The Jonah Keri Podcast, Episode 25

My guest today is Joe Posnanski, writer for Sports Illustrated and SI.com. He’s also the author of The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, and The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. We discuss the old-school vs. new-school sportswriting, the pluses and pitfalls of lists, public funding for stadiums (and museums), and much more. You can follow Joe on Twitter @jposnanski.

The topics we cover:

• 1:00-5:31: Joe the generalist sportswriter, on the death of generalist sportswriting
• 5:32-7:27: The advantages to being an outsider, with an insider’s support system
• 7:28-9:47: “Write what you know” still has its advantages
• 9:48-13:00: How can a writer possibly budget his time well enough to write as prolifically as Joe?
• 13:01-18:53: Lists: Lazy cop-out for writers, fruitful source of discussion, perfect example of “Why wasn’t I consulted?”…or all of the above?
• 18:54-19:25: Epic battle for the title of One-Downsmanship Champion of the World!
• 19:26-21:22: Public funding of sports stadiums: sign of civic pride, pointless boondoggle, or both?
• 21:23-25:25: OK, now what about public funding of museums — specifically the Negro Leagues Museum?
• 25:26-30:29: Why Joe took so long to start his Pozcast, plus the topic of podcasting in general
• 30:30-39:06: Performance-enhancing drugs, and different eras, in baseball history
• 39:07-41:59 Food Pick of the Week

My pick
Joe’s pick

• 42:00-end: Joe’s upcoming projects…including a new book!

Player embedded below. To download, right click here.

Or, subscribe on iTunes.