The Press Box - Josh Levin and Stefan Fatsis on Launching the Sports Gabfest, the Benefit of Mutually Reinforcing Weirdo Tendencies, and Why They Hate the Hall of Fame

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan is still out on vacation, but Joel is here with two former colleagues, Josh Levin and Stefan Fatsis. They kick off the show by discussing the first time Joel joined them on a podcast (0:44). Then they discuss the following: ‘Hang Up and Listen,’ a sports show that was produced by a non-sports publication (14:00) The reason Josh and Stefan hate the Hall of Fame (28:34) Josh and Bryan’s "mutually reinforcing weirdo tendencies" (32:01) How covering sports for ‘Hang Up and Listen’ helped with their other work (52:34) How Josh and Stefan’s relationship evolved as they worked together (57:33) Host: Joel Anderson Guests: Josh Levin and Stefan Fatsis Producer: Brian H. Waters Additional Production Support: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Masked Man here, David Shoemaker. It's officially a WrestleMania season, and we've got you covered here on the Ringer Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my gosh shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal, and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling Worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Masked mans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out, tap in to the Ringer Wrestling Show feed now on spot.

or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. Welcome to PressBox. You've got me, Joel Anderson, and producer Brian Waters, on the ones and twos. Our fearless leader, Brian Curtis, is still on vacation. He called me a couple nights ago from the actual Grand Canyon. It was great to hear from him, and I can report that he's doing well, that the Great American Southwest is still great,

and that he's actually sort of relieved to not have to talk about Jeff Goldberg or the Atlantic. or Signalgate or Tariff Gazi or whatever you want to call it. He also had some thoughts about Van and I's conversation last week about strip clubs, but I'll let him save those for next week so it's not to misrepresent his comments. I should also say here that Brian and I were really moved by the response to the Media Graveyard episode that published Monday. It goes to show you how little I know about podcasting. I literally thought I was so bad that I didn't even bother listening to it

because I thought it was too long-winded and too self-indulgent. But maybe I'll like that. So I'm going to continue to be even more long-winded and self-indulgent going forward. So anyway, but all that to say, thank you very much for your kind and generous words. And we hope to keep pumping out more of these 25 for 25 episodes in the near future. Once again, we have a very big, very different pod today at J-School, still on spring break. So please have your fun. Enjoy the sun.

And don't let me hear about you getting kicked out of senior frogs. don't embarrass our August institution. This is not Columbia, damn it. Let me take you all back to the spring of 2017. We only thought things were grim then, right? So anyway, I'm an investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News and working in San Francisco. One day, I get a call out of the blue from Josh Levine,

who I know from his work at Slate Magazine and one of my favorite sports podcast hang up and listen. And I was a fairly regular listener, though I should admit, I didn't listen every week, But if I ran out of Dan Lebertar show episodes, I would definitely load up a couple and get to it. So anyway, I was so geek to talk to Josh. And I remember standing in the hallway outside of our newsroom and pacing back and forth as Josh explained that the show was going through some changes. And we wanted to know if I'd be interested in coming on as a guest.

And I mean, of course I was. I felt like I was being invited to the big time. And a short time later, I joined the show for the first time. let's go back to that day, literally eight years ago to this day. With us from a hotel room in Atlanta, which he presumably booked, to guarantee he would have access to a high-quality podcasting robe. It is our honored guest for the day, Joel Anderson of BuzzFeed News. Hey, Joel.

Hey, John, Stefan. Pleasure to be on here. We're very happy to have you and just glad that you're comfortable. Oh, yeah. It's a Hyatt Place. It's in Buckhead. I'm doing pretty well, I'd say. But I do have to check out at

1 o'clock. All right, we'll talk really fast. Right. You know, make, we'll allow you ample time to pack. So that was the typically very understated Josh Levine intro.

That was my first time on. He did call me an honored guest. So that was that. We had on Sally Jenkins to talk about Yukon's loss in the women's semifinal. The North Carolina Gonzaga men's final that was going on later that.

day, the Raiders announcing their move to Las Vegas and an ESPN the magazine story on how dating apps may affect teams as performance on the road. That's a big show, right? Not long after I took a two-year tour through ESPN, and after that, Josh was pivotal in hiring me to slate to work on that third season of the narrative podcast series, Slow Burn, which was about Biggie and Tupac. When I finished the season of that podcast, just made sense for me to join the crew. Things have changed so much since then, right? And that's obviously some of what we're here to talk about today. So let me first introduce somebody who you heard off here laughing.

I'd already talked about him. Josh Levine, he's the editorial director of the Slow Burn Podcast and host of the Slow Burn Seasons on David Duke and Fox News. They are great. I hope you guys listen to them. He's also the author of the Queen, the Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award biography. And I should also mention that he's a Webby Award-nominated podcast.

podcast hosts for that season on Fox News. It was recently nominated for Best Documentary Podcasts. So Josh, congratulations. What's up? Thanks, man. I'm just happy that, you know, no adjunct members of the Dan Lebitard crew were available today so that you could slot us in. I don't think Mike Ryan, I don't even have his phone number, so I'll probably wouldn't know. You better not, you better not get it in the next like 45 minutes to an hour right now. I'm out of here. No, no, no, no, not. Never that, never that. And also, Joining me from Washington, D.C., Stefan Fatsis, who is an author of three books, Wild and Outside, Word Freak, and a few seconds of panic. He's also working on a fourth book, and we were talking about it off air here.

It's about the dictionary. It came out of a feature story on Slate that Josh edited more than a decade ago. Stefan, do you want to tell it? First of all, hello. I'm so glad to see you. You haven't been using your podcast equipment in months, but I'm so glad to see you. Please tell us a little about your book real quickly. Tap, tap, tap.

Is this microphone working? Tap, tap, tap, tap. Great to be here, Joel. Good to see you. We even got to see each other in the flesh a few weeks ago, the three of us, which was fun. Yeah, I got a new book. So we stopped podcasting, hang up and listen together back in the fall,

and since then I've been pretty much just working on this book. And it's, I'm not working on it, though. I'm kind of done. I'm proofreading the galleys right now. So it'll be out in October. The title is unabridged. The thrill of and threat to the modern dictionary. And yeah, it started with the piece for slate, 10,000 word magazine piece for slate that Josh edited and turned into a book and it turned into a very long decade of reporting about words and language and the dictionary. It became a lexicographer. I wrote definitions for Merriam Webster. Wow. So if you go to Merriamwebster.com and type in alt-write, that's a lexicographer. That's a lexicongrapherver. I wrote. me or microaggression. That was me too. Yeah, microaggression. It's Stefan's photo right next to All right. That's unfortunate, but we can figure it out. No, no. Well, that's exciting. And so, Stefan, when,

of course, everybody pre-order and when the time comes, since we're all in the D.C. area now, like Stefan just mentioned, we just saw each other. I saw my friends a couple weeks ago when not long after I moved here. And so whenever there's, you know, a reading or a thing, I'd expect you'll see me and Josh there, right? Josh, I'm promising that you're going to be there, right? Well, our number one hangout spot is the University of Maryland food court, apparently. That is where we met up with each other. But I'm willing to expand the radius and, you know, go to a bookstore or something like that. As long as there's a Panda Express. Well, I was going to say, as long as I can pick up some Panda Express to bring home to my son, we're in good shape. Anyway, before we get started here,

I need a moment to apologize, too, because Stefan and Josh, I'm not breaking any secrets here, but I said I got laid off from Slate in August. And they asked me if I, yeah, that was just, it's still a shock, right? Wow. When they, they offered me the opportunity to come on that last Monday, and I just was in no position to go on. I was mad.

Also, I had COVID. So whichever one of those things is an excuse, you'll accept. Great. But I remember talking to you, Joel, that was like obviously a very difficult weekend and all manner of ways. And I can confirm that you definitely had COVID based on that conversation. Like if people are thinking, oh, that's an excuse. Maybe he just didn't want to do it. The man had COVID.

I had COVID. I was in pretty bad shape. Everything hit me at once. And so I was really, first of all, I was moved by that episode and I wish I could have been there. And also just I've really, I've, you know, heard from so many people and talk to people since then that were fans of hang up and listen. And I never really got a chance to thank them for welcoming in to the crew. I mean, like Josh and Stefan, which is so generous. And I mean, we're friends now in part because of how good of people and how good of journalists they are anyway.

But like they welcomed me into that show. And I never really got to say bye to anybody. And that kind of bothered me. So this is my months later in another job, a chance to say, you know, thank you all for, you know, welcoming me. allowing me to be part of that team. And it just, man, I don't want to start getting emotional anything in here because we've got a long way to go. But I just, this was my opportunity to say thank you to everybody that was so kind to me

after that and that generosity and the spirit that greeted me in that really difficult time. I will never forget it as long as I live. And that goes double for Josh and stuff. And they're always going to be my friends, no matter what. So I just had to do that so we could get that out of the way and we can start talking about other stuff. all right we love you Joel and you just really up to our game on that show um and we had just such an amazing time together doing that for all of those years and you know people ask

stephen people ask you if you miss doing it every monday right yeah all the time doing it with you guys yeah yeah that's i mean yeah i miss talking about sports and writing about them and reading about them for that show. But I mostly just miss hanging out with you guys for an hour. Man, it was a real part of our routines like every Monday, you know, for like three or four years. Not three or four years. How many years are like five, six?

For y'all like 15. But y'all got to see me grow up, man, you know, in a lot of ways. Like when I came, I was just a single kid, you know, living in California. Now I'm a dad or two and everything. And you all with me every Monday, man. talked about so much stuff. And yeah, it's a part of my life that I really miss and I really cherish. You know, like Stefan, you said in that episode,

you hope that we get to work together again something. And I still hold out hope that we will all, but we'll be friends regardless. But I miss you guys and I miss your minds and your friendship and the counsel and everything else. So anyway. I'm really glad to see that you've got better internet. That was always a kind of subtext or the text.

or the text of a lot of our episodes as you're just like seething because the internet in Palo Alto was so kind of inexplicably horrible. But like no no hiccups today. No like you. So a lot of times people can relate to this on Zoom. You're just like, you're just like swearing

because you think that people can't hear you because so sometimes we just like get an unexpected like MF or you know, whatever. from Joel just because he thought the internet wasn't working. A lot of times when you thought I was working, it wasn't working. But, you know, I don't want to knock on wood. Everything just seems like really good for you in Maryland. Well, there was that five minutes at the beginning of our connection

where Joel had to figure out how to plug in his microphone. It got moved around and I'm not going to blame anybody. For a while my stuff got moved around. But it was just different in here when I came in. So, but yeah. So, yeah, every. everything is better. I do feel really good. I'm in a good place. And I'm just even better that I get to see you guys faces here in my Zoom. The thing that we're really excited about Stefan and I, we've all

talked about this is like, sometimes on our on the show back in the day, Stefan and I would be like, oh, we went to like the DC State Championship basketball game and Joel would just be like, oh man. Yeah. You like genuinely like felt like a pang that you like wanted to, you know, hang, but also like you love, you came up on high school sports, you know, playing, writing. And I, like, really look forward to the day when we can go to a high school basketball game together. Or Joel, the turkey ball, man. Okay.

Turkey ball, D.C. I'm going to drag you all. Hopefully to a couple of football games. Like, I don't know. You know, Maryland is more southern than I kind of expected. So I imagine they have a pretty decent football culture around here, maybe. So, yeah, I look, we're going. We're going to the D.C. High School Football Championship.

We're going to hang. Thanksgiving morning. I can't, I can't. I can't see that there's a little bit of tension already, though, in our friendship because I'm like, hey, you guys are going to come out to Maryland. They're like, oh, you're coming into the D.C. Every time I say, come out to Maryland, you guys, oh, yeah, you're coming to the D.C. I was like, hmm, okay.

But I am going to come into D.C. To be negotiated. Yes, to be negotiated. Well, it depends on the game, right? Okay, enough of the smart stuff, the soft stuff here. Let's get into some hard journalism here. I just want to start at the beginning because this is a thing that I don't even know this story to.

So what was the meet cute here? How did you all get to know each other? Andy Bowers was running Slate podcasting. He was an NPR guy from way back in the day. And he did audio and video slate. he started the whole like podcasting regime at Slate by reading the

explainer column and that was like the first audio feed and slate you could subscribe and just hear Andy reading a bunch of articles and then they started the political gab fest which was the conceit of it is

let's hear what journalists are really talking about like around the conference room or water cooler like these are the conversations that we're having that readers usually don't get access to. And so it didn't turn out exactly this way, but it's like, what if we just put a microphone there? And it was like, you know, they didn't know it was there, but you're just like a fly on the wall.

And you get to hear these sort of behind the scenes conversations. And like with like real talk, nothing kind of filtered. And the political gab fest came out of that, then the culture of gab fest. and then the sports one was third and the name Hang Up and Listen, I just think I came up with it and it was a small and scrappy in that place

that I was just like, I think that's what it should be called and they're like, fine. It wasn't a number two because that was the question I was going to ask. That was it because, I mean, let's be real now. It's 2025. Hang up and Listen is a dusty ass name. It like conjures up memories of like rotary phones and seven-digit dialing.

I don't think kids even know what hanging up a phone is anymore, right? Yeah, I mean, it's been a little bit of an albatross, I guess, but also it's distinctive ish. I don't know. I mean, people think that the show shut up and listen or, you know, just don't even have any idea what

the name is or what it means. But, I mean, I think it would have been the sports gab fest on the, like, initial MP3 file for the first. show. It's like sportsfest.mb3. So, and I think there are probably people at Slate, who wish we would call this sports cab fest, then people would know what the hell it is.

That's right. But if you're old enough, like we are, you get the reference. Yes. It's a sports talk radio. So we're really going for an older audience. We didn't want any young people listening to the show. If you listen to sports radio now, I'm sure they say hang up, people say, I'll hang up and listen too though, right? I guess. I don't. Yeah, I mean, there's like a local, like Memphis show that was called Hang Up and Listen. I mean, it's, it's not like an obscure phrase if you're like steeped

in this like extremely specific subculture that I think all of us were steeped in, but it's, you know, maybe a phrase that's a little forbidding to outsiders. So, but whatever. It's like, you know, you come up with a name, like the ringer, the press box. But like pretty soon, I think any like actual association with what the phrase means, I mean, you're the word guy, Stefan. It's like when people are like, oh, hang up and listen this week or I listen. Like they're not thinking about what the individual words mean or even what the words mean together. It's like that podcast that I listen to.

Let's go back to Slate 2009, 2010. It's still one of those must read sites on the web, like one that a bunch of other upstarts tried to duplicate. And it even had like a signature style, the slate pitch.

What were you guys hoping you could do that would stand out from the crowd at that time with Hangup and Listen? I think the reality, for me anyway, someone who was coming from offbeat mainstream sports talk and sports writing. I mean, my sports writing career was the Wall Street Journal, not exactly normal sports writing,

and at a time before the journal had a sports page or a sports section. We had a weekly page when I got there that started after I got there, actually. And then talking on NPR, which I did for 17 years on all the things considered once a week, they're not sort of conventional mainstream sports thought outlets. I mean, the first question I had for Josh was quite literally what's a podcast, because we really didn't have a real concept of what this show would be or what it meant to host a podcast. podcast or run a podcast. And it was really new. I mean, 2009 was, I mean, when were the first podcasts? I mean, the Gap Fest, the political Gap Fest, Josh was when podcasting started. So it was

just a few years after that. It was a couple years after. And I remember specifically when Josh approached me to do the show. We were not to name drop or anything, but I think we were at Atlantic writer Mark Leibovic's house for a party with a bunch of, you know, D.C. journalists. types. Was Sally Quinn there? I think Ben Bradley was there actually. You really was? Is that a joke?

No, I think Ben Bradley might not have been alive then. Okay. I was like, all right. Really? Man. Has it been that long? Okay. Yeah.

I have to check. And I remember being kind of sort of puzzled. Like, okay, what's the idea here? Like, what are we going to do? How will this work? And, you know, I think we talked it through Josh and sort of came up with a format that kind of survived the entire time we did the show. I'm sure Josh was responsible for sketching out the format that we ended up using right from the start. But, I mean,

either that's a tribute to Josh's, you know, genius in coming up with a basic structure for a show, three segments, and then some monologues. Or, you know, it was just, you know, it was just, like we were lazy and didn't innovate. I'm not sure which. I mean, I think we were copying the other Gab Fest and I mean, for me it was terrifying because I'd never done anything on Mike before. And if you were able to find the first episode, you'd hear someone who sounded extremely nervous and unpracticed. And Stefan and Mike Pescoe both been on the radio a bunch. And so they obviously selected me as the host, somebody who had no experience talking to an audience. I mean, I remember my grandfather telling me a couple years in, oh, the show's like so much better now than it was

beginning. I was like, thank. That's very nice of you to continue listening. Keep on. You're hugging for two years. That's a, that's a, I know. I mean, that's unconditional love. It really is. I mean, it wasn't just Josh getting better, which he did. And I will verify that Josh was extremely tentative at the beginning. And we obviously talked about that. And we got better real fast because Josh is an incredibly quick study and extremely good at this and picked it up really quickly. But it was also that we started preparing more. I mean, we started really working hard more on making sure that we read a lot and didn't just ad lib our monologues, researched them, wrote them down and stuck to the structure.

I mean, we didn't always stick to the time format that people liked at Slate. The editors always wanted the show to be shorter as the show grew in length over the years, as shows do. But we really were, I think, kind of like we realized, like the thing that could make us better is if we are prepared with our thoughts, that we're not just going to talk. and podcasting at that point, you know, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, probably the most defining trait was, oh, it's just where people go and shoot the shit. And we didn't want to just shoot the shit.

We wanted to make sure we had something structured and interesting to say. Well, I also say we're not really capable of it. I mean, there are people, and I put Mike in this category, like people who are just incredibly fluid, real-time thinkers who are able to ad lib and you just sit and, you know, listen to them talk for an hour and a half about whatever. I mean, I put like a ton of people who are brilliant podcasters. Like Beaumani is like somebody who's obviously able to talk about anything at any length of time and it's kind of transfixing. but for us, whether it's just because of our particular setups of our brains, or because we came up as reporting and research-driven print journalists,

I think the way that we could distinguish ourselves from other people is by bringing that sensibility and that work onto the show. Well, you know, and Stefan, you even said this in that final episode from August. You talk, and this is something that has come up over the years, sports talk for smart, smart people. Is that, so what does. That sounds gross. Well, I was going to say, what does that mean? And there's a risk of like, because I don't, it's, I don't know do people get into sports to hear smart shit, right?

But like, that obviously was a clear aim of the show. And that's what attracted me to it. So like, what do you think that means now that you, both of you guys? Like, what does that mean? I mean, for me, it just meant a different medium to continue to do the, kind of sports thinking and writing that and talking that I had been doing for two decades already. You know, the distinguishing factor for all of my assignment work at the Wall Street Journal that wasn't sort of deadline writing was it had to be something that no one else had

done before. That was the sort of mandate for page one stories and often for like second front stories. You had to come up with an idea that was unique, that was different, that was creative, that turned a different direction. And that went for, you know, 3,000 word investigative stories that appeared on page one. You had to find a way to get at a topic that no one else had done before. And my NPR hits, you know, which I, like I said, I did for 17 years. I mean, I really tried hard to make sure I didn't sound like what other people were saying, whether it was on Sports Center or on talk radio or on any other sort of conventional sports outlet.

And, you know, probably failed most of the time because on a sort of when you're talking topically, it's hard to always feel like you're completely different. but I certainly tried to bring some sort of more thoughtful, creative element and also, like, issue-driven and not games-driven. And I think that is another thing that kind of distinguished what we were trying to do with Hang Up and Listen. The games were always secondary to me anyway. And talking about the, you know, politics or business or social. issues around sports in everything that I've done in my career. It's been way more interesting than caring about who won or who lost. I would say, I don't know if I was thinking about it this

way at the time, but sort of in retrospect, of like subtle kind of reframing, so it sounds like a little less snobby and elitist, is that Slate was a second read. Slate is a commentary site. It's an opinion site. It's a site where to really get, to kind of maximize what you're getting out of it, you need to have a little bit of kind of knowledge and understanding of what's going on in the world. And then you get like a slightly different spin or a different take than you might get elsewhere, which is, I think it's complementary to what Stefan was saying around,

I wanted to be first. If you're second, then you need to be different. So what our show was is a sports show produced by a non-sports publication. So nobody, I mean, we did have listeners who weren't sports fans at all. So that's a separate category. But if you are a sports fan, you're not getting your sports news from us. You're kind of steeped in ESPN, as I think we all were. You're steeped in the sports page.

You're steeped in whatever was an SI that week. on what age you were when you started following sports. And so we're like, maybe like a commentary track for that or like a person, a friend that you can have a conversation with or overhear a conversation by if like you've heard all the, you know, first order conversation about the game or about the, you know, topic behind the game and will just like deepen it or complicate it or shift it in some way. And I just felt like the hang up and listen thing is like, it's just like a little bit of a tweak on sports talk radio. Like we're not going to talk about who should be in the Hall of Fame or like the MVP race or things like that.

I just feel like that waterfront is like really well covered by other places. And that's just not, if you want that, there are other people that can provide it for you and do it better than we could. Right. I'm going to, so I'm glad you said that about sports radio because you said before that hang out. and listen was supposed to exist in contrast to sports radio. So let's play a clip of you talking about that. The idea behind the title, which was perhaps ill-advised, just having a title that people don't understand,

especially if you're not a sports fan, was that this was going to be kind of taking the piss out of sports radio, right? Like that this was going to be a show that existed in contrast to and in refutation to that, meaning not necessarily talking about the same topics, but also not talking about the same topics or the expected topics in the same way. And there's a little bit, I think, of like egotism and self-importance in that, just this idea that we're better or aspire to be better. I want to drill down on that just for a second for both of you guys,

because what did you all think of the culture of sports talk at that time? What is the example of sports talk that you're actively trying to avoid when you're talking about this? The repetitive bang you over the head with obvious commentary about quotidian happenings in sports. Who's starting, who got benched, who made a mistake, who should have done what. Like Josh said,

halls of fame, I mean, good Lord. Isn't that fun? You don't want to talk about the Hall of Fame? Really? I hate the Hall of Fame.

Josh. Josh really hates the Hall of Fame. Real. Hall of Fame talk anyway. So, so, I'm going to ignore that. I mean,

I came up and Brian, who hopefully made it across the Grand Canyon or around the Grand Canyon or whatever he was doing. Hello, Brian. he kind of taught me how to edit and write sports essays. And the thing that I kind of came to loathe as an editor of sports articles was,

I am a long-suffering fan of Team X. That is probably my number one least favorite genre of article, because sports is structured so that every team loses every season. And so the idea that it's somehow unique or special or interesting that your team lost is just like such a massive misunderstanding of the entire concept of sports. The other stuff about like who's better Jordan or LeBron or is, you know, Carmelo, a first ballot, Hall of Famer. it's, I think a lot of the reason why people enjoy and engage with sports, it's just not why I

enjoy and engage with sports. So it's, that one I would say is more personal preference. The other one, I would say, just feel stupid to me, like objectively stupid. Okay. I got to, because you brought up, Brian, I got to follow up on this, because you said that David Plotz, who was, Slate's top editor from 2008 to 2014, he told you that you and former Slate employee, Brian Curtis, had, quote, mutually reinforcing weirdo tendencies. What is that name? That phrase is like tattooed on my brain. I love that phrase. Yeah. What is what is some of the memories of Brian at that time? So Brian and I conceived of a sports rubric than Slate, speaking of things that are, esoteric and only journalists know about.

It's like rubrics. Readers do not care about rubrics. Like, we're going to come up with a rubric, which was left field. So sports nut was the regular sports column. This was left field. And it's like, all right, we're going to take our like, you know, usual abstruse stuff and just make it like even more obscure. So only like four people understand what we're talking about.

So I wrote pieces, some of my favorite stories I wrote for Slate were in that, was like the seedy underbelly of flagflare. Football. Love that story. The quest for the 1,000-pound bench press I wrote for that rubric. And we would commission these really cool illustrations for them. And I feel like readers, like that stuff. It's sort of like a journal piece, like something that you wouldn't read anywhere else. But it like definitely wasn't about LeBron James. And so I think that plots, our boss could just see us like, you know, toppling over into a universe of our own creation and an interest and obsession. But Brian and I were having a great time.

And the other, but that also sort of ties into what I think we were trying to offer in doses on Hang Up and Listen, you know, the sort of weird obsessions that do, unify sports fans. You know, for me, it was the single digit pitcher jersey numbers, which I did a head, page one offbeat story for the journal

a long time ago. Or my obsession with, and Mike Peska enjoyed this too, when maybe this was Peska's idea first. I don't remember who liked it more, but when a quarter ends in an NFL game or a football game with the ball on the 50 yard

line and the teams just have to pivot around the ball to resume play or other you know whatever we sort of have weird obsessions or interests in and like the I think we all shared that which is what helped propel the show particularly in monologue segments or third segments where we tried to talk about things that nobody else was likely to be talking about that week can I get back to my flag football story for a second yeah so story. The kind of conceded

the story, like New Orleans, strangely enough, was like the, you know, beating heart of intercollegiate competitive flag football. You were going to say the beating hard, beat of a seediness. Oh, well, those things, too. But there were a bunch of schools

around the New Orleans area that you will not have heard of if you're not from Metro New Orleans, like Delgado Community College, Nunes Community College. And in order to be eligible, the rules, it was like even more lax than like the NIL transfer portal era. You just only had to be registered to take like a single physical education class at one of these schools.

And so there were people who were playing for the collegiate flag football championships who were, you know, in their 30s, who had been in college for 15 to 20 years. And this one year that I wrote about it, the championship game was between Nunes Community College and Nunez Community College, two different teams. And the piece included the phrase, and I just Googled it to confirm, the only time this phrase has ever been used on the internet, Nunez on Nunez action. And Brian has, speaking of phrases that are tattooed on one's brain, Brian has, like, made fun of me for that. Or maybe he just says it with complete love and admiration. he will occasionally text me referring to Nunes on Nunes action.

Nunes on you. I'm writing that down, so I can text it to you as well. Wait, wasn't the greatest flag football player from New Orleans? That guy Ducet, what was his name? Hush Ducet, Ducet, D'Sat? Housh, Ducet. He related to early Ducet at all? Spelled differently, but, you know, maybe somewhere down the line.

But no, he's the quarterback from the U.S. World Championship winning flag football team who... I believe we talked about on Hangup and Listen. was in the news because he said he was better than Patrick Mahomes. I remember that guy. Oh, yeah. That's great. Okay.

At black football, to be clear. Possible. I mean, although I think they have to both throw the ball. So I don't, you know, once you get past that, I don't. Who are you drafting? Who are you drafting in your fantasy flag football team? You're drafting who's due set first, I think. His throwing motion is incredible.

I encourage people to explore that on YouTube. You guys sort of gingerly skated past the question of who was the work that you did not like, the stuff that was going on at the time. I'm not going to force you to do it. I'm not going to nail you down on this. But I am going to ask you, who was doing the work that you wanted to do with Hangup and Listen to him? Like, was there a model for the show? Like somebody that you aspired. Every episode should feel like this show or this piece of content that we really enjoy.

I mean, the obvious parallel for a show like the one that we created was the sports reporters on ESPN. And I think it's easy to bash people like Mike Lupica or the other people that hosted that show for their very sports talk personalities. But they also are really smart people, a lot of them. I mean, Bob Ryan, one of my favorite columnists and a genuinely decent guy. The kinds of conversations they had were different from what was happening on WFAN. So there were models. It's not like we invented the genre. There were smart people talking about sports forever as long as there have been sports.

But just different medium, mostly. And, you know, two of us, three of us who weren't household journalistic celebrities who got billion dollar book contracts or covered teams more to the point and cared about beat writers and cared about the daily stuff, right? We weren't, didn't come out of beat writing sports culture. Do you wish in retrospect that you had had some of that experience at all of those? Like, I mean, in retrospect, do you think it would help it all? because I kind of, I guess I came out of the beat writing path at one point in my career, right?

It didn't last very long at it. And I think it helped a little bit, but I don't, I don't know. Like you don't, you don't miss, you don't wish it you had to hop a fence at a high school football stadium or anything like that. It's a good question. I mean, I've gotten reporting experiences outside of sports, both like in the field and like investigative stuff and documents. And so I feel that's, you know, stood me in good stead in all kinds of realms. I mean, I always had kind of like love, hate is a bit of a strong way to put it, but just like relationship with like how sports fits into my like journalistic life.

Because, you know, it's like I grew up wanting to be a sportscaster, kind of stereotypical kid who loved baseball cards and, you know, played Madden and, you know, only wanted to watch sports or read about sports. And so there's a way that it feels like childish, right? It's like a kind of cliche of the kid who just wants to grow up and like be like the guys that they see on TV or whatever. And but at the same time, what I think we tried to do and believe extraordinarily strongly is that you can see the entire worlds through sports and talk about the entire worlds and that sports isn't just sports. And so, I mean, I kind of took me a while to get over myself in that regard. But I just think it's like a counterfact. actual, that never would have happened with me because I feel like I just needed to have the

life experience or to like, like, get over myself to kind of come to understand that. And so I just wasn't going to take us, when I decided I wanted to go into journalism, I don't think I wanted to take a sports job immediately. And yeah, I don't know. I haven't, I don't know what your deal is around that, Stefan. Yeah, I mean, I never did. I mean, my first. first byline in a newspaper was writing about like the high school games that are for teams that I was on. And I would always sort of manage to stick my name in the like the eighth graph because I assisted on a goal or something. But when I got to college, I was very news driven. I, I, I didn't see sports as something that I wanted to pursue as a career. And I didn't. I mean,

I thought I was going to cover wars and earthquakes for the rest of my life. I mean, that was my goal. I wanted to go overseas and stay overseas. It didn't work out that way. And my pivot to sports was pretty random. I wound up doing a bunch of stories about the baseball labor relations when I was covering business at the Associated Press where Joel and I both worked for a while. And then I found this weird baseball league and I spent a summer following it and wrote a book about it. And the Wall Street Journal hired me to write about sports after that, which they were just starting to cover. So there was always a I always used to say like oh I wish I had

covered a major league team for one season baseball team like that would have been great like I would have liked to have had that feeling of of going to a stadium every day and developing relationships and breaking stories and covering a team but for more than one year oh god fuck no I never wanted to do that I mean I had

plenty of friends that were doing that I mean I went to college with Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and the athletic. You know, Kenny worked his way up from, you know, cover working at the York Daily record he started and moved on to bigger papers and ended up at the Baltimore Sun. And I remember meeting Kenny at a game.

This is sometime in the 1990s. And he was working for the Baltimore Evening Sun, which published like in the afternoon. So he, we met at the ballpark, went to the game together. And he was like, I'm going back to my hotel and I will be up until six in the morning writing. And that had like zero appeal to me. And I never felt like I was missing much because my sports fandom by the time I was in my 20s had receded pretty strongly. I mean, it was like I felt like it was something that belonged to my Yankee obsessed New York team obsessed teenage years.

And I had sort of loftier ambition. than covering a baseball team or a football team. I didn't intend for us to end up here, but you guys kind of led us down its direction. So do you think you could have the same career you've had today? Like if you had to start all over, do you think you would end up where you'd be like? What would it look like if you had the same goals and pursuits

and were starting out today? Like, what do you think that this would have been possible? Yeah, it's a good question. the thing that I feel that I've thought about a lot recently, like if you work backwards, the work that I've done most recently that I found most rewarding is original research, intensive research, like the work that we did on Slow Burn, Joel,

or what I did with the book. And I just never knew from school or from my early career where I did some, I started out of Washington City paper all weekly and would do reporting for stories with weekly deadlines. But it wasn't the same kind of like, whether it's archival or investigative research. And it's just like, I wonder if there's a way for me to have, gotten there more quickly or to have like, A, figured it out, but like to have the kind of opportunities that we've had to have the runway, the support to do that work, it feels kind of

hard to reverse engineer that. But like, it just feels weird to me that it is like the kind of stuff that you do in school or learn in school. But it took me like, it took me like, like so long to have the opportunity to do that or to figure out that it's like what I really love the most in the world is just like finding stuff that nobody's found before and just like putting it out in the world's Julia Turner, former editor of Slate used to call it adding information to the internet. It doesn't just have to be the internet. You can add information to other mediums as well. But yeah, it's not really answering your question, but It's just the thing that's been on my mind.

I mean, I'll try to answer the question, Joel. But it's hard to know. I mean, look, we were all, I mean, I was lucky. I, you know, I went to college at a less competitive time to get into schools. I ended up at a school that had a really great daily newspaper. That shaped my understanding of what I wanted to do. You know, today there are far few. fewer opportunities to work in the places that I worked at the beginning of my career.

My first job out of school was an internship at the Miami Herald. And at the time, the Miami Herald had more than 200 reporters on staff. I worked in a bureau in West Palm Beach. That just doesn't exist anymore. The Herald, I think, has fewer than 50 reporters now. And there's no bureaus outside of Dade County, maybe in Fort Lauderdale. But so it's hard to know. And it's hard to know like what I would have wanted to do in this environment.

You know, assuming I still wanted to be a daily news reporter, probably, I'd like to think I would have been able to accomplish that. because fewer people probably want to be daily news reporters. But you'd be competing for fewer jobs at fewer places. I mean, I probably you did too, Joel. I mean, I applied for like almost 100 jobs as a senior in college and got two offers. Wow. Really? Yeah.

Well, yeah. That did not. That was not my experience, but you go ahead. I'll just say. Stefan's application was extremely poor. A lot of misspelled words. Massive clips were terrible. Well, you know, see, this is, I mean, this would not exist anymore now, certainly not in the

anti-D-EI era. But like 50 of them, he didn't have stamps on the envelope. Well, you remember the AP used to have an internship program for underrepresented folks, right? And so if you got that internship, I did the first time I applied for it, they just had, I didn't get it, but they brought me into the Dallas Bureau to work part-time for that summer. and I worked part-time there and part-time start telegram. The next summer, I got it. I got the internship.

There were like 20 people across the country. And the thing was then, if you passed your internship, they guaranteed you a job. And so I was just like, well, shit, if I'd do this, like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to waste time trying to go do anything else. This is pretty cool. But that doesn't even, that's not a pathway that exists anymore either right now. So, yeah. I mean, it's almost banal to say it.

but like, yeah, the first two jobs I got don't exist anymore either. And so, I mean, you guys built quite a graveyard on your previous show of like things that don't exist anymore. But the other thing that I would say that's like more feels like maybe slightly less obvious or more pertinent is that in those first couple jobs, I never had the feeling that I had to figure something out on my own. Yeah, that's right. there were people who's not only I could ask for help, but it was like kind of their job to like show younger people the ropes. I mean, there are certain people like Jack Schaefer. It wasn't his job, but he still showed him help show me the ropes, which I'm grateful for. But like, whether it was Brian or Plots or, you know, Tom Skokke or Eric Wimple at the city paper, I mean,

it was these people people's jobs to like teach me how to be a, writer and a reporter. And that is the thing that I think so many young journalists don't get the benefit of where it's just like start a blog or whatever. I mean, you'll learn that way, but it's a different and more difficult road in a lot of ways. Well, these institutions were structured to bring in lots of people and help train them and oversee them. I mean, yeah, there were there were so many more options coming out of school for someone like me. And, you know, someone like me with privilege and the ability to like, what I did was like get on a plane and go to a foreign country and stay for two years. Because I could like and was like lucked into a job at the AP in Greece, Joel.

I mean, I walked into this like knocked on the door and the correspondent was like, oh, I wrote you a letter. Do you want to work part time? I was like, sure, I'll work part-time. What are you going to pay? Oh, we'll pay you $13 a day. In DRACMO, of course. But the support networks at these gigantic institutions, you know, fostered competition,

there were ladders to ascend to better reporting jobs or editing jobs or posts in more places if you wanted that that have disappeared. I mean, tens of thousands of. of jobs, like the ones that I had at the beginning of my career have disappeared. I'm not going to be able to ask everything I want to ask, and that makes me sad. But I do want to, so I was thinking about this because hang up and listen. Actually, I think made me better as a writer and thinker, period.

And you know, after balls were really pivotal to this because, and I was going to ask you if, like, covering sports in this way impacted the other work that you all like to do. because I felt like there was a freedom. But I guess when I'm talking to people, I say it's like you let your hands go, like in fighting. You know what I mean? Like you just don't put a lot of pressure in your punch.

You know what I mean? Like you just let your hands go. Like they'll put so much power or strength behind. That's not the word I'm looking for, but every punch doesn't have to be a knockout blow. Right. And it just allows you a little bit of freedom. And you're saying things in a more conversational manner.

And then you're gradually writing them in a more conversational manner. And I was like, why can't I just bring that sort of approach to the writing I'm doing and everything else? And I'm just wondering if like hang up and listen or covering sports in the way that we got to do it has improved or helped you with your other work at all. Yeah, I totally relate to what you're saying and what I liked about the after ball format, the little monologues we did at the end of the show is that there's an extraordinary amount of variability and versatility you can bring to it. You can do like a

compact argument, like a two-minute argument. You can be purely observational or like as Stefan and I really love to do is like do very short form original reporting. And Stefan on our last show did an afterball about afterballs where he went through some of his favorite feats in that genre. But it's also just like having need to complete the assignment, right? Like I know the deadline in that case is sometimes the muse and sometimes we just skipped it. that's so true um you remember it was really funny i i one of my favorite things remember and stephen out maybe you can josh had a really great mind for doing this to us where it just be like a trivia game or there'd be some sort of a game i'll never forget when you brought on the guy um somehow you had

you looked for the example of a team that allowed another team to score so that they could get the ball back so that they could score, and it led you to find this backup quarterback at the University of Arkansas Palm Bluff, which is special to me. I think people may or may not know because my parents met at University of Arkansas of Palm Bluff is a small HBCU in Arkansas. And you brought the guy on the show, and I was just so delighted to talk to like. We're still Facebook friends to this day. And I was just like stuff like that. Like, what I did was, all right, guys, here's a guy. Now, just asking a bunch of questions and figure out why I invited him on the show. Because there had been something in the news that week around somebody letting another

team score. And so, yeah, like, this was the guy who, like, first came up with that. He was on the sideline at a UAPB game, and we've managed to find, like, O'Berman doing the highlights and, like, crediting him, Bruce Swettin for, like, coming up with this concept. So I was like, all right, here's just a dude. now ask him a bunch of questions to figure out who he is and why he is here. And the delight that you had to learn that UAPB had made an appearance on the show and was written in sports history.

UAPB, also, he was an offensive coordinator in the Houston area at a school that was on my side of town. And I think he's offensive coordinator of a team that did really well, like, played in the state championship game last year. Certified Joel Bait. Yeah, man. You reeled me in because I'm like, I'm not. always like, man, what the hell is this shit?

You know? Josh and stuff were great at having me be like, man, I don't know what the hell y'all about you. I'm prepared to be bored and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, you guys that lured me in, that happened over and over again. A thing about the show that I think

is sort of underrated, and maybe underrated about all good shows or successful shows is the relationship between the co-host, Mike and Mike, Mike and Mad Dog, skipping Shannon, Stephen A. Max, whatever, you know. People often say, you know, Josh and Stefan.

Josh, I'm just about to say. Yeah. Happens all the time. It does happen. I want you all talk about your relationship and how it's involved. Y'all are friends. We're friends. And, you know, like, I'm assuming it did not start that way.

I didn't know you all, first of all, before we started doing this show. But we just talk, we just talk a little bit about, like, how this show has brought friendship. And I think that it's made the show better, right? we've gotten to know each other and learned about each other. Like Chloe, I followed Chloe on Twitter. You know what I mean? You know, so I'm like interested in her life and stuff like that. That's my daughter.

That's a daughter. That's Stefan's daughter. And a scrabble beast, by the way. Yeah, I mean, I think we didn't know each other that well when we started. I think most of the woodenness of my early performance was around lack of experience. But I think part of it was having. a casual conversation among friends with somebody that you barely knew. And you can't fake that. And there's good and bad in the parasycial relationships that people develop with their favorite podcasts and podcast hosts. But there's a lot of truth to the fact that people like to

listen to people that like each other and like to listen to people whose conversation sound casual and unrehearsed and like the way that they would be talking if there wasn't a microphone there. So you got to, as somebody a podcast, you have to get, you have to forget that there's a mic there. You ought to forget that you're talking to other people, but you also have to have a real life relationship and understanding. And I think with you, Joel, a lot of it is just like being familiar with and comfortable with another person to like insult them or to like be come on, like, show me. Like, you know, like, be real with us, be honest with us.

And like, so you're not walking on eggshells or you just like don't know, like, what wires to cross. It's just like early stages of friendship or any relationship. Like, you just get to be comfortable, you know, you're comfortable enough to eat oatmeal on the air. You know, you're comfortable enough where we can just like make fun of you for like not knowing how to turn on your microphone. You know.

You have a monster zero's at which off the place with Die of Mountain Dew. That's disgusting. That shit will kill you. Stop. I'm going to die something. I mean, so. Might as well try to stay awake. He is the cause of death.

His family says is die at Mountain Dew and or code zero. They're not sure. They're both, both were in a system. Jena would agree. Jena would probably agree with that. I'm going to ask you all to do something and give a brief scouting report. Stefan, what do you think Josh brought to the show? And I'm going to, I'll offer my thing.

Josh's curiosity. And I remember we were sitting in a meeting. I'm not going to say what it was a couple weeks ago. Two. Right? It was a month ago now, whatever. And I was just like, man, Josh is a fucking amazing question asker. Like, he asked amazing questions.

He's just so smart. And I was like, oh, because that's a, that's, it springs from a well of curiosity about people in the world around him. And I, I was just floored at how good of questions he was asking. It's something that seems sort of perfunctory. You know what I mean? Like, we didn't have to do that. But like, and Josh does that every week on the show too. But Stefan, what did you think?

And then I'm going to give Josh a chance to do that. I mean, the question asking, but it's the depth of thought. I mean, the intelligence, the sort of the qualities that Josh brings. to his work as an editor are the ones that listeners may not be aware of but are exposed to subconsciously. You know, Josh probably is edited, I don't know, 50, 60, 100 stories that I wrote for Slate. And I've never said this about an editor because editors are usually assholes, but Josh made everything better.

Oh, man. Absolutely. That quality is rare and it transcends the printed word. I always could trust that Josh would fix what I screwed up and make it better and always knew that there was someone there to catch me when I was wrong. I implicitly trust his judgment on that stuff. And I cannot say that about other editors. And I bet you can't either. No, not at all.

Not at all. I mean, I'm not going to say the best because I don't want to offend anybody. Well, take that other editors. Yeah. Yeah. One of my editors was the efficient of my wedding. So I want to be careful with that because Mark was great. But Josh is, he doesn't take a guy.

I know Mark. He's a great editor. That's right. That's right. Shout out, Mark. Yeah. Okay. For Stefan, I'm going to say your enthusiasm and zest for something like is infectious.

And if Stefan, again, I'm talking about that same meeting. I don't want to, I don't know why I'm being coy about where we were or whatever, but it doesn't feel like the kind of thing that we're talking about in front of people. But Stefan was talking about his work, working with students, student journalist. And I mean, I was just moved by how passionate you were for these kids and the work that they were doing. And it's like the same sort of passion and enthusiasm you bring to all your work, Stefan. And it made me like, I was like, damn, man, I need to step my game up, man. Like, you know, when you were to bring up something on a show, and again, I'd be like, no,

I don't want to talk about this stuff. I don't want to talk about soccer or tennis or whatever. And then Stefan would start talking about it, and it would gradually just draw me in. So, Josh, your turn to do the Stefan Scouting report. Yeah, Stefan cares about people in the world. There's like a humanity at everything that he does, both in his work and in life. But yeah, I was going to say something really similar to what you said is just like the level of delight that he has in discovery, whether it's something like the teams rotating around the 50-yard line at the end of the quarter

or, you know, just his willingness to dive into unfamiliar worlds and both appreciate what's unfamiliar about them, but also make them feel special and important and relatable to people who haven't lived in those worlds. I mean, Stefan kind of made Scrabble in a way. Like, that's not that he invented it. There's another guy who did that. Butz is his name. but he popularized it and the way that he did it was by immersing himself into a subculture and taking it incredibly seriously but also having a tremendous amount of fun while he did it and creating such a full and vibrant and enjoyable and immersive portrait of that world that other people wanted to do the same thing that he did. I mean, what a compliment that is. And he's done that

in a bunch of other realms as well. By my new book. It's called on a bridge. I don't know if a lot of people are going to want to become lexicographers in the same way that they wanted to become Scrab lists. You never know? Maybe. This is a more difficult question. And it's the last question before I get to the lightning round because I got to keep it moving. Do you think, as far as the version of the show that involved you to, because I hang up and listen, still coming out every week, great host Alex Ben Lindsay. Yeah, they do a great job. You know, that show's still going on. But the version that existed at the start is no longer going on. Do you really believe that the show reached a natural conclusion or do you guys wish that there was a chance of do more episodes?

I think that for me, I was totally sincere when I said that it was about doing it with you guys. And I miss, I do miss, you know, having an outlet sometimes, but I don't miss it all the time. And I don't miss the stress. that came around, you know, preparing. But, you know, I don't feel like there was anything that we aspired to do with the show that we didn't do. So I think that's a good way to say that it, you know, for me, there was a natural conclusion. Yeah, and I think I share all of that. There were also exigent needs.

Like I had to finish writing this book and every day that I wasn't working. on it felt like a mistake, like I was letting myself down. And yeah, I mean, as you know, Joel, the, your getting laid off from Slate certainly influenced how I felt about continuing to do the show. It really hurt. It felt like not just a mistake, but also felt like a, bit of a gut punch, a stab in the back that, you know, the last few years, I mean, I've enjoyed doing the show for 15 years. I enjoyed doing the show since we started doing it. But these last years with you, I really felt the sort of shared humanity and the different directions we were able to go and the things that we were able to talk about. But in terms of it ending, yeah, I mean,

I tend not to be a sort of like look back with regret. 15 years, as I said, on our final show. is a long-ass time to do anything in sports media today or in any media today. And I remain totally grateful to Slate and to Josh and to everyone that helped put that show together, that we were able to do it for as long as we were. But in terms of missing it, I missed it for the first few weeks because it was kind of my last, it's been kind of my last outlet. I mean, I did NPR and stopped doing that a decade ago or so. And I don't have a day job.

And I just have these book in freelance projects now. And so it was like my platform and a way to have something every week to, as we've said, sort of shape the week around. But no, I don't miss like my Sundays being completely occupied by having to read and watch and listen to sports. And it did feel a little bit like it was time and the sort of a little bit of a burden lifted. And I'm lucky that I'm able to say that and be able to go on to have other stuff to do.

lightning round. You guys ready? Ready. All right. Best sports podcast you've listened to. You chose the wrong people to do a lightning round with Joel. I know that. To people,

are people putting this on one and a half or double speed? Is there like a four-time speed for me? Because I talk really slowly. I mean, I hate to say this because I already wrote that Zach Lowe is America's best sports writer for Slate and also he's back on the ringer this week and thank you for timing it so that you know people are going to have to choose to listen to Zach Lowe or Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levine but like I would listen to the low post podcast back when we were doing our show and like not really anything else on a weekly

basis. Like that was my sports podcast listen. I have to answer now to. I don't listen to that much is to be totally honest. You know, I listened to Ben Lindberg for years on effectively wild. But I and some of the podcast series that we

talked about on Hang Up and Listen you know, I'm more likely to listen to a narrative sports show than I am to download something every week. And that could be just the function of my age. I'm like 15 years older than you guys. A rose evilist tested show. That was really good podcast. That was amazing. That was an amazing. And I didn't get to talk about it because I was off that week, but you and Joel did. This is lighting, lighting round. Come up with the answer like two minutes after you ask the question.

That's why our show always went too long. Stop it. What's the sports doc that you'd want to see made? this is kind of a sub-tweet of Joel because we've talked about this before. But what I'd really like to see or hear watch is a documentary on the integration of the SEC and not something that's like the kind of inspirational, like first black assesie, athlete at X school and they go back and they get their jersey hung in the rafters and get, like, I want the real shit, you know, like what it was actually like. And because I'm also interested in like post Jackie Robinson, post Civil Rights Act, post-Brown v. Board, like, realms of society that still weren't integrated. And all of these stories are from the 1970s. Like,

what I think is the most interesting decade in modern American history. And so I want those stories but told in like an unvarnished and not necessarily like inspirational, soaring music SEC network kind of way. Have we ever talked about that more than a decade ago when I was quickly spiraling out of journalism that I came up with a website and a whole plan and it was called the first class and it was about doing that very thing? And I just, I never got the time to do it. That's the sub-tweet.

Yeah, I know, I know. I know. You had a couple of ideas, anyway. But I, I too would like to see that in the world. Stefan. That's also, the 60s and 70s remain my favorite era and in sports. And I, when I sort of reach back to my sort of business writing years, I feel like one under, I think one story that's been told in long-form books, in books, you know, multiple times,

but how baseball overcame 100 years of servitude of the players. And Marvin Miller's role in that, I mean, he's a guy that has not been inducted into the Hall of Fame. The rise of labor in sports doesn't sound like the sexiest topic for a documentary series, but I think it would be fascinating. something really narrowly focused on a year, a time, a case. I mean, maybe it's Kurt Flood, maybe it's later. But I think... We wouldn't call it the rise of labor, you know? You'd come up with a sexier title.

A better title than that, yeah. But it's the most important story in the last 50 years. I mean, it explains how and why professional sports and now college sports work and function at all. When you all want to read about sports, where's your first stuff with the internet? ESPN.com. Even still, huh? Okay.

Yeah. Tiger droppings? That's the real answer. Yeah, well. I read the athletics newsletter every morning. Pulse, which is good and sets me up for the day and lets me know what five things I may want to read. So tiger dropping. second tiger droppings is second.

Do you read message words, Joel? No, I've never gotten into it. Well, because life is too short. Well, this is why I'm always jealous of Stefan, you know, having grown out of his fandom like a real adult. Well, I also didn't care about a college program that like actually played sports well. I mean, I do read the various, Frog blogs sometimes, but not like I should. I just don't. I just don't.

Not like I should. Resolution. My wife is just really on me. I've got to just read more of the frog blogs. I did I did check in on the Penn Men's Basketball message board last week. Okay, so you do read message boards. Because there's like, yeah, they just hired a new code. They hired Fran McCaffrey, blah, blah, blah. And there were like 10 posts. So it's like not. I don't think it's the same experience as reading Tiger droppings. Is Frog Blog a term of art?

Like if we talk to other TCU grads, if we say Frog Blogs, so they know what we're talking about? I don't think anybody has come up with that. I'm just using it as a catch-all for the various- Don't be so modest. Frog, yeah. But if it's not out there, maybe I should go ahead and get that, yeah. Get on that, Joel. I should get that.

Joel, like, what's on the Frog Blogs today? Like, you would instantly, like, know what I'm talking about. I'm so far removed. TCU's women's basketball team played in the elite eight the other day. Yeah, against UT for the right to go to the final four. And I'd not seen them play at all year long. So I'm probably just as well. I mean, they weren't exactly the most.

You read the Washington Post investigation about Sedona friends. I was talking about that's why I just never really got invested in the team. It's not true. It is true. I'm serious. I would, I was like, I would have liked to seem to them beat UT. But I promise you that I was like, I don't know how excited I want to be to be talking about them in public. So when Haley Van Liff transferred and they were like broke into the top 10 earlier this year, you're like, you're like, you know what?

I'm not going to pay attention just because I feel like the Washington Post investigation about Sedona Prince is going to drop like months from now. No, I mean, that did not help. But yeah, to begin, but keep in mind, I've moved across the country. I've got a second kid. This is why I'm secretly like I'm glad to hang up and listen to sort of ended because. I would have been a terrible co-host. Like, I just would not have been, I would not have been able to do anything. You all would have hated me.

So that's the honest answer. You're just too busy. Doesn't have to do what's the, well, I mean, I probably would have, like, pumped him up or talked some shit or something to somebody.

You know what I mean? And I just, I didn't even have the energy to do that, in part because of that. Let me, can I not be a, is that, can you not be a moral sports fan,

Josh? Is that not possible? I'm incapable of that. Is the lightning round over? No, Oh, okay. Yeah. We're still going. Yeah, sorry. What's the sporting event that you want to cover or attend that you never have? Man, I've like barely attended any sporting events. So I mean, I've never been to Olympics and never been to a World Cup, never been to a Super Bowl.

I have no interest in going to a Super Bowl. I'd rather go to World Cup or an Olympics, I guess. I mean, I've done all of those. But I kind of did like one of each for the journal. like one Super Bowl, one World Cup for the Journal, although I've been to a bunch otherwise, one U.S. Golf Open, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think I'd like to go to Wimbledon, which I've never done. Oh, yeah, me too. I think that would be fun. Good one.

We'll go together. Okay. I did get to see LSU won a national championship. That was fun. And I got to see the Saints, like, when the NFC championship at home, which is basically the Super Bowl. It's like the best game you can win in your home stadium. What's the best live sporting event you've ever been to?

You just said it. The Saints game in 2009. What do you mean by best? Tainted later by crazy. I'll tell you mine that will help. And it's one or two for me. And it was crazy because I've covered like college football of national championship games, whatever. Vince Young's final high school game

against Austin and Westlake. It was the state semifinals at the Houston Astrom. I was with my dad. I had not seen Vince Young play, and he was a revelation. I was like, oh, shit. High school football didn't even feel the same to me for years after watching it because Vince Young was so good and so dominant in that game.

Or we went to go see Steve McNair when he was at Alcorn State play at Sam Houston State. We drove up to Huntsville, Texas to watch him play. And the thing I remember, the thing I remember about that game is that Steve McNair's passes were so crisp, so hard, you could hear the ball echo off the pads of his receivers from the stands. So those are the ones for me. I mean, for me, it's the 2010 World Cup USA miracle last second win against Algeria.

That was pretty incredible to be at. And I went, I was at like, you know, Yankees clinch World Series. win World Series, blah, blah, blah. My second is probably, it's very personal because these things are personal. We talked about this on Hangup and Listen, no doubt. But like an undergraduate at Penn when we beat Harvard on a second chance, field goal attempt for the first Ivy Championship in like 30 years. And storm the field, goalposts in the river, the whole thing.

That was pretty great. LSU over Florida in 1997, I changed my mind. broke Spurrier's 25 game win streak. Was Kevin Falk on that team at all? At all. He was on that team. He was that team. Okay, that was a Kevin Falk team?

Herb Tyler was the quarterback. Cedric Donaldson and the secondary. You know, all the grades. Cedric Donaldson. He's definitely remembered up there with the greats. Who is the most famous fan of the show? Because often you guys would like send like emails from people. I'm like, you know that dude?

You know what I mean? And so, like, who do you guys think is the most famous fan of Hangup and Listen? Well, I've heard that Kendall Jenner and Timothy Shalomeh to say put Hang Up and Listen on their smart speaker every Monday night. But that's just a rumor, though. So, Stefan, do you remember December 3rd, 2012 Sports Illustrated? As Mori prepares to watch tape, he has interrupted. This is in Sports Illustrated.

Pick it up on eBay. As Mori prepares to watch tape, he is interrupted by frequent buzzes from his Blackberry. Josh Levine, a journalist from Slate, asked him to be on his podcast. After deliberating for all of a second, Mori says yes. He's a believer in rigorous, methodical thinking when it comes to big decisions, and low-time investment when it comes to small ones. So that's what the American people saw in their Sports Illustrated. What I saw in my inbox was,

Hi, Josh, would be happy to do it. Chris Ballard, who wrote the story, is in my office and says, you guys are the best. So, most famous fan, Chris Ballard, Sports Illustrated. I think we were listened to and enjoyed by media consumers, as you would say

on the show. Sports media. And then sometimes those people would tell more famous and important people to come on our show. We only ever got good and famous guests through like John Hock, John Wartime, Chris, Ballard, you know, we have, we have no connections to anyone actually famous in the world of sports.

Oh, let's stop it. I got Jake Plummer on the show. Come on. Stefan's Broncos. Huge connections paid off. Do you think Bill Bradley is bigger than Jake Plummer, like if you had the way, which of the two? I mean, it depends on why room you're in, Joel.

Okay. And what, you know, age bracket you're in. Do you think Bill Bradley listened to the episode that he came on with us? I would say there's like a 0.2% chance that you listen. Snakes, snakes takes, I bet there's like a 3% chance that you listen to it. Okay. How many times do you think Bill Bradley's been interviewed in his life? How many times?

Counting like after every game? Like a Google job, a Google job interview question. How many times was Bill Bradley? Someone asked him a question in the locker room. Do you think it's closer to 10,000, 50,000? Recently, though. What do you mean recently? No, in his life.

In his life. Okay. I mean, yeah, well over 10, 20. I mean, yeah. Thousand, maybe. Just an exercise for you to discuss with your families at home tonight. You're ruining the game. You're ruining the lightning

crowd, Josh. Oh, sorry. Sorry. That's probably closer to 100,000. Think of the Senate. I mean, you've got to think of the Senate. That's why it's a fun game. You guys are looking at Bill Bradley

getting interviewed in recent years. I mean, what was the last time you think somebody picked up a phone and called Bill Bradley that talked about something. So Bill Bradley was interviewed

like five times a day between 1965 and 2010. All right. God damn. He had a one, man show to promote. That's real. All right,

Joel. Sorry. Bummed me out. All right. Your favorite brown or fine LSU athlete, Josh. That's not fair because like

making do brown. Okay, okay, Brown. Yeah, that's right. I have been trying to make you stick to Brown,

Josh, in recent years. They don't really brag about Joe Paterno, the Brown Joe Paterno connection anymore, do they? I'm going to cross

that one off my list. I guess I would say like not applicable, not applicable. Yeah, that's not really, that wasn't really part of my academic journey. You didn't see anybody, you didn't go like, damn, Brown, that dude. What about like limited to your four years as an undergraduate? Basketball player at Brown when I was there was Earl Hunt. So there you go. Is he like a guard? He was a guard. He was a guard. Stefan, your favorite pen? Am I allowed to say LSU athlete?

No, I don't want to hear it now. Mahmoud Abdul-Rouf. Sorry, we didn't have time for you. I had him waiting here, ready to come on the show. Favorite pen athlete? I don't know. John Heisman, I don't know that he's my favorite. But did you know that John Heisman started at Brown and went to Penn after in the days

when, you know, they were talking 1880s, there was probably some money-changing hands. He portled. He portled. Yeah. But probably from my years, it was its future D.C. Attorney General Carl Rassine, who was the point guard for the Pen Quakers and in my class. It was Ivy League point guards, man.

Wow. Lee and Thomas. Best place to get lunch in the DMV. What do you think Heisman was charging for a social media post back in 1890 for a collab? Oh, Lord. What, Stefan? Best lunch place in the DMP? Well, where do we go to lunch, Josh, occasionally?

Panda Express, the University of Maryland Food Court. Excellent. One choice. Bread first. Bread first. F.R.S.T. We go to bread first. They make a nice expensive sandwich.

Yeah. I recommend the ham and butter. Best place to watch a game in D.C. any game. Oh, I never leave my house. So I would say that. I mean, GW. Smith Center. I was going to say the Smith Center. Yes. I mean, it's certainly not where the football team plays. It's certainly not where the baseball team plays because who the fuck wants to go sit with in a gigantic stadium. Howdy Field's pretty good. Outie Fields okay. Yeah. Outty Field is pretty good to go watch a soccer game, men's and women's.

I do like Audi Field. It's the sort of right size and the right sport. But the Smith Center at GW is great. And they do high school. So when we go to high school basketball, when we go to like the city semifinals or finals, Joel, and you come in from the suburbs, we'll be going to GW to watch.

Yeah, I would just say anywhere where like the WCAC playoffs or the D.C. basketball, like Gallaud or Smith Center or Mac Gym at Georgetown. Georgetown. Okay. I can't wait to do it. I can't wait to do it. Um, these are my buds, my pals, my co-conspirators, Josh Levine, Stefan Fatsis.

Guys, this is fun. Um, I'm sure you'll catch us at the University of Maryland food court. There's, if you see it's a town. Every Monday, we'll be at the University of Maryland. Instead of hosting a podcast, we're just going to meet at the University of Maryland food court. I got to get my, I got to get my son's panda rice from somewhere. Um, I can't believe we had to record this whole thing twice just because you forgot to turn your microphone. on. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. That was a lot of fun, guys. Thank you. I did too. Love you. I did too. Love you guys, too. It's good to see. I'm Joel

Anderson. Production Magic by Brian Waters. We're going to miss you B-Dubb. We already said our bye-bye to you previously, but we are. We really are going to miss you. Next week, Brian is back from the road, back from the American Southwest. So you'll hear him on Monday. You'll hear me on Thursday. But until then... Asking about Nunes on Nunes, actually. It's on the list.

It's on the list of things I've got to follow up on. Please remember Zamo Bay. We'll see you guys later.