We don’t talk baseball much on the podcast, not because we’re not baseball fans (we are), but because in a 162-game season, dive-bombing in to mention random stuff doesn’t seem to interest you guys all that much. This week is different.
When you get the chance to bring one of the best baseball writers in the world on, well, you do it. And that means you’re going to talk about baseball (some, anyway). Jonah Keri, of CBS Sports, and Sports Illustrated, and Nerdist (listen to his podcast maybe), and MLB Network fame joined us this week. The same Jonah Keri that did such great work over at Grantland. The same Jonah Keri who makes great puns and The Simpsons references and never seems to take a day off.
Needless to say we had a great time, and discussed:
- Demystifying advanced analytics in baseball and other sports
- Jonah’s approach to interviewing and finding stories
- The idea of WINS (Wednesday Is the New Saturday)
- How to get your day job done, and find passion projects, and use your passion projects to help your day job
- The Magical Mystical Grantland Tour
- Reggie Bush at USC and the nature of players able to be a lightning rod and turn people into fans of a sport
- Fans’ relationships to teams like the Expos that have been moved over the years
- Disconnecting from fanhood and rooting for coaches, players, and individual teams year by year
- Favorite episodes of The Simpsons
As always, comments and tweets are welcome. Subscribe to us on iTunes, too! You can find Robby at (@rkalland) and Martin at (@martinrickman), and Jonah is at (@jonahkeri). Sports are great and so are friends, but sports are always better with friends.
Special thanks to the band Annabel for our intro and outro music. They’re really good. You should buy their music at their website or perhaps see them play a show some time.
