New Books in Sports

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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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Episodes

Mentioned books

Jun 7, 2012 • 52min

Paul Dickson, “Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick” (Walker & Company, 2012)

Mention the name Bill Veeck to a baseball fan and what will likely come to mind is the back-and-white image of three-foot, seven-inch Eddie Gaedel at the plate of a Major League game, swimming in his St. Louis Browns uniform, the opposing catcher having just caught a pitch well over... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Apr 23, 2012 • 1h 1min

Robert K. Fitts, “Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)

There are three Americans in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. One is Horace Wilson, the professor of English who brought his students outside for a game in 1872, thus introducing baseball to Japan. Another is Wally Yonamine, the Hawaii-born Nisei who played professional baseball in Japan in the 1950s... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Apr 13, 2012 • 58min

Randy Roberts, “A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011)

Two weeks from now the National Football League will hold its annual draft of college football players. For the league’s teams, the draft is the chance to re-stock their rosters with fresh young talent, basing their choices on reams of analytical reports and hours of dissected game films. The players,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Apr 6, 2012 • 1h 3min

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, “Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War” (Cambridge UP, 2010)

As a young, patriotic American, I was torn by the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. On the one hand, I knew already as an eleven-year-old, long before Ronald Reagan had uttered the phrase, that the Soviet Union was the Evil Empire. Their invasion of Afghanistan in December... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Mar 29, 2012 • 49min

Paul Watson, “Up Pohnpei: A Quest to Reclaim the Soul of Football by Leading the World’s Ultimate Underdogs to Glory” (Profile Books, 2012)

Coming to terms with the limitations of our own sporting achievement is one of the hardest things many of us have to do in life. A couple of years ago, after one too many serious injuries, I realised that I would never again line up on the rugby pitch waiting... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Mar 22, 2012 • 1h 7min

Richard Wilson, “Inside the Divide: One City, Two Teams, the Old Firm” (Canongate, 2012)

Alabama-Auburn. Maple Leafs-Canadiens. Boca Juniors-River Plate. Carlton-Collingwood.Fenerbahce-Galatasaray. Great rivalries are the catalysts of national sporting cultures. They are the high point of a season, fueling emotions as well as ticket sales and media hype. The most famous rivalries typically have bearing for league standings and championships. But many are also... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Mar 15, 2012 • 1h 5min

Gideon Haigh, “Sphere of Influence: Writings on Cricket and Its Discontents” (Victory Books, 2010)

During his tenure as a university lecturer, the novelist (and former football goalkeeper) Vladimir Nabokov instructed his students that the reader of literature needed three things: imagination, memory, and a dictionary. This advice applies as well for the reader of Gideon Haigh‘s essays on cricket, collected in Sphere of Influence:... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

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