In her incisive study Baseball as Mediated Latinidad: Race, Masculinity, Nationalism, and Performances of Identity (Ohio State University Press, 2020), Jennifer Domino Rudolph analyzes major league baseball’s Latin/o American players—who now make up more than twenty-five percent of MLB—as sites of undesirable surveillance due to the historical, pol…

Sports writer and scientist Brad Balukjian stops by to discuss his fascinating, thought-provoking and important new book, The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of WrestleMania. Here are some highlights – 5:29-5:49: “The book really is about the line, the borderbetween fiction and fact or myth and reality and work and shoot in Kayfabe terms. … to…

It’s back to school time! Stan Markotich returns to the podcast, joining K.P.—both with backgrounds in education—to discuss the current state of the education system.

Eric Vickrey chats with K.P. Wee and co-host Stan Markotich on The K.P. Wee Podcast, discussing his book Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, the Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash That Changed Everything. This book came out in 2024, published by Rowman & Littlefield. To offer context for Eric's book, on June 24, 1946, a bus transport…

Jerry Izenberg, a long-time journalist who has covered multiple sports including baseball, football, and boxing, joins Episode No. 99 of The K.P. Wee Podcast to discuss his book, Larry Doby in Black and White: The Story of a Baseball Pioneer, which is a biography of Larry Doby, the first African-American player in American League history. Jerry cha…

In growing numbers, athletes are speaking up about their struggles with mental illness—including high-profile stars such as Michael Phelps, Kevin Love, Simone Biles, and Naomi Osaka. More disclosures are surely on the way, as athletes recognize that their openness can help others and inspire those around them. In Mind Game: An Inside Look at the Me…

Aaron Fischman joins this episode to discuss his book, A Baseball Gaijin: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back, which is a biography of former Major League Baseball pitcher Tony Barnette. Aaron chats with K.P. and co-host Stan Markotich about this compelling read, which comes highly recommended. The book, published by Sports Publishing, chronicles Bar…

In this episode, Randy Louis Cox joins the show to talk about his book, 715 at 50: The Night Henry Aaron Changed Baseball and the World Forever. This book celebrates the night that Aaron broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record on April 8, 1974, featuring 44 photos taken by Cox that night and much, much more.…

Stan Markotich, formerly a news director at CJIV Radio, joins the podcast today to continue the discussion on the complex subject of sports betting. K.P. shares a story about how a game from Week 3 of the 2020 NFL season between Baltimore and Kansas City irritated him (partly because the over/under line changed suddenly), and he and Stan discuss ho…

Today I talked to Ben Kaplan about his new book (co-authored with Danny Parkins) Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA (Triumph Books, 2024). Jeff Van Gundy. Brad Stevens. Frank Vogel. Mike Budenholzer. Tom Thibodeau. Sam Presti. Leon Rose. Before you knew his name, before he drafted your favorite player, before h…

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, The American Adrenaline Narrative (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilous outdoor adventure tales, their gendered biases, and how they simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability. To explore these themes, Jacobson defines and compares adrenaline narratives…

If you don't recall the 1976 Denver Olympic Games, it's because they never happened. The Mile-High City won the right to host the winter games and then was forced by Colorado citizens to back away from its successful Olympic bid through a statewide ballot initiative. In The Olympics that Never Happened: Denver '76 and the Politics of Growth (Univer…

Like many American boys, Tony Barnette yearned to one day make it to “The Show,” playing baseball professionally. The Arizona State pitcher was drafted in 2006 by the in-state Diamondbacks. Gradually ascending the minor-league ladder, it looked like this was the beginning of a blessed life, where he could play the game he loved on the grandest of s…

Stan Markotich, a former CJIV Radio news director, joins the podcast today to delve into the intricate topic of sports betting. Both K.P. and Stan share their thoughts on what has emerged as a widespread occurrence within today's sports fan community: betting on sports. The latter also recalls a past incident that convinced him to abstain entirely …

Journalist and author Dan Schlossberg joins this episode to discuss his new book Home Run King: The Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron (Sports Publishing, May 2024). Schlossberg, currently an editor with the IBWAA, has authored or co-authored 41 books since 1974, and his latest Hank Aaron book was released earlier this month to commemorate the 50th an…

How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work. Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing games. They all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules?…

Pete Steinberg, a leadership consultant based in Boulder, Colorado, joins this episode and discusses his new book, Leadership Shock: Using Authenticity to Navigate the Hidden Dangers of Career Success (Advantage Books; April 16, 2024). A former Olympic rugby coach, Pete is currently the president of the business consulting firm Innovative Thought. …

In Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City (Three Hills, 2024), Adam J. Criblez traces the fall and rise of the New York Knicks between the 1973, the year they won their last NBA championship, and 1985, when the organization drafted Patrick Ewing and gave their fans hope after a decade of frustrations. During these years, the teams …

Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball’s golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast Georgia mountains, Mize emerged from the heart of Dixie as a Bunyonesque slugger, a quiet but sharp-witted man from a broken home who became a professional player at seventeen, embarking on an extended t…

Brett Hawn, the host of the Totally Goated podcast and a New York Mets fan, stops by to discuss the latest happenings in baseball two weeks into the 2024 season. The topics of discussion include the Mets (of course!), the new MLB/Fanatics jerseys, the rise in the number of injuries to pitchers, and betting on sports.…

Although much has been written about the Nazis, one aspect of their rule has been all but overlooked: gambling. While philosophically opposed to gambling, in practice the Nazis relied on gambling to prop up Germany's economy, earn hard currency, and wage war. In Gambling Under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betti…

Stan Markotich, a former CJIV Radio news director, joins the podcast today to discuss the complex issue of sports betting. Some key issues raised by Stan include the following: Why are fans allowed to wager on sports while athletes aren't able to -- and wouldn't sports betting itself ruin sports?

While the topic of relationships in professional sports teams is gaining greater attention from researchers and practitioners, the role that coach and athlete language plays in shaping these relationships remains largely unexplored. How Language Shapes Relationships in Professional Sports Teams: Power and Solidarity Dynamics in a New Zealand Rugby …

Keith O'Brien joins this episode to discuss his new book Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball. Keith, who grew up in Cincinnati and currently lives in New Hampshire, discusses why he wrote the book and what he hopes readers get out of it. He also shares the process of his writing and some tidbits of wh…

It was 1953, the Korean War in full throttle, when two men—already experts in their fields—crossed the fabled 38th Parallel into Communist airspace aboard matching Panther jets. John Glenn was an ambitious operations officer with fifty-nine World War II combat missions under his belt. His wingman was Ted Williams, the two-time American League Tripl…

Rachel S. Gross's Shopping All the Ways to the Woods (Yale University Press, 2024) tells the fascinating history of the profitable paradox of the American outdoor experience: visiting nature first requires shopping No escape to nature is complete without a trip to an outdoor recreational store or a browse through online offerings. This is the irony…

Roberto Alomar was not just a five-tool Hall of Famer; he was a magician on the diamond, a generational talent whose defensive wizardry left teammates and opponents breathless. Yet, despite his twelve All-Star selections and ten Gold Glove awards, he has remained one of the most contentious and enigmatic characters in baseball’s history. Roberto Al…

This instalment of the Object Lessons series focuses on the Swimming Pool (Bloomsbury, 2024). The book explores the pool as a place where humans seek to attain the unique union between mind and body. As a former world-ranked swimmer whose journey toward naturalisation and U.S. citizenship began with a swimming fellowship, Piotr Florczyk reflects on…

In July 2021, Naomi Osaka—world number 1 women’s tennis player—lit the Olympic Cauldron at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The half-Japanese, half-American, Black athlete was a symbol of a more complicated, more multiethnic Japan—and of the global nature of high-level sports. Osaka is now about to start her comeback, after taking some time off following t…

Welcome to the G League--the official minor league of the National Basketball Association. Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) is about the arduous quest to achieve an improbable goal: making it to the NBA. Zeroing in on the Birmingham Squadron and four of its players--Ja…

William Meiners is a writer, editor, and teacher living in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. He created Sport Literate as a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago in 1995. By day, he works as a reporter for the Gratiot County Herald, a family-owned weekly newspaper, and by night, he teaches academic writing courses at Mid Michigan College For the 25t…

Guest host Stan Markotich and regular host K.P. Wee discuss the topic of how ready students are, based on their observations as educators, to face their next step upon graduation. K.P. shares many observations from his own experiences, some of which raise Stan's eyebrows in this thought-provoking discussion.…

Today we are joined by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Professor of History at The New School, and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023). In our conversation, we discussed the beginnings of fitness in the United States, how fitness both offered the state a way to shape bodies and lib…

Four historic teams. Four legendary players. One unforgettable season. The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946, the league had evolved from a bruising, earthbound game of mostly nameless, underpaid players to one in which athletes became household names for their thrilling, physics-defying play. The 1987–88 se…

Michael Unger (UDeck1990 on X) joins this episode to discuss the recent player cards he posted, a list which includes Lee Smith, Tom Brunansky, Storm Davis, Mark Davis, Glenn Braggs, and Jim Gott. K.P. shares some obscure trivia about Gott, brings up the broken-bat at-bats that Braggs was known for, discusses memories about the other players (inclu…

Women’s college basketball is big business—top teams bring in millions of dollars in revenue for their schools. Women’s NCAA games are broadcast regularly on sports networks, and many of the top players and coaches are household names. Yet these athletes face immense pressure to be more than successful at their sport. They must also conform to expe…

Today we are joined by Dr. Lindsay Krasnoff, who is an historian, specializing in global sport, communications and diplomacy. She is also the Director of FranceandUS, and she lectures on sports diplomacy at New York University Tisch Institute of Global Sport. We met to talk about her most recent book: Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a G…

Today we are joined by the sports journalist David Steele, who has written for the Sporting News, AOL, the Baltimore Sun and the San Francisco Chronicle, and won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, the Association of Black Media Workers, the Associated Press Sports Editors, and the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a…

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ M…

We all know many stories about how modernity came about. But what does it mean to be “modern”? This episode comes at the question through the test case of mountain climbing and rock climbing. Claims to becoming modern through climbing often point back to Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch’s ascent of Mt. Ventoux in 1336, a climb that made him, acc…

Guest host Stan Markotich and regular host K.P. Wee explore the idea of whether today's high school seniors, based on their observations as educators, are ready for college or university.

Today we are joined by Stephanie Convery, inequality editor at Guardian Australia, and author of After the Count: The Death of Davey Browne (Penguin Australia, 2020). In our conversation, we discussed the history of boxing in Australia, the failures that explain Davey Browne’s death in Sydney in 2015, the nature of violence in sport, and the future…

On this episode, J. Daniel takes readers back more than forty years, telling a story that is part baseball history, part urban history, and part U.S. cultural history, with a narrative weaving together the develop­ment of the Midwestern cities of St. Louis and Milwaukee through their engagement with beer and baseball. In Suds Series: Baseball, Beer…

On the heels of the Dallas Mavericks’ 9-3 start, Jason Gallagher returns, and you bet the head of production at The Old Man and the Three (and ThreeFourTwo Productions more broadly) comes ready with analysis of the Mavericks’ scalding start as Luka Doncic has led the way with 30.7 points per game, the second-most converted treys after Stephen Curry…

This book provides a rigorously researched introduction to the relationship between Christianity, race, and sport in the United States. Christianity, Race, and Sport (Routledge, 2021) examines how Protestant Christianity and race have interacted, often to the detriment of Black bodies, throughout the sporting world over the last century. Important …

Israel has one of the most extensive and highly developed hiking trail systems of any country in the world. Millions of hikers use the trails every year during holiday breaks, on mandatory school trips, and for recreational hikes. Shay Rabineau's Walking the Land: A History of Israeli Hiking Trails (Indiana UP, 2023) offers the first scholarly expl…

Alex Kennedy, Chief Content Officer at BasketballNews.com and host of Running Up the Score, a biweekly live sports show airing every Tuesday and Friday night, stops by to wind through the Western Conference just as the league readies for tipoff. The Nuggets are Alex’s leading squad but far from the conference’s only contenders. Oh, and he has firml…