A special presentation from the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse. Our first podcast during these pandemic times… In the Fall of 2017, the now shuttered brick-and-mortar location of the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse hosted “Baseball in Black and White: The Watercolor Paintings of James Fiorentino.” In the Fall of 2021, the Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery in Bernardsville NJ hosted James Fiorentino and “Baseball in Black and White: Extra Innings.” I sat down at the beautiful Studio 7 gallery with my long-time fr...
Nov 22, 2021•43 min•Ep. 49
San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock, and a Third-Place Baseball Team with Lincoln Mitchell Special Roundtable Guests: Jennifer Blowdryer and Kenneth Sherrill A wide-ranging conversation touching on San Francisco in the 1970s, George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Dan White, urban America, political campaigns, city government, the San Francisco Giants leaving the city, segregation, diversity, bubbles, Dianne Feinstein, Jello Biafra, the Dead Kennedys, the punk rock scene, Joe Dirt, East...
Dec 03, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 48
War in the Ring with John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro -- and special Roundtable Guest: Mitch Nathanson. A wide-ranging conversation touching on a behind-the-scenes look at the writing process and the challenges of a Young Adult book, Joe Louis and the IRS, Max Schmeling’s actions during the Nazi regime, Jim Bouton, Dick Allen, Willie Horton and the Detroit riots, the “First Game” project and memory, Janis Ian, Mudcat Grant and JFK, boxing in the 20th century, Major League Baseball in 1938 and its ...
Sep 03, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 47
Doc, Donnie, The Kid, and Billy Brawl with author Chris Donnelly and special Roundtable Guest: Tony Denera. We discussed Major League baseball in 1980s New York, Gary Carter, Don Baylor, Nelson Doubleday, George Steinbrenner, Frank Cashen, Seinfeld, Bat Day, Billy Martin, Ed Whitson, the National and American Leagues, the All-Star Game, Duane Reade and ticket scalping, and Sinatra the French Bulldog. Chris Donnelly is the author of How the Yankees Explain New York and Baseball’s Greatest Series:...
Sep 03, 2019•45 min•Ep. 46
Inside the tailgating, ticket-scalping, mascot-racing, dubiously funded, and possibly haunted monuments of American sport "For one year, I traveled the United States visiting sports stadiums -- all manner of arenas, domes, ballparks -- for the purpose of writing a book. The idea was to go beyond the ball games and architectural blueprints to explore the inner workings of these steel and concrete structures that hover over our towns, imposing their will on landscapes and skylines, to better under...
Nov 10, 2017•50 min•Ep. 42
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, tucked away in upstate New York in a small town called Cooperstown, is far from any major media market or big league stadium. Yet no sports hall of fame's membership is so hallowed, nor its qualifications so debated, nor its voting process so dissected. Since its founding in 1936, the Hall of Fame's standards for election have been nebulous, and its selection processes arcane, resulting in confusion among voters, not to mention mistakes in who has b...
Jul 28, 2017•34 min•Ep. 41
The untold story behind the first great sports film... The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper, and the Making of a Classic On July 4, 1939, baseball great Lou Gehrig stood in Yankee Stadium and gave a speech that contained the phrase that would become legendary: "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He died two years later and his fiery widow, Eleanor, wanted nothing more than to keep his memory alive. With her forceful will, she and the irascible producer Sam...
Jun 26, 2017•34 min
A franchise and fan base in perpetual search of validation finally had its ticket punched as 2016 dawned. Mike Piazza, who held records in one hand and a city's rapt attention in the other, gained election to the Hall of Fame. Within weeks of this long-awaited announcement, the ballclub with whom he chose to cast his eternal lot, the New York Mets, made a date to retire his number. In Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star , Greg Prince explores the parallel paths Piazza and the Mets set out on in...
Jun 16, 2017•1 hr 7 min
"Making My Pitch: A Woman's Baseball Odyssey" tells the story of Ila Jane Borders, who despite formidable obstacles became a Little League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male middle school and high school teams, the first woman awarded a baseball scholarship, and the first to pitch and win a complete men's collegiate game. After Mike Veeck signed Borders in May 1997 to pitch for his St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, she accomplished what no woman had done since the Negro Lea...
Jun 10, 2017•53 min
Baseball in the 1920's is most known for Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, but there was another great Yankees player in that era whose compelling story remains untold. Urban Shocker was a fiercely competitive and colorful pitcher. With the 1927 Yankees, widely viewed to be the best team in Major League Baseball history, Shocker pitched with guts and guile, finishing with a record of 18-6 even while his fastball and physical skills were deserting him. Hardly anyone knew that Shocker was suffer...
Jun 02, 2017•58 min
A Pulitzer Prize-winner returns to the Clubhouse. It Happens Every Spring: DiMaggio, Mays, the Splendid Splinter, and a Lifetime at the Ballpark -- opinions and reflections on the National Pastime from one of New York's most popular sportswriters. As these gents would say... "It can be stated as a law that the sportswriter whose horizons are no wider than the outfield fences is a bad sportswriter because he has no sense of proportion and no awareness of the real world around him. Ira Berkow know...
May 20, 2017•56 min
The real Joe DiMaggio -- remembered by the man who knew him best in the last decade of his life. Candid and little-known stories about icons from Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, and his Yankees teammates on the field to Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and other great celebrities off the field. Dr. Rock Positano, an internationally renowned foot specialist in New York City, was introduced to Joe DiMaggio by Bill Gallo in 1990. The Yankee Clipper's career-ending heel spur injury and botched surgeries bro...
May 16, 2017•57 min
Hank Greenberg was coming off a stellar season where he hit 40 home runs and had 184 RBIs. Even with his success at the plate, neither Greenberg nor the rest of the world could have expected what was about to happen in 1938. From his first day in the big leagues, the New York-born Greenberg had dealt with persecution for being Jewish. From a teammate asking where his horns were to the verbal abuse from bigoted fans and the media, the 6'3" slugger always did his best to shut the noise out and con...
May 08, 2017•1 hr 4 min
As a player, Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel's contemporaries included Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson... and he was the only person in history to wear the uniforms of all four New York teams: the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets. For more than five glorious decades, Stengel was the undisputed, quirky, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball -- and along the way he revolutionized the role of manager while winning a spectacular ten pennants and seven World Series Championships. Bu...
Apr 29, 2017•57 min
buck•et list - noun informal - a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime All New York Yankees fans have a bucket list of activities to take part in at some point in their lives. But even the most die-hard fans haven't done everything there is to experience. Sportswriter Mark Feinsand led us through ideas, recommendations, and insider tips for must-see places and can't-miss activities. And not every experience requires a trip to the Br...
Apr 22, 2017•1 hr 6 min
"The '60s were a time of conflict, progress, tragedy, triumph, and unforgettable events in the nation and its pastime. One Nation Under Baseball connects the two in revealing and insightful fashion." -Bob Costas One Nation Under Baseball highlights the intersection between American society and America's pastime during the 1960s, when the hallmarks of the sport -- fairness, competition, and mythology -- came under scrutiny. John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro examine the events of the era that reshape...
Apr 15, 2017•59 min
"Quit praying for me alone, Ma, and pray for the whole team." -Jackie Robinson's letter to his mother in 1947, his rookie season Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Ja...
Apr 07, 2017•1 hr 12 min
"Keep your temper. A decision made in anger is never sound." Ford Frick is best known as the baseball commissioner who put the "asterisk" next to Roger Maris's record. But his tenure as commissioner carried the game through pivotal changes -- television, continued integration, West Coast expansion and labor unrest. During those 14 years, and 17 more as National League president, he witnessed baseball history from the perspective of a man who began as a sportswriter. Auburn University professor J...
Dec 19, 2016•53 min
In his shrewd analysis -- Will Big League Baseball Survive? -- Lincoln Mitchell asks whether the sport will continue in its current form as a huge, lucrative global business that offers a monopoly in North America and whether those structures are sustainable. Mitchell places baseball in the context of the larger, evolving American and global entertainment sector. He examines how both changes directly related to baseball -- including youth sports and the increased globalization of the game -- and...
Dec 05, 2016•56 min
"I just won the Nobel Prize of baseball." -Elston Howard, American League MVP, 1963 Snubs. Grudges. Conspiracies. Incompetence. All in a day's work for some of those who vote on Baseball's Most Valuable Player Award. From its colorful and scandalous beginnings more than a century ago, the MVP has evolved into the most prestigious -- and contentious -- individual honor in the sport. No award means more to the players, the media, or the fans -- and no other award can claim a voting history so rich...
Nov 12, 2016•1 hr
“This is a tough park for a hitter when the air conditioning is blowing in.” -Bob Boone When it opened in 1965, the Houston Astrodome -- nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World -- captured the attention of a nation, bringing pride to the city and enhancing its reputation across the country. It was a Texas-sized vision of the future, an unthinkable feat of engineering with premium luxury suites, theater-style seating, and the first animated scoreboard. Yet there were memorable problems such as o...
Nov 05, 2016•59 min
White, black, Jewish, Christian, wealthy, working class, conservative, liberal -- the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s embodied the disparate cultural forces at play in an America riven by race and war. In “The Last Innocents,” award-winning writer Michael Leahy tells the story of this mesmerizing time and extraordinary team through seven players -- Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Tommy Davis, Dick Tracewski, and Lou Johnson. It is a story about what it was like to be a majo...
Oct 01, 2016•1 hr 3 min
“For all who care about baseball, character, and leadership, Michael Tackett has brought us the inspiring and unforgettable story of a phenomenal coach and his legacy.” -Michael Beschloss, historian and political commentator Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the corn fields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one...
Sep 24, 2016•32 min
“Ralph Kiner was a jewel. He loved the game of baseball. He loved to talk baseball.” -Tom Seaver One of the staples of the long and storied history of baseball on television is the postgame show, and none was more beloved than “Kiner’s Korner.” From the early 1960s into the 1990s, Hall of Famer and iconic broadcaster Ralph Kiner hosted the show that brought players into the homes of fans across the nation. Down on the Korner -- from the host, to the set, to the guests, to the stories amassed ove...
Jul 18, 2016•49 min
“The Freedom of Information Act is a critical and sometimes underappreciated tool that allows all of us access to the records of our government. It was through the act that I obtained copies of more than nine hundred pages of FBI documents related to the Black Legion. These proved vital.” -Tom Stanton In the mid-1930s, Detroit reigned as the City of Champions. Within a six-month span, the Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings won a World Series, NFL title, and Stanley Cup -- a major-sports trifecta achie...
Jun 17, 2016•50 min
“When he was eight, Dad got into a name-calling fight with the little white girl who lived across the street. The children’s verbal battle was interrupted when the girl’s father came outside and started throwing rocks at my father.” -Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s daughter "Jackie Robinson In Quotes: The Remarkable Life of Baseball's Most Significant Player" Danny Peary has skillfully curated the best quotes to shed new light on the man behind number 42. Featured are quotes by Jackie Robinson, his wi...
Jun 13, 2016•56 min
In 1966, Jim Palmer was just 20 years old when he became the youngest pitcher to throw a World Series shutout, helping lead the Baltimore Orioles to their first-ever championship. Two years later, Palmer's budding career almost ended due to arm problems. Yet, he mounted an inspiring comeback and reached the pinnacle of his profession, becoming the winningest pitcher of the 1970s and the only hurler to win a World Series game in three different decades. A Hall of Famer... with three World Series ...
Jun 06, 2016•1 hr 6 min
“All things considered there are only two kinds of men in the world -- those that stay at home and those that do not. The second are the most interesting.” -Rudyard Kipling The stellar play and fascinating backstories of exiled Cuban ballplayers in Major League Baseball has become one of the biggest headlines in America's national pastime. On-field exploits by Yoenis Cespedes, Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Aroldis Chapman, and a handful of others have been further enhanced by feel-good tales of despe...
May 28, 2016•57 min
What would happen if two statistics-minded outsiders were allowed to run a professional baseball team? It’s the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies -- with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That’s what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most adv...
May 13, 2016•42 min
“The Cubs became a metaphor for the underdog, the loser, lovable or not, that we as a species can’t help but instinctively pull for.” -Joe Mantegna, actor "The Last Chicago Cubs Dynasty: Before The Curse" by Hal Bock The last time the Chicago Cubs played in the World Series, World War II had just ended. The last time they won a World Series, World War I had not yet begun. But from 1906 - 1910 the Cubs not only played in the World Series four of the five years, they won two World Championships, a...
May 07, 2016•53 min
