The Press Box - The Strange End of the Trump Trial, Baseball’s Spot in the Sports-World Lineup, and Nerd Culture Deep Dives With Mallory Rubin

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan welcomes the Ringer’s ultimate team player, Mallory Rubin. They kick off the show by discussing the live coverage of the Trump trial deliberations (4:47). Then they discuss baseball’s place in the media lineup as networks are willing to pay $2 billion for the NBA while ESPN is trying to get out of a $540 million deal with MLB (16:12). They close with a fun discussion about Mallory’s career, which includes a chat about the things she has done a nerd culture deep dive on (33:40). Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Bryan and Mallory’s conversation was recorded before the jury of the Donald Trump trial was finished deliberating. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Mallory Rubin Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Danny Kelly, along with Danny Hyfitz and Craig Horlebeck every week on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show as we prepare for the 2024 fantasy football season. We'll cover all the biggest news and topics across the league as well as whatever weird topics our listeners email us about. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Hello media and consumers. Mallory Rubin and I recorded the podcast you are about to hear before Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts by a jury in Manhattan. So you're going to hear Mal and I talk about the trial as a media event or non-media event, but I wanted to give you five quick reactions to how the verdict was covered today. Reaction number one, it was so bracing to hear reporters use the words, I don't know.

As in, I don't know how this guilty verdict is going to affect the election in November. I don't know what it means that Trump's sentencing is scheduled, at least for now. for July 11th, the week before the Republican convention. We reporters tend to be very sure of ourselves. We like to have takes. We like to tell you that we can see the future better than you can't. We can't in this instance. We don't know anything.

Reaction number two. David Pecker, and never has there been a better name, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, was apparently a key witness for the jury in this trial. Pecker's testimony was what the jurors asked to reread during their deliberations. He called himself the eyes and ears of the Trump campaign during his testimony. He talked to this meeting that he and Trump and Michael Cohen had in August of 2015. Think for a second about the strange fate of David Pecker.

The publisher of the inquirer, the inquirer, becomes a witness, the jury could trust, at least apparently. Reaction number three, what a day for pre-written op-ed columns? I flipped over to the New York Times' website a few minutes after the verdict and found Donald Trump felon already published. How Trump's team blew it. Over at the Washington Post, the venerable Eugene Daniels had a column out. Trump's felon status won't disqualify him.

Only we can do that. Notice the expert opetting there. You're not talking about what just happened. You're talking about the next thing that's going to happen. Excellent, excellent stuff. All right, reaction number four, we got some early nominees for this week's overworked Twitter joke. Thank you to the many, many people who sent them my way. Perhaps the best is, today is the day Donald Trump became precedent.

Precedent. Another one. I personally want to congratulate Donald Trump for finally winning a popular vote. and I put this one in here for my pal, Sean Fennacy. Nice to see the Mets no longer having the worst record in New York this year. Reaction number five, I was listening to CNN a few minutes ago as I was picking up my son from school, and a reporter said, I'm told Trump is livid. Yes, I think we can take that one to the bank that Donald Trump is upset about becoming a convicted felon.

Please let us know when Donald Trump is once again increasingly isolated. and we will all appreciate the update. All right, on with the podcast. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox, Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters, coming up the Trump trial as media event, baseball as more of a media event,

and the art of the nerd culture deep dive. All of this with my guest host today. Officially, she is the Ringer's head of editorial, but we like to think of her as the ultimate teammate. You know her podcast like House of R and the former binge mode, along with Cal Ripkin, Billy Ripkin, and John Waters. She is the pride of Baltimore. Wow.

Mallory Rubin, welcome to the press box. Brian, what an intro. My goodness. I feel like I should bang my hands together. An old bay should just sprinkle across the Zoom screen. It's wonderful. What a joy to be here with you. When we emailed the other night, you're like, I'm watching the O's.

And I had this picture of you sitting on the couch. and you'd ordered Boog's Barbecue through Goldbelly. Yeah. And we're just so into it. Goldbelly and Boogs barbecue, too, of my great passions, as you know. Why not? Let us quickly dispatch with the Donald Trump trial because we're sitting here at 1230 Pacific. Start in light.

Yeah. Start in light. I mean, there's not a lot to say because the jury is deliberating as we speak. CNN has decided to capture this moment in time. And I learned this from a tweet from a guy named Tyler. with their version of the Domino's Pizza Tracker, if you ever order from Domino's, but you get the little thing where it's in the oven.

Yeah. And then it's out of the oven, but it's being sliced. Yeah. Trump trial's still in the oven. Still waiting. But I want to talk to you about this as a media event. Because as you know,

the Trump trial is not on television. Correct. Yeah. It has been a little bit like a 1940s world series game. Uh-huh. Except in the 40s, the photographers could take pictures throughout the game. here, they just get a little window at the beginning. How, if at all, have you consumed this trial?

Well, after you sent me this tweet with the, the pizza cooker corollary, I will be consuming it exclusively via the different stages of cheese bubblyness. What a way to track the consequential news of our time. I'm riveted by this. I'm going to keep this open on a split screen all day refresh. It's a fascinating question because I think while every citizen of the earth's answer might vary, there's probably some throughline of it feels at once like utterly inescapable, ever present. A touchpoint is only ever a click or a glance away. And like such a, because of the absence of the cameras in the room, a throwback.

I think the way that you described it is exactly right. I'm a member of a family that's like a really big MSNBC family. So there's a lot of MSNBC in this household and adjacent Ruben households. But when I Google Trump trial, looking for an update, the live blog era has never felt so back, whether you're on CNN or Washington Post or anywhere else, the like minute by minute accounting because the cameras aren't in the room, but the reporters are. And so it has been fascinating to see the presentation of like beat by beat, blow by blow updates. I thought the level of detail at the close of statements was appropriately robust, given the need to understand what was happening. And since the jury were in day two of jury deliberations, since the jury entered deliberations, that now is extending to the jury came back out.

They asked for headphones. Here's why, right? Here are the 13 members of our team who are contributing to this live blog update, et cetera. and the level of information is robust and it should be certainly the consequential nature of what is unfolding right now in real time is historic and unprecedented. And so it's like I'm so curious to know, you know, people who have like a recent history of consuming news via Twitter or whatever social media platform where they're choosing the way the algorithm has changed. Like if this is not something you're engaging with, maybe you're not going to see it there the way you used to. do you have to seek it out or do you feel like it's wherever you look? Like, what's your experience being?

Because obviously this is something that you're actively looking to consume and not only consume directly yourself for the information, but track how other people are consuming it. Do you feel like everywhere you look, there it is? Or do you feel like you've had to seek it in a distinct way in like modern media because of the lack of cameras in the courtroom? It's been in that strange place where you describe, where it's totally inescapable and also totally escapable.

Yeah. And I find myself going to that Times live blog all the time. And it reminds me of sports writers sitting in the press box doing the body language thing. Because Maggie Haberman would be like, Trump is whispering to his lawyer. Now he's whispering to Eric. And I'm like, but we don't know what he's whispering. Right. But we've recorded this whisper for posterity.

And I think she and other reporters would argue you have to because there's no other record of it. Right. Right. No one will know that they're whispering unless you say. but of course, it's a whisper. Right. The John Stewart and political satirist and commentator and comedian corner of the world assessment a couple weeks ago of the sketches in particular was like very emblematic of that exact aspect of this, right? A snippet of news footage, not only like well-intentioned, but Jay.

genuinely determined reporter asking somebody who was in the room to describe the angle of a face or the nature of a glance because what other access do we have to what unfolded in this incredibly important and meaningful space. But then the conversation about the thing that unfolded becomes a story in addition to the actual news being the story, which is just a really fascinating thing that is unfolding in real time. here and I think like obviously the hush money trial, the New York trial, the 34 counts, like all of the particulars of what is unfolding right now. Like you said, literally right now. Like we, but on this recording, something could happen, right? If possible, it's like the most singular thing in recorded human history. It's just not an overstatement, right? Yes. It's a first of its kind. Yes, multiple other criminal cases awaiting. And so I'm fascinated to know what the experience is for people who, because while this is singular, coverage of Trump, I mean, you have been chronicling this on the press box and you're writing for years on end at this point.

There are so many people now who, and obviously I'm painting with like a very broad brush here, but so many people who would say some version of. it's all anybody's talking about all the time, right? And that feels the same every day. But then we are in a moment, May 30th, 2012, day two of jury deliberations heading into an election year where a former president and presidential candidate is a trial.

Like this is just the fact that those two things can be present in the same reality. Oh, Trump, of course, we hear about this all the time. I'll tune that out. And the most singular thing that's ever happened is happening don't feel like they should be able to exist in tandem with each other. They are like definitionally incongruous. And yet that is our media, political and societal reality in this truly deranged time that we live in. It is exactly right.

And let me tell you who else is feeling the weirdness. It's the Biden campaign. Yeah. Who showed up at the Trump trial on Tuesday. And I'm reading here from a Politico story from Natalie Allison and Jonathan Lemire. Asked by a reporter why the president's reelection campaign decided to hold an event at Trump's trial. His communications director had a simple answer because you were all here, Michael Tyler said. You've been incessantly covering this day in and day out.

Tyler continued later saying the Biden team would seek to remind voters of the quote, stakes of this election. So the Biden team is having that same existential, metaphysical, whatever kind of crisis we want to call it, where they're like, we want you to pay attention to the stakes of the election. But somehow the stakes of the election are not the first criminal trial ever of a former president. That's interesting, yes. But we're behind. So we also have other stakes we'd like to put in front of you.

Brian, let me ask you, which notable guess feels more notable to you? Biden camp or Robert De Niro? I think Robert De Niro, slightly ahead of Biden camp, slightly ahead of Michael Tyler, no offense to Michael. That was clearly part of this, right? They want to create a thing, a stunt that will get those cameras they speak of. So they bring Robert De Niro, and he's reading from pieces of paper as he denounces Trump. Here's a little of Bobby on Donald.

We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot. A two-bit playboy lying his way into the tabloids, a clown. But this city is pretty accommodating. We make room for clowns, but not a person like Trump who will eventually run the country. That does not work, and we all know that. I thought he was going to go into the whole Joe Pesci clown bid from Goodfellas there. He's counting on us to fill in the blanks there in our minds.

Take it the next step. Yeah. There's like a Pavlovian response when you hear that kind of language. The big kid would have known where to go. I'm not sure every MSNBC viewer, even the Ruben household will make that connection. Before we leave this topic, I had a bad acronym alert for you. Oh, okay. hit me. This is from the closing arguments, Todd Blanche, who is Donald Trump's attorney or one of his

attorneys. He was describing Michael Cohen, Trump's fixer, and they're trying, of course, to sully the reputation of Michael Cohen even further so that the jury will not believe what he says. Here's the quote. He's literally like an MVP of liars. He also called Michael Cohen the gloat, the greatest liar of all time. what do we make of the gloat I'm not a fan it feels like a unsurprising extension

of the Trumpian ethos to put a tidy little packaging and branding and soundbite around every bit of nonsense I this is it has nothing to do obviously with Michael Cohen it's just like to

you know the the the impulse to try to distill the substance of what is unfolding into an insult. Like what could possibly be more fitting from that camp? Do we think that the Brady Roes being called the Groat just open the floodgates? This is a great question. This is a great question. Yeah. What effect will the Roes have on our republic long term?

I don't want to trivialize anything, but your closing statement in an actual trial shouldn't be any cornyer than something you and I watch just. kids on TV. Exactly. It's like. All right, let's move on to baseball. Mention you're a baseball fan, an O's fan. I'll give you a little split screen right now.

We have networks crawling over each other to give Adam Silver in the NBA $2 billion a year to show NBA games. Two billion dollars a year. Then we have this from John Arandover at Puck. ESPN's paying a little over 500 million a year for Sunday night baseball right now. they're like, oh, we want to pay less for Sunday night baseball. We want to get out of our deal and use the little clause in our contract so that we don't have to keep paying you that much money for that.

Also, a Roku deal with baseball that pays MLB $30 million dollars a year for Sunday morning packages of games. As a baseball fan, where do you think baseball's place in the sports universe is right now? you know, I have, I'm happy to admit, I think radically skewed perspective on this because as an editor and a team member of the ringer.com, what a great website, and a member of media and sports media,

and a person who in various aspects of my work week is thinking about like, what is baseball's role in our society? I see that, I think, pretty clearly. But I, and I'm like a lifelong baseball lover. The Orioles are my, it's my first great love, and that love has been unwavering. Through many painful years, and then some bright spots,

and then some pain, and then some bright spots, on and on the saga goes, I have never cared more about baseball, than I do right now. Last year's Oriole season. The stunning, the turnaround,

one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of professional sports, the stunning March to 101 wins, the ALE's crown, the top seed, listen, you're a Texas Rangers man, and so we don't need to discuss

what actually unfolded in the playoffs. Let's leave that out of it for now. If you want to talk about the absolute galling nonsense, of the Rangers putting the Orioles scripto on the World Series logo. I'm happy to share my thoughts with you at some point. Into this season where this young Orioles team is like the great joy of my life,

I genuinely spend a part of every single day thinking about the team. And if I can watch the game, if I can have it on, I do. If I can't, I'm checking the box score. If I look at my phone and I see. see a collection of push notifications from a certain group of people, dad, my husband, some of my those friends, I know, based on the volume of texts, Gunner Henderson hit a home run, or Jordan Westberg had an RBI double. Like, I have just never been so invested in the outcome of a given season. And so I feel like baseball's back, but I recognize that this is not an experience

that everybody else is having, though I do think, and I would posit to you, and I'm curious for your read on whether this feels true or whether this feels like I'm looking at it through my old bay dusted glasses, that while the overall mass consumption of baseball has shrunk, while baseball's foothold in the overall like macro sports landscape, the hole, the chokehold that it has on just like American society is not obviously what it used to be. Like that's not really a

up for debate. Inside of that there is a newly discovered spark that the pace of play initiatives, the shorter games led to newfound engagement. More people are at games. More people are watching games.

It's kind of an interesting thing to assess in tandem with the rights fees point that you made. you go on Instagram in terms of and I bring this up not because Instagram is a lens through which we can

assess what's really happening in the world but because young people are on social media young people are on Instagram and a big kind of like inextricable and inescapable part

of the baseball as a failing proposition conversation in recent years had been do young people care do young people find baseball too boring too stale and like the game is full of young, vibrant,

energizing, exciting players. You're on a Zoom right now with two people who are happy to talk to you for like six uninterrupted hours about why Hunter Henderson is like the most important person in the world. And you open Instagram and you see something like the Bat Boys baseball account. And they've got a huge level of engagement around the idea of baseball culture, around the idea of the players who are exciting. Let's ask them about. their walk-up music. Like it does feel to me like there's a little bit of a spark again of that like,

can baseball be fun and cool? Yeah, can actually. Here's how. Here's why unfolding in real time. But I say that as someone who didn't need convincing that that was possible in the first place. So I'm happy to acknowledge that. You're certainly more of a lapsed baseball enthusiast, right? Is that fair to say?

So like what is your read on this? It's definitely true. And I feel that the dirt. dirty little secret here is that within sports writing and within sports media, and I think you can back me up on this, present company very much excluded, there is kind of a shocking amount of baseball illiteracy right now. Like, I've had convos with people at the ringer and we'll look at, you know, something like, who's that? Who's that? And these are people like me that were raised as baseball fans. Our pal Derek Thompson the other day was like, it was opening day

on ESPN.com, they did a little banner. And he was like, if you offered me $100 million to name these people, I would get zero. I would, there's zero percent chance I'd be able to do it. Yeah. And I was like, let me tell you who each of these people are, what their wars were last year and whether or not they're in their city connects. He just has the wrong person. That was the issue.

But that's what's always stunning to me. Because as you know, sports writers, no matter what they cover, tend to be pretty omnivorous sports fans. They tend to just love sports. Sports on TV, great. I'm in. I do it. I have opinions about everything.

There are a lot of football, basketball, non-baseball writers out there right now that are pretty shockingly illiterate about baseball in 2024. And I'm probably one of those people. So what do you think contributes to that? What do you think causes that? And I guess perhaps more germainly, do you see a sell for that? Like if something like games dropping by 24 minutes on average last season from the season before after the pitch clock didn't lead to more people saying, yeah, there are 162 games a year, but they're not all going to be three plus hours. So I will check them out.

What can? Like if the fact that a player like Ellie de la Cruz this year might seal a hundred bases doesn't thrill people and lead them to like want to watch. all those highlights. You're telling me there's a guy who stole four bases in a game the other day? Like yeah. Maybe I won't watch a Reds game the next day after I hear that, but I'll check out an Instagram real. I'll look at a highlight. Okay, you've got my attention. Like, is it something more core about baseball as a proposition that feels like untethered from our, from modern life? Like, why, how can we get you back, Brian? How can we get you back? It's really funny because at one time we were at Grail, I did a whole story about the baseball as dying phenomenon.

I would have looked up these old clips and got some old clips from a baseball story. And part of it was like people back in the day being like there are too many cars now. So no one will watch baseball. We've been trying to technologically cancel baseball for like a hundred years, which is really, really funny. I think in people in our business, probably there's a lot of Twitter rewards there to be found by tweeting about the NFL and the NBA. So naturally, you just sort of gravitate to where the action is as part of. of it. Um, there's just a lot of regular season stock in baseball, right? There's just a lot of games there. So, you know, that obviously is if you're a baseball fanatic, that's the best news

in the world. If you're a baseball not fanatic, maybe maybe you're don't plug in as much until the playoffs. By the way, that's true. The NBA too. Derek was talking about that on his podcast the other day. The ringer makes it seem like every NBA regular season game is watched by bazillion people. It's not. A lot of people are way, way tuned out on that. We're tuned in a lot of people are too doubt. I did want to ask you about the presentation of baseball on TV because a lot of times this turns to announcers to, you know, how the networks roll it out. Is there anything you would change with an eye toward growing the sport, making the sports seem bigger as you watch it on television? This is a good question. I don't, okay, I'm not going to, I'm going to

not answer your question initially. I'm going to instead express like a concern. that I have. Please. Okay, so let's talk about something like the Apple broadcast, the Friday night broadcasts, where the saber metric, analytically inclined aspect of the sport, which you can eliminate the shift all you want is like an inescapable part of the game in the modern day. Sure. Is incorporated into the broadcast.

Now, this is true on every broadcast, right? you're going to get more information about exit velocity and spin rate and stack cast data throughout a broadcast, then would have even been something you could have conceptualized, you know, a few years ago. Now, I find that really interesting. So, like, the Apple broadcast launches and the data is a really big part of it. Jordan Westberg, Westie, one of my faves, comes up for the Orioles. To name a random player. Just to name a totally random.

player who I think is one of the most underrated players in the game in 2024. Check him out if you haven't. Comes up to bat and in the lower right corner of your screen, you're going to see probabilities immediately as he's at that. You're not just going to see a slash line like you would have a few years ago. You're going to see what is the likelihood that he will hit a, well, he will drive in a run with two outs, right? What is the probability as the pitch count changes? Like if the first ball was a ball, they're going to show you a shifting percentage. They're going to show you a different stat. If someone's on first, what is the likelihood of when, that the batter who's up,

this would not be really applicable to Jordan Westberg. But a double play inclined player, what's the percentage of the likelihood that he's going to hit him who double play, et cetera? So I find this really interesting because data is a part of understanding the game. I find that that is presented in a way where it is purely on offer if you want it to be. It doesn't like plutter your screen. It doesn't distract from what's happening. it's there if you're interested in learning more.

And like I, I think independent almost from like baseball and Saber Metrics, like the idea of information being on offer for people who want to receive it. I'm, again, like I might have a slightly skewed or even off memory of this. But my memory is that when this like was introduced, there was a lot of like, do we want all this information on the broadcast? Not from the obsessives, right? but from like the group of people you're talking about people who are like on the fence, do I want to watch this?

Apple, okay, I don't need to have like the MLB package to see this. I can just like pop onto a streamer already have. Oh, wow. This is like a lot of information, a lot of data. Do you have to be a nerd to follow baseball now, etc.? And so here's my concern that baseball is in this moment that a lot of enterprises, sporting or otherwise, find themselves in at some point. Marvel completely different.

It's a completely different thing, but like, including in terms of its reach, but one of the conversations with Marvel right now is like, can you keep up, right? Can you find a new entry point? Like, is the connected universe at some point so vast and sprawling that you don't know if the next thing that comes out is something you'll be able to understand if you haven't seen these 17 prior hours, etc.

And so the conversation becomes, is Marvel for the super fans or for everyone? Is baseball for the super fans or for everyone? And is the broadcast going to reflect that? Now, I don't think it's a bad thing to create a broadcast that is the best way to serve and entertain the people who care the most about the thing and who consume it every day and who want to learn more about it and understand it as fully as they possibly can. Are the network's going to think that they need to find a way to continue to repackage the thing?

Now, and this isn't just about the network, so obviously we're talking about the media. This is about like the rule changes, the game itself. We got the pitch clock at 20. Now it's down to 18. Let's make the bases bigger. Let's spark steals. Nicks the shift. I think that there's a very well-intentioned drive behind the desire to, it's a product.

Like a baseballist mood I consider poetry in this lyrical, beautiful thing. But also it's a product. And when you have a product, you want people to consume it. who were the broadcast for and who are they trying to be for? Are they for everyone or are they for the people who care about it the most? Now I'm an Oriole fan and so I have not just like the pleasure, but dare I say the privilege of listening to Kevin Brown call Oriole games. And I like, this is a media podcast and so I'd be remiss if I didn't disclose that Kevin

is my friend. But like he's just, he's an incredible announcer. and he, I think, is emblematic to me of like a new wave of baseball commentary where the part of the new wave is the old wave. Kevin is a student of the game. He's a scholar. He does a great job, whether he's got that McDonald in the booth or Jim Palmer in the booth of incorporating baseball history, of making sure that the soul and spirit of the game is present.

But he's going to like rip off a Blink 182 lyric in tandem with that. He's going to talk about the ice cream that he snuck. off to the concourse to try to get and why they were out of flavors. Like he's going to have thoughts on the Star Wars merge at the giveaway. And so I find him to be like this perfect conduit to the absence of an overcorrection, right? Like he's not trying to just make the Oriole games interesting for like young people who might not know if they like baseball. I think he can get that audience to care.

But if you've been watching baseball for your entire life, like my dad loves listening to Kevin Colorado games. Yeah, and we've seen that tension right with the first Apple crew. We're going to book Katie Nolan in the booth. Like we're trying to do that. But the best way to do it is somebody like that who has one foot in one world, one foot in the other world can bring in both fan base. Jason Benetti is probably another great example of that with the Tigers.

I totally think that's it. Your big point about who are these for is a fascinating question. So we've seen Fox on the national broadcast say, we're just going to go find the most famous baseball players of this era and we're to start there. So here it is. Here's Arod. Here is Derek Jeter. Here is Big Poppy.

Your ALE's mileage may vary. But these were very, very popular people in a time when the Red Sox and Yankees were exchanging titles and there were a lot of eyeballs on those matches. So if you're a lapsed fan or if you're less than a, you know, totally astute baseball fan, you turn on the broad. Like, oh, there's Derek Jeter. Okay, I feel comfortable here.

I feel welcome here. I know who that is. I know what he did. That's another way to do this. There's a lot of John Smoltz angst in the world. Yeah. Is this the person to call the World Series? Is this baseballs?

You know, when you think of like Tony Romo for all of his Romo-esqueness, his Romonus, his Romonus, when you think of, you know, Greg Olson calling a Super Bowl, and then you get John Smoltz calling every World Series. Is that it? Is that the best face? We can throw ESPN Sunday Night crew on this too and Carl Ravich. You know, it's like we should we just, and again, does that stuff make like a huge difference in the health and baseball and all that stuff? I don't know, but it is, it gets to that point you're talking about. Who's this for it? It's fascinating. All right, let's talk about your career a little bit. Oh, God. Okay. Here we go. Let's go inside the numbers, Mallory Rubin.

Oh, boy. You and I were talking yesterday and you used the term nerd culture. Yes. You are a student of nerd culture standbys, including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Dune, Game of Thrones, and of course, Harry Potter. All of it. How did your love for these kinds of things begin? Woo.

My dad. When I was a kid, my love, my love. for honestly the things I spend most of my time on to this day. Sports and fantasy sci-fi literature, just thinks that my dad, in a very organic way, made present in my life. I've told the story a lot on, you know, binge mode and ring of verse over the gears, but put a little bookshelf in my room at his place,

when parents were divorced, a little bookshelf in my room at his place, filled it with fantasy books never never said here are the ones I want you to read here's when they were just there for me you know and I knew they were important to him and I loved like he would tell me about going to

Memorial Stadium when he was a kid we would watch Terps games together we would watch those games together when the Ravens came to town the first day they had these little like temporary tattoos and the Baltimore son with the old Raven Shield logo that they then had to get rid of because they weren't

allowed to keep slapped out on my arm. We have a picture of it day one. So a lot of it was just like being exposed to the things that he loved that were so central to his burgeoning passions when he was a kid and are still central to his passions now. And I developed a love for them too. You know, my parents split when I was really little and I would go to my dads every other weekend

and we would share those things and they became like the most important things in the world to me and they still are. I was like a really slow learner. on the independent reading front. Like I loved other people reading stories to me, but I was behind on like reading on my own. And the first, the first time that I got bumped up

to a higher reading group, which is like a moment that I think back on still was like this real kind of formative, like moment of associating reading with pride instead of like anxiety was for the Hobbit. So Lord of the Rings is kind of like an OG story for me in that way. And then when they,

when the Star Wars prequels were coming out, we were just talking about Star Wars yesterday. The fact that Phantom Menace was 25 years ago is actually not something that I'm comfortable or equipped like the process right now. That just makes me feel so old. I can barely believe it. But as you'll remember,

before the prequels, they re-released the original trilogy in theaters. So my dad took me in Baltimore to see the original movies in theaters for the first time. I was in middle school then. So it was like deeply formative experience. When I read Harry for the first time in high school,

like that was the, I was telling you this about recently, that was the first time. Like I had such a vivid memory of reading Gobble to Fire for the first time. On a family trip in the Outer Banks, like you guys all go to the beach today. I can't put this down. So, you know, just that's that stretch of

my youth where these became the things that I loved. And then the kind of unbelievable sort of have moments still all the time where I'm like, I really can't believe like, you know, We're all very busy here at the ringer. We all work very hard. And then I have days from like, I can't believe I just like, I'm, you know,

my life like thinking about dragons and dire wolves. What a dime. So, you know, for all of the things that I love and I care about to have become on the nerd culture front, like nerd culture is pop culture. You know, Game of Thrones being this kind of last gasp of monoculture on the TV front. the role that Marvel has played and the kind of resurgence of Star Wars at least on the streaming front

I think we'll probably get a new Star Wars movie again I think we're gonna get that made on Progoo movie I really hope so someday Kathy Kennedy allowing yes we've obviously you know and we in the ringerverse my wonderful and brilliant co-host Ronna Robinson in her MCU book like we have chronicle this quite quite regularly the recent then tip into like, there's a lot of this, right?

Iger coming out and saying, we, we, we, we're too much on Disney Plus. Let's dial it down. We're, like anything else, we're in an ebb and an ebb and flow cycle. But nerculture is like, is pop culture now. Genre story telling is everywhere. And every streamer, every corporation wants to mine the IP. You know, Amazon's got a Lord of the Rings show.

Like Rings of Power is coming back for season two in August. What a time to be somebody who loves comic books and superheroes and fantasy epics and sci-fi sagas. Like Dune Part 2 being the movie of the year is like the thrill of my life. I know you feel this way too. I do. I do. I have a different way of expressing it. But it is very, very weird to see that happen.

Because these were not when we were kids, this was not mainstream in the same way. It was also not something, at least in my high school experience, that you were flashing around a lot. you know, those like, oh, this is how I make friends by telling him I read a random Star Wars novel

yesterday on my vacation. I want to ask you about this. So you kid, you're a sports fan and then you're a fan of these books and movies. New York Times profile says in college in the late 2000s,

Ruben recognized a similar analytical impulse that is to sports at the height of Pottermania. Ruben spent hours researching theories on the online forms muggle net in the leaky cauldron. So you are realizing

that these two things, nerd culture on the one hand, in sports and the other are very, very similar subjects in a way. I think that there is, for me at least, in the way that I consume both of those things, shared strands of DNA in a couple different respects. One of them is like obvious, right? Fandom and community, if you care about this thing, and it is the thing that you care about most deeply and most fervently,

and you find somebody else who cares about it that much too is like one of the best feelings in the world. I mean like that is in a broader sense of the joy of the ringer to me. Like making binge mode, making house smart making the ringerverse, that is the thing that is like most precious to me about it. I just can't believe we get to sit there and say out loud

I love this thing and then all these other people are like, I love it too. That's like a really, that's a genuine gift that I cherish. So there's that. And that's like sitting in a stadium or sitting at a bar with your friends. and watching your favorite team.

That just feels very similar to me. In terms of, like, the way I'm processing, the kind of like, and a lot of this does tie, because I love football, as you know, I love all sports. Baseball is so mythic. And, like, my favorite, one of my favorite books is Philip Roth's great American novel.

And the, you know, the Rupert Monday, and the idea of like the communist plot to infiltrate America through baseball. And one of the reasons that I loved that book so much, in addition to just like the literary flair and the play on language and the obvious genius of it is like the character comps to these great mythic figures. I just got, I think the melding and mixing of sport and literary lore. Like I remember so vividly reading that in high school for the first time and feeling like something had been unlocked

foundationally inside of my brain in a way that would be lasting. And so when I'm reading a Song of Ice and Fire or any of these other stories, like the example that you gave of sitting in my dorm room, parsing the text awaiting the sixth and then seventh books and trying to like theorize what would happen based on all of the textual evidence,

it's mythology, it's lore, it's world building. And you are assessing whether it's data and highlights somebody's tape or whether you're looking at the substance of an exchange or the framing of a character arc. It's about discovery. And so they're different, of course, but there's something that feels like in the kind of cornerstone building block level. of both of those just very familiar to me.

And then the differences feel like they like ultimately kind of amplify the experience because it doesn't always feel like either just as a person and a fan or now as like a podcast or an editor or whatever the case may be. Like they're exactly the same. There's variance. There's distinction. There's difference.

But there's something about them that just feels like, yeah, the way you can unlock something creatively, the way you can unlock something intellectually, or the way you can unlock something emotionally and spiritually in terms of your investment, you know? Like, how can the fate of the 2004 Baltimore Orioles feel like it will be the defining experience of my life? And how can I have, like, had the very real experience of watching season eight of Game of Thrones

and feeling like the failure to properly center and honor the John Ghost relationship was like a affront of the highest order in terms of the soul of magic and fantasy? to see and then just go about my day and seek to be a normal person. I don't know, but I try. Now, when you're at Syracuse in the 2000s, your plan was still to become a baseball writer? I, so I wanted, when I was in high school, I wanted to go to college, get a journalism degree, go back home, write for the Baltimore son and cover the O's. Following the footsteps, but Kenny Rose. thousandthal and a million others.

I mean, as I think you know, like Thomas Boswell was like my hero when I was growing up and falling in love with journalism and reading and writing, reading his, reading Boswell's Washington Post coverage of videos was just like absolute revelatory to me. And then later on,

Jeff Jensen's lost, the Doc Jensen lost breakdowns, his writing on lost, like became the pop culture version of that for me. I'm like, you can do this. You can think about this thing this way. could write and talk about this thing this way. So when I started at Syracuse, I was a newspaper journalism major. Because Brian, as you've alluded to a few times today, like we're old. So, you know,

I was like, I think, I think that I was the last graduating class before Newhouse, like, reworked the curriculum to be more centered on online journalism. This makes me sound like 75. Like, I'm 37. I'm not a hundred you know I feel like Captain America like I'm 95 I'm not dead but I started office of newspaper journalism major and then I switched to magazine journalism that was the big switch going to magazine journalism and then I started to you know think about all sorts of different possibilities in sports media but like the O's in the sun that was one dream and then Sports Illustrated was like the the big dream right getting to be at s I one day and like you know again, like grow up reading Burtucci's baseball pieces.

And like that was the, the, the, just the thing I, like, loved to do and enjoyed parsing and studying. And so, yeah, sports, sports journalism. Like, that was the thing that I loved and wanted to do and wanted to spend my time on. Yeah. SI is a place you go right out of Syracuse. And I think you were an intern there while you were at Q's. Is that correct?

That's right. And this is where you do. Intern between junior and senior years. And then, yeah, started a couple weeks after graduation. And this is where you do your first pop culture podcast. I did not know this with Stuart Mandel, the college football writer. Yeah, my dude still. Yeah.

About lost. So it was called the Mandel initiative. And in theory and in packaging and framework and, you know, certainly how it was pitched, it was a college football podcast because Stu was a college football writer and I was his editor. and we were also both lost obsessives. And so the lost, obviously, Mandel initiative is a nod to Dharma initiative. So it was sort of like right there in the name, the desire to just really have an excuse to talk about lost.

But so at the beginning would be college football conversation. And then we would spend the second half of the pot talking about the final season of lost, which was airing at the time that we were doing that pod. And that was like, that was it, man. That was it. Wow, you don't have to choose. Sport and pop culture? But you needed the college football prelude to sneak in the lost conversation at

SI in that area? Let's talk about Robert Griffin's Heisman campaign for a few minutes here. And then let's get to Smokey. That's really funny. This is not a super happy period at SI that you're there. This is not, let's say, the golden, golden age of SI that you and I grew up in. And I saw you give this quote. This was in the Daily Orange, long after you left Syracuse.

I'm not going to give anybody the opportunity to kick me out, meaning of a job, Rubin said. So what did you do at SI to make sure that you were employed forever? So I was at SI, again, a dream, you know, as it was for many people to be there. I was at SI.com, Sports Illustrated's website as an intern like I noted. And so that was in 2007 and then I started in 2008. And I was there until I left for, Brian, the period of my life where I got to work with you until I left for Grantland in 2013. So I was there for half a decade.

And I started actually as an associate producer. My first job at SI was working on SI. You remember SI on campus? Man. So that was the first little stretch of my time there. And then, you know, as you were alluding to a period. in SI's history, a period of media history. There were just layoffs very frequently

in that half decade that I was there and various role changes and responsibility shifts for many, many people. I was extremely fortunate to, you know, be able to continue on in that early stretch and the first job change from SI on campus because ESI on campus folded was to start editing college football.

And that was an interesting one for me because, you know, I grew up loving I think he's been established effectively today. Baseball. Loving. College basketball. My parents are Maryland grads. We watched, you know, like the Steve Blake, Juan Dixon,

terp teams are like a formative sports era for me. Obviously the Ravens. You know, Maryland was like, it's not exactly a college football powerhouse in my youth. And that was certainly true for Syracuse. When I was there, obviously there's like a deeply proud college football history for Q's. But like I was there for like a like a one in 10 season during my freshman year. And I went to every game and I consumed it. But college football was like an interesting sport for me where in a way that felt good.

Because I remember this is an incredibly long and the enduring way of answering your question. What a shock. What a shock to me, you and all. when I was in high school, like working on my high school paper, we took a trip, we took a field trip to the Baltimore Sun, and we got to sit with Milton Kent. We covered the Wizards at the time for the Sun. And it was such a meaningful day in my life.

And like getting his feedback on, he had to sit down and like, we got game notes from the Wizards game we wrote in real time, got feedback, got an opportunity to ask him questions. Like we stayed in touch for many years after this. He's a deeply influential person in my life and career. And I remember asking him, like, if you love something, it's so bizarre for me to think back on this because what is the ringer, right? Passion, obsession, expertise.

So much of what we do here is working and talking about and thinking about and writing about the things we love. But when I was a young person thinking about doing this for my life, I was almost worried about that part of it. If you work on the thing you love, like, does that, do you lose your ability to love it? And I remember asking him about that and thinking about it. It was so formative to me. And so like college football early in my life, early in my career, felt perfect.

Like the perfect opportunity because I was interested in it. I liked it. I liked it enough to spend a lot of my time working on it, thinking about it, consuming it. But it wasn't baseball for me. It wasn't my great love. Now I'm like, the fact that I get to work on the things I love the most is like the shock and joy of my life. like how lucky are we. But back then when I was young,

college football felt like that, that really kind of sweet spot. And yeah, I worked as a college football editor for a few years at SI. I ended up becoming a senior editor there. I was working on college football, a little bit of fantasy sports,

NHL, and just really doing anything I could. So to answer your question, I mean, I don't know. My honest answer is like I feel like I got lucky. I don't know that I can like take credit for being able. to hold on to any opportunity there. I think I was really fortunate to get a job and hang on to a job

and then just tried to capitalize as best as I could on any opportunity I got. Anyone who asked me, will you help with this? Can you pick this up? Can you do this? I said yes. If it was a skill I didn't think I had, I tried to acquire it and learn it. I tried to get just as many reps as I could. I tried to work with as many different people as I could. Editors, producers, writers, people in different beats, looked for opportunities to meet people working at the magazine and learn from them, like, learn about the history of the place, learn about the industry, and, like, you know,

try to just prove that I was not only a hard worker, but like a capable person. And, you know, you build trust. Like, I don't think trust is ever something you can force. You got to earn it, right, in any aspect of life. And so I just tried to, like, work really hard to do a good job, which I know sounds kind of corny and lame, but it was just really important to me to do well.

I couldn't believe I had a job there, and I wanted to keep it and make the most of it and squeeze everything out of it that I could. I remember you and I ran into each other in the ringer offices, very early in the ringer's tenure, and I think you were doing binge mode at the time, and you were telling me, oh, yeah,

we're fact-checking this podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that we've done, this is going to, so tell me what is involved in the fact-check of a podcast? because people might not know that this happens or happen. So the process for, you know, every show is different, right? Binge mode was because of the nature of a binge mode season and the nature of production, like we were assessing a either complete or at least like a subset of something complete text.

So the first season of binge that Jason and I did was rewatching seasons one through six of Game of Thrones heading into season seven. And then it was going well in real time. And it's like, let's do season seven, which so we went from dropping, you know, a full season is right there in the name binge, you know, week after week to doing one episode a week for season seven. And like, if you go back and listen to the sign off of that first binge run, we're like, this was. the thrill of our lives. Like someone else will basically be with you next season for Binge Mode season two on like topic TK. Right.

And then we're like, oh yeah, okay, there's something here. So we did Harry, we did Star Wars, we did Marvel. And obviously like the when we did the Harry season, the books and films were out. When we did Star Wars, Mando Season 1 was coming out and Rise of Skywalker was coming out. Those were the hooks. But like obviously a lot of Star Wars had already come into the world at that point when we did Marvel. we were looking back at the infinity saga.

And so because we're working, we were working to chip away at content mountain, right, to work ahead on production, doing a ton of prep and research and sketching out what each episode would be and banking where we could, we had the ability to listen back to episodes to go through and fine tune everything.

And like that obviously is just a different clip in cadence. you're working on this season this year, then the way we do Ring or Verse where something airs and we pot about it multiple times per week every week. Like the clip is just distinct, obviously. But on the fact-checking front, you know, so part of it was like the timeframe

of the season like that allowed us to do that. In terms of the impulse that drives that desire, though, yes. It's born of like a couple of things. You know, the goal of a binge mode season, the goal of House of Our Deep Dives, like the goal is to, it's for it to be the definitive article on the thing, to the extent that that's possible, to be as comprehensive as we can. And we're human beings, we make mistakes like everybody else, but we try really hard not

to because, like, I think the expertise and the insight is what people, in addition to hopefully, you know, the rapport and the hang, like, that's part of it too, what people are coming to the show for. And so I think a lot of it is born of the desire to make something really good and comprehensive, of course, a shared desire among all of the wonderful members of these teams. And part of it, I'm happy to admit, is like the absolutely debilitating fear of getting something wrong and just in like one sentence shredding the credibility that we've worked in years upon years to build. I live in fear of that. So, you know, it's obviously not possible. And you think that actually happens with the audience. They're like, oh, well, she made a mistake when talking

about, you know, page 95 in chapter two, and therefore she doesn't know what she's talking about. And I hate the show now. I think it's just my anxiety. And I think in some ways, it's like, I don't know, you know how like to continue to connect the nerd culture to sports, like an interview with an athlete, what's your pregame process? It's like, I think maybe this is like part of my process is like I need that edge, right? I don't like ever want to get complacent and be like, this is just a thing we do today. It's like, I feel incredibly fortunate that people give us their time.

I just can't believe people give us their time and choose to spend their time listening to this thing we make. We would make these shows if nobody listen because we love it and it's fun, but like people choose to give us their time. We were just talking about this yesterday, right? And we want the product to be good and worth that time. I think I'm always like, how do we make sure that that promise is something we honor every day, right? And so like, I don't, that makes me sound like slightly sociopathic.

Like, I don't feel like if we get something wrong that everything will be squandered and nobody will listen. I think we're actually like quite, I've felt like quite grateful over the years that our audience is, I mean, the internet can be a very grim and dark place. but in terms of the you know in terms of the the nerd culture shows like so many members of our audience just love those shows

and have found not only community with the shows but with each other and I I am so grateful for that and love that so I don't think that all of those people who have built that relationship with the show would be like

you guys have lost me by confusing this one Targaryen prince. That's not really something I think. But I do live in fear. I do live in fear of that. The point is taken because I think anxiety and that particular anxiety of getting things right drives lots and lots of good journalism and good podcasting.

It is that in whether people wear it differently, display it differently, but that at the heart of it, right, is driving a lot. All right, last question for you. Do fans of these different shows, books, movies react differently? Do you find, like, is there a different reaction you get from Star Wars fans versus Potter fans versus House of the Dragon fans? Hmm. That's a good question.

I think, like, yes and no. You know, I think, like, each fandom does feel distinct in terms of how their passions manifest or like what aspects maybe of the worlds they love the most. But I do think there are a lot of through lines at least in terms of like the ringer and what we make here and what we put out into the world and that like what we receive in turn.

I think the the sensibility and ethos that drives our show that to return against that idea of like that spirit of community that we're really seeking to not just foster but then nurture. I think kind of inherently because of the new. nature of it. There is a lot of

like engagement and connection and discussion and interaction that feels like consistent as like a just sort of ever present like heartbeat of the experience. And then of course there are there's variance within it. I mean I think like

in some respects it's like the size of a given fan base right. Some of it is whether something is new or more driven by nostalgia. That's obviously also like, or both, right? That's, I think, very present with like Star Wars, certainly not only Star Wars, but, you know, the, the, the Marvel thing is probably the one that fills the most, while there is, of course, undeniably now not only a decade and a half long MCU history, but decade upon decade upon decade of comic book enthusiasm and adoration

and passion among the fan base. The recent glut of superhero programming and Marvel programming, I think that's the one where the passion is so vast and supreme, and Marvel has felt like such a dominant force in pop culture recently. That's the one where I think the fan base is the most like, the people that make the thing I love going to fix this soon. I think the most palpable anxiety there in terms of just the actual product, the quality of the product itself.

but yeah it's a good question I don't know I also just think that stuff kind of feels like fluid to me and in a way that like it should I think that maybe the the heart and soul of what you love about a world why you want to spend time

in a fictional universe in the first place why you love sharing it with people that maybe feels like a little bit more eternal but you know part of fandom we talk about this a lot in terms of how we make our ringerverse shows because you know every pod begins with like

your nexus podcast feed for all things, fandom. And like, what does fandom mean? Well, like, criticism is still a very present part of what we do. It has to be. That's part of how you honor that fandom. It's to say when something's not good enough, right? And so I think that's reflected in the fan base, too, like any sort of dissatisfaction or discontent, you know, broadly speaking, obviously, mileage may vary person to person. That comes from a place of love and, like, desiring the thing that you care about to, like, be worthy of that investment. Totally. Shoemaker and I were talking about this with the 25th anniversary of the fandom menace.

There were actually people remember that George Lucas ruined my life and my childhood is now dead portion of it. But there was a part right before that where they pointed at all the mainstream film critics who were panning the movie and said, you don't understand. You will never, ever, ever get Star Wars. You don't understand it. And then they waited like a month. And then they started panning the phantom menace and getting mad at George Lucas. Because it was like a, like all those forces you're talking about were all present at the same time. And it was much more complex than, you know, maybe we were, we have been led to believe in future years. I, uh, I, to borrow a beat from our, our sister pod, the rewatchables. We talk about big, big, big Roger Ebert for a second. One of my, I don't, I don't have it in front of me.

I'm just kind of going off the dome here. Paraphrasing, but one of my favorite. Ebert reviews is his Phantom Menace review because of exactly what you're identifying. I think he was genuinely confounded by the discourse around, not only the movie stars and the line in there that, again, I'm paraphrasing, but like remember just really being struck by was like, in essence, have we all lost our capacity for wonder? And the reason I like this is because I think like it's very emblematic to me of how like you know, more than one thing can be true at once.

I think it's reasonable to watch Phantom Menace and then hear people shit on it and say, like, wait, have we all lost our capacity for wonder? Like, we got a new Star Wars movie. Well, appreciate that. And then it's also really reasonable to watch Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones and be like, George, I have some notes. I think both of those things are fair. I so remember when that review came out because everybody was so jittery and there'd

been bad juju and, you know, the movie, the trailer looked a little weird. And then it was like, oh, Ebert says it's, It's okay. We can all go to the theater and then make our own judgments. All right, Mallory Rubin, House of R. And everything else at The Ringer, such a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on the press box. What fun, man. Thanks for having me. You're the best. All right. It's time for the second, second weekly edition of David Shoeemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Pretty quiet during that whole chat with Mallory, David. It's just reverence, really. It's it. I just listen to me.

Every time Mallory speaks, I just listened in silence. I know the feeling. I know the feeling. All right. Monday's headline about the app Blinkist was abridged too far. A bridged too far. Today's headline, David, comes to us from valued listener Jan combo piano. It's from City AM, which I take to be a British daily that you can get for free. apologies to the folks at CDAM if I mischaracterized that in any way.

I don't know if you saw, but the British Prime Minister, David, called for a snap election on July 4th. Sadly, the PM announced this outside his residence in the rain, which made for a very British tableau, if not the most inspiring, re-elect us tableau. So we got the PM making the announcement. announcement outside his residence in the rain. What was City AM's strained pun headline? Is it something down down downing street down? Okay, that's where we started. Downing, downing, um,

it's really coming down though. Downing. It's raining cats and dogs. Down the water level's getting high. Oh, drowning? just straightforwardly there we go drowning drowning drowning drowning on downing is that drowning street i think we're going to count that's drowning street okay there you go drowning street is what the folks at city a.m. That's good. All right, that's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis

production magic by Brian Waters. We got I think a really interesting episode next week, but my Rubenesque anxieties prevent me from saying it right now. Let's get it recorded. I think it'll be awesome. Later next week, I can guarantee you that David Shoemaker will return to this podcast Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.