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E10: The Strange History of Home Run Derby
Season 4 Episode 10
In this episode, I explore the strange and overlooked history of what has become an event that rivals the allstar game for American popularity. Through this history, we see how baseball has changed, …
Published on 9 hours ago
Ep9: The Athlete Television Made a Star
Season 4 Episode 9
Jackie Robinson arrived at exactly the right moment, not just in baseball, but in media history. As television spread into American homes, Robinson became the first athlete millions didn’t just read …
Published on 1 week, 4 days ago
Ep8: The Game that Sold America on Television
Season 4 Episode 8
In the beginning, experts swore television would never matter. Viewers would tire of “staring at a plywood box.” Baseball could never be captured on one screen, and no one would trade the color of th…
Published on 1 month ago
Ep7: The Voices We Carried
Season 4 Episode 7
In the 1950s, baseball broadcasts on television were expanding, and this fairly new technology was starting to catch up to radio in sports coverage, until a groundbreaking innovation cemented radio f…
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
Ep6: Homer at the Bat
Season 4 Episode 6
Like broadcasts and broadcasters of the early days, the 1992 Simpsons episode, Homer at the Bat, shaped the lives of millions. It made people laugh, it connected people more deeply with their favorit…
Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Ep5: The Golden Age of Baseball and Radio
Season 4 Episode 5
In this episode, I discuss the complicated relationship between radio and baseball, and how, when baseball was resisting, radio was sneaking in through every back door in America. I tell the stories …
Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Ep4: The Recreators
Season 4 Episode 4
Step into the forgotten world of baseball recreation, a unique phenomenon created to fill an enormous void in baseball coverage during the 1920s to the 1950s, a strange blending of truth and fiction …
Published on 1 month, 4 weeks ago
Bonus: An Interview with Kelyn Ikegami, director of "The Streak"
Season 4
The story of Kelyn Ikegami developing and completing this documentary is as fascinating as the story itself: a bunch of ragtag minor leaguers relegated to the baseball graveyard, only to resurrect th…
Published on 2 months ago
Ep3: The Day Baseball Found Its Voice
Season 4 Episode 3
Before Graham McNamee, there was basic reporting of the game by broadcasters, and long dead silences between plays. But the opera singer turned broadcaster changed the way people listening to their r…
Published on 2 months, 1 week ago
Ep2: The Swing Heard 'Round The World
Season 4 Episode 2
Radio was floundering in its early days. People didn’t know what to make of it. Baseball owners were afraid of it, and for the first years of radio broadcasting, there was no banter, only dead air be…
Published on 2 months, 1 week ago