time to record anything at all. The school year for me started around August 18, 2020 and for whatever reason, we decided to record the first episode on August 16. But I could not establish contact with my primary co-host and my backup host had to cancel after he found out that the people around him wouldn't be quiet.

We then postponed the release date of our first episode.

I knew that there would be troubles with making a podcast, but I did not foresee the postponement of our first episode. The sad thing was that I only thought I needed one backup co-host; that is why we had to postpone. Not wanting to have this issue happen again, I set out to find an armada of baseball nerds to assist me in my endeavors. Thankfully I did this because over time I lost contact with the other creator of The Network and then later the original backup co-host.

After I found a couple new co-hosts, we decided to finally record the first episode of The Trash Can League Network. And so we did. On August 30, 2020, we recorded and released our first episode. This first podcast series title was actually called "The Trash Can League Network," but during the ninth episode of "The Trash Can League Network," I announced that we would be expanding into football for the 2021 NFL season. This move prompted a name change, because the plan for a while had been to make "The Trash Can League Network" a sort of brand name, with individual podcasts branching off of it. For the eleventh episode of that series the name change took place and the former The Trash Can League Network Podcast is now called Out in Left Field.

And that is the backstory of The Trash Can League Network. It all started because of COVID-19, baseball, and a trash can with the Houston Astros' logo on it. So in effect, it is a story of trash, trash, and more trash!

-Ryan Bexten, founder of The Trash Can League Network