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Plaaaaaaaay baaaaaaall!
Baseball season has started here in America and what better way to kick-off the season than by enjoying this episode of the podcast!
Author John Rosengren stops by the show to discuss his latest book: "Classic Baseball: Timeless Tales, Immortal Moments." Joe and John cover just a few of the stories covered in John's latest classic. Come listen to this episode, pick up the book, and get ready for an upcoming summer filled with Baseball!
Enjoy!
I once interviewed a woman shot in the head by hijackers and left for dead on the tarmac.
I raced my bike against Greg LeMond in South Africa (and beat him). I played a tennis match against the world’s top-ranked wheelchair tennis player (and lost). I channeled a 330-pound, Samoan, retired NFL nose tackle who is gay (Esera Tuaolo, for his memoir). I played softball on snowshoes in the summertime (wood chips spread across the infield). I rapped a base hit off former Twins pitcher Rick Aguilera.
I listened to a nurse tell me the story of prying a shotgun shell out of Ernest Hemingway’s hand when he was intent upon killing himself. I profiled a woman who is a Roman Catholic priest. I attended a powwow with LGBTQ Native Americans. I interviewed a mortician in the room where she embalmed my father. I interviewed a 15-year-old boy in his hospital room after he tried to stop a school shooter.
All in a few days' work, stretching back to 1981, when I began freelancing as a senior in high school, same time I got clean and sober. My work has won a couple dozen awards and been nominated for a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize (but didn't win either of those).
Along the way, I have lived in Boise, Boston, Florence, London, Paris, and St. Paul. Today I'm at home in my native Minneapolis with my wife Maria, our two children, and a golden retriever named Maya.
A collection of iconic, unbelievable, and intimate stories from baseball history that celebrate the enduring impact of the national pastime.
Baseball—rooted as it is in tradition and nostalgia—lends itself to the retelling of its timeless tales. So it is with the stories in Classic Baseball, a collection of articles written by award-winning journalist John Rosengren and originally published by Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, Sports on Earth, VICE Sports, and other magazines. These are stories about the game’s legends—Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Josh Gibson, Bob Feller, Frank Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Kirby Puckett—and its lesser-knowns with extraordinary stories of their own. They cover some of the game's most famous moments, like Hank Aaron hitting No. 715, and some you've never heard of, like the time the Ku Klux Klan played a game against an all-Black team.
Whether it be the story of John Roseboro forgiving Juan Marichal for clubbing him in the head with a bat, Elston Howard breaking down the Yankees' systemic racism to integrate America's team, or the national pastime played on snowshoes during July in a remote Wisconsin town, these are stories meant to be read and read again for their poignancy, their humor, and their celebration of baseball.
Thanks to Empire Toys for this episode of the podcast!
The DTALKS Podcast has also been ranked #9 in the "Top 40 Detox Podcast You Must Follow in 2020" according to Feedspot.com for our work in the Cultural Detox space. Thank you so much to the Feedspot team!