SportsLit

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 16) - Jason Kirk (Sr. Editor - Newsletters - The Athletic) - Hell Is a World Without You

In his début novel, sports journalist Jason Kirk gives readers a rigorous and referentially tight portrait of growing up in an evangelical world.

“Hell Is a World Without You” plunges readers into the world of early-2000s teen Isaac Siena Jr., his youth group friends, widowed mother Katherine, and intense big brother Eli. Its themes delve through faith, the lingering effects of being raised with “constant fear of hell, and shame, and damnation,” and being in a world where “youth pastors dress like Stifler.”

Kirk, who calls himself a “lazy Christian pantheist,” is a senior editor at The Athletic and part of the long-running Shutdown Fullcast (“the internet’s only college football podcast.”). An Atlanta native, he and his wife Emily Kirk have also had a pod called Vacation Bible School.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 15) - Mike Keenan (Stanley Cup winning coach - New York Rangers 1994 ) - Iron Mike: My Life Behind the Bench

Mike Keenan is a madman.

Mike Keenan has a method.

All things considered, both descriptions are part and parcel of a coaching career in which he angered many, and accomplished a great deal.

30 years ago he won the Stanley Cup and then abruptly parted with the New York Rangers, the team he led to the title.

Iron Mike addresses career defining events such as this and covers much more in his life’s journey through hockey.

The 1985 Jack Adams Award winner (NHL Coach of the Year) joined SportsLit to discuss his exploits behind the bench, the front office, and off the ice.

If he was do it all again, would he do it any differently?  Find out.

 

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 14) - Melissa Ludtke (Groundbreaking Journalist ) - Locker Room Talk

Relying on a near half-century of deep research and reflection, Melissa Ludtke recounts her landmark federal case in “Locker Room Talk.”

In 1977 and ’78, as a Sports Illustrated reporter, Ludtke was the winning plaintiff in Ludtke v. Kuhn, a U.S. federal case that Time Inc. and lawyer Fritz Schwarz Jr. brought against Major League Baseball. In the courtroom, Justice Constance Baker Motley — a civil rights icon  — found that MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn had violated Kuhn’s constitutional rights by denying her the same access the male reporters had at Yankee Stadium during the ’77 World Series. Neither the legal win nor the affray in the court of public opinion came easily. But within a decade, Ludtke notes, the ranks of female sports journalists had increased enough to start AWSM (Association of Women in Sports Media).

Ludtke, a former TIME magazine correspondent, has also worked at Nieman Labs. She lives in Massachusetts and writes the Let’s Row Together newsletter on Substack.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 13) - Michael Cochrane (Partner - BT Legal) - Olympic Lyon: The Untold Story of the First Gold Medal of Golf

Michael Cochrane found an artifact of early Canadian golf great George S. Lyon hiding in plain sight one day — and set to bring him to life on the page, and on the links.

In “Olympic Lyon: The Untold Story of the First Gold Medal for Golf,” Cochrane digs deep to tell the story of the Toronto insurance salesman who captured Olympic glory in the early 20th century, to the delight of fans in the young nation of Canada. Lyon never got to defend his title, or congratulate his successor. But through deep research honed over decades as a lawyer, and a keen understanding of golf’s appeal the world over, Cochrane may have readers feel like they’re in George’s gallery following him around the course.

A resident of Burlington, Ont., Michael Cochrane is a partner at Brauti Thorning LLP in Toronto. He hosted the program “Strictly Legal” on Business News Network (BNN). He has penned two other novels, and also has made two holes in one.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 12) - Jerry Grillo (Journalist) - Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize

Johnny Mize, a top home-run hitter in a turbulent time for baseball and North America, never got a complete biography in his lifetime. 

Author Jerry Grillo, who lives in the same region of rural Georgia where Mize hailed from, has remedied that by examining Mize’s baseball life and his effect on the sport.

Mize (1913-1993, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981) played in the majors during an era marked and marred by segregation, the Great Depression, and the Second World War. The lefty-hitting slugging first baseman won four league home run titles, still has some unmatched batting feats, and shares the record for most career three-home run games. And he was almost forgotten by the keepers of baseball history. 

Grillo began researching a Mize bio in 2000. It is his second book, following, “The Music and Mythocracy of Col. Bruce Hampton: A Basically True Biography.”

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 11) - Tiffany Brown, Erin Strout, Katie Steele - The Price She Pays

New investment and enthusiasm are pouring into women’s sports.

In “The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports— from the Schoolyard to the Stadium,” lead authors Dr. Tiffany Brown and Katie Steele call for changes to the athletic hierarchy women compete under. As lead authors, along with co-author Erin Strout, they propose that the expanding popularity and financial clout of women’s sports must be commensurate with an athlete-centred mental health approach 

The book is a candid guide to all stages of the sporting life, from introductory activities up to U.S. major-college athletics and the pros. It is unsparing of the traumas, but always optimistic, which meshes with 2024’s breakouts such as new leagues that are gaining traction, and the WNBA rookie class featuring the likes of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Kingston, Ont., native Aaliyah Edwards. “The Price She Pays” is both timely, and telling about what fault lines need to be filled in. 

Brown and Steele are both licensed marriage and family therapists based in Oregon. Strout, who has written and freelanced for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Runner’s World, Women Running, and ESPN-W, is based in Flagstaff, Arizona.  “The Price She Pays” was released by Little, Brown, and Spark on June 18, 2024.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 10) - Madeleine Orr (Asst. Prof., U of T) - Warming Up

Sport ecologist Dr. Madeleine Orr is pitching a ‘green game plan’ for sports fans.

In “Warming Up,” Orr pairs her academic curiosity and storytelling to stir optimism (or “hopeium”) about using the power of sport to explain climate adaptation. The University of Toronto professor’s début book reminds readers sports are a bigger social connector than politics, arts, and pop culture — and the loss of them can have significant mental health effects. 

As such, sports is a rallying point to push for a world that must burn about five times less fossil fuels to avert worst-case outcomes from climate change.

Whether it is children learning a new game, or globetrotting pros, athletes need breathable air, drinking water, and relief from the ‘big bad’ of extreme heat (and winter sport athletes need snow, too). Far from a doom-and-gloom finger-wag, Orr shows that many athletes and sports organizations are on Team Green, and outlines the next steps.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 9) - Evanka Osmak (Anchor / Sportsnet Central) - Ali Hoops

In “Ali Hoops,” the début children’s book by sports anchor Evanka Osmak, the 10-year-old heroine just wants a place in the game. 

Ali “daydreams about being a basketball star,” but frets about whether she can make her school team. Along the way, Ali learns lessons about who makes a true team off and on the floor — and illustrates how sports give a child a chance to build life skills and responsibility.

Evanka Osmak is an anchor for Sportsnet Central. She is a mother of two and has been with Sportsnet since 2007.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 8) - Noah Gittell (Author / Critic) - Baseball: The Movie

Noah Gittell is here to get the baseball movie out of its big-screen slump. 

 

In “Baseball: The Movie,” his first book, he advocates for the return of a sports movie niche that has faded since “Moneyball” and “42” were hits in the early ’10s. Drawing on insights from fellow writers and ballplayers, Gittell shows how the baseball movie, since the time of “The Pride of the Yankees” during the Second World War, has tapped into the essentials of the American soul and identity.

 

A longtime New York Mets fan, Gittell’s writing has graced The Atlantic, The Economist, Elle, Esquire The Guardian, GQ, and the LA Review of Books. He also keeps up a Substack, Good Eye: Movies and Baseball.

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 7) - Mary Ormsby (Journalist / Author) - World’s Fastest Man*: The Life of Ben Johnson

Whether Ben Johnson ever receives exoneration, the examination of the Canadian sprinter’s life and times by Mary Ormsby shows he got a raw deal.

Johnson became the first track-and-field Olympian to lose a gold medal for doping after a positive test at the 1988 Summer Olympics. In “World’s Fastest Man*: The Life of Ben Johnson,” Ormsby raises alarming questions about the reactions from the IOC, Canadian sports leaders, and the media — and double standards imposed on Johnson and other Black Canadian athletes at a time when steroid use was common in Olympic sports.

Ormsby, who had a three-decade career with the Toronto Star, also pairs investigative work with a character study of Johnson. His second life has involved training soccer great Diego Maradona, racing against a car for charity, and finding grace and resilience to keep running.