Apocalypse Sports Radio

Author and former SI writer Jeff Pearlman is here to talk about his brand new book, Three Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty. The book is incredible, and Jeff was kinda enough to go into detail on everything from the best stories surrounding those Lakers teams, to the writing process, to the strange and tragic death of Kobe Bryant in the days after he finished the manuscript. A great convo with one of my favorites; enjoy!

Part 2 of the grand Apocalypse Sports Trivia championship!

The champions of Apocalypse Sports Trivia go head-to-head for the grand title. Riveting drama!

Golf.com's Alan Shipnuck is simply one of the best golf, nay, *sports*writers out there, and we chat for an hour about his life, his career, the state of the PGA Tour, the Bryson Revolution, and writing/journalism in general.

A look back at one of (read "the") greatest college football games ever played: The Fiesta Bowl, New Year's Day in 2007, between Boise State and Oklahoma.

Super excited today to have the great Joe Posnanski, author, podcaster, and writer at The Athletic, on the show. We talk about his life growing up in Ohio and Charlotte, the struggle to find his career path, the crazy amount of talent assembled at the unlikely Kansas City Star, the controversy attached to his Paterno book, whether Nicklaus vs. Watson is the greatest rivalry in golf history, the gorgeous, insular world of North Carolina USTA tennis, and, of course, BASEBALL. Lots of baseball.

In this episode, I look back at the 1956 Olympic water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union; the so-called "Blood in the Water" match, in the shadow of the Hungarian revolution.

In today's episode, we look at the Richard Riots, a massive street demonstration that culminated in violence and vandalism in Montreal following the suspension of Maurice "Rocket" Richard in 1955 by NHL president Clarence Campbell.

Christina Kim is a multi-talented human who can play golf, write, and apparently do television commentary at an extremely high level. She's a five-time winner as a professional, and today she chats about her entire life, from getting into golf as a kid, turning pro, overcoming mental health issues, winning on the LPGA Tour, and managing her game and life through the quarantine. Not to be missed!

Jay Busbee of Yahoo Sports is on to talk about the Bubba Wallace/noose incident at Talladega, and the strange twists and turns the story took over the last week.

Kaelen Jones has had a whirlwind month. When I first emailed him in early June after reading his tremendous essay on experienced racism, he worked for The Athletic. A lay-off followed days later, but before he knew it he was hired as an NFL writer for The Ringer. We talk about the whiplash, his life, his young career, how he got to where he is now, and how he feels about entering the Ringer at a time when the organization, and Bill Simmons, has come under the microscope for their diversity hiring practices. Kaelen Jones is a name you'll hear a lot before long, and it was a pleasure talking with him. Check it out!

Bob Harig returned safely from Hilton Head, and so did I, so we talk about what we saw there, Webb Simpson's win, the PGA Tour restart in general, and whether the Ryder Cup postponement is real.

Hannah Keyser of Yahoo Sports covers baseball, but that just scratches the surface. At Yahoo and throughout her career at Deadspin, Vice, and elsewhere, she's covered politics, culture, food, and so much else. We're talking today about her path into journalism, her role at Yahoo, and of course the MLB labor dispute that's occupied her attention for the last two months. We get to the bottom of Manfred, the owners, and the players as baseball staggers on toward an uncertain 2020 season. Don't miss it!

Today we're talking with Kevin Robbins, Golf Digest contributor and author of 'The Last Stand of Payne Stewart,' about the action this past weekend at the Colonial—the first PGA Tour event since the pandemic shut it all down. After that, we've got another Spike's Take that you SIMPLY WON'T BELIEVE. Check it out!

Today's guest is Chris Jones, writer for the upcoming Netflix show 'Away' and former sports and feature writer at Esquire, Grantland, and ESPN the Magazine, among others. Chris is here to talk about his life in writing, how his love for soccer has grown in the pandemic, his thoughts on his old online skirmishes, and so much more. One of my favorite conversations so far, not to be missed.

The divisional champions from the Armaggedon and Doomsday conferences, the cream of the crop from 120 players, fight it out in the grand finale. Six matches to crown the best of the best.

Hello all, in this week's first episode we're talking with ESPN contributor Noah Davis about the pro-Floyd Bundesliga protests from the past weekend, and then we're joined by author and baseball writer Eric Nusbaum to get to the bottom of the MLB labor clash between owners and players. Eric's piece on Baseball Prospectus is a great starting point - https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/59205/mlb-owners-players-baseball-labor-negotiations-covid-19/

I'm joined today for our DOUBLE DIGITS episode by the great John Feinstein, author of 42 books (including The Back Roads to March: The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season, out now) and writer for The Washington Post and Golf Digest. We covered quite a lot, from the process of writing his latest college basketball book to the greed of MLB owners to the changing relationship between Coach K and Dean Smith to the prospect of playing a Ryder Cup without fans to some general business-of-sportswriting talk.

Today we've got Daniel Rapaport of Golf Digest talking about a surprisingly entertaining "The Match," Felix Hasselsteiner of Suddeutsche Zeitung discussing the high-quality 1-0 Bayern Munich victory over Borussia Dortmund, and Spike Friedman opining on who the next "Match" exhibition should feature. Plus, trivia!

Gregg Doyel made a big move in 2014 to leave CBS Sports and go back to the newspaper world he once left. Six years later, he's still there and killing it, and today we caught up to talk about his life during quarantine, his incredible family story, the importance of humility at an insecure time, how he feels about his move to Indiana, and some REAL sports, including the Indy 500. The it's on to the NCAA and NFL, and the institutional problems at the heart of some of their recent moves.

0:00: Intro 2:30: Spike's takes—straight from his yacht, Spike has some thoughts on Bartolo Colon potentially returning to Major League Baseball. 09:30: Trivia! Honoring last week's winners and asking a new question. 11:30: Noah Davis, ESPN contributor and co-founder of Three Point Four Media, joins to talk about the first weekend of German soccer, the potential return of the EPL and MLS, and the state of the U.S. men's national team. I embarrass myself severely at least once. 26:30: One last chat about The Last Dance with comedian and writer Brandon Gardner, following the airing of the final two episodes on Sunday night. Jordan's timelessness, Burrell's shocking heroism, and the legacy of both the '90s Bulls and the management team who let them slip away. Enjoy!

Drew Magary is an Internet legend, formerly of Deadspin and now writing sports and politics for Vice and Medium. He's also an author, and today we talk about the publication of his new novel Point B. After that, it's on to topics like the collapse of Deadspin, his near-death experience, and the delights of Korean baseball. Point B is excellent, and you should check it out on Amazon.

00:00: Intro! 03:58: Trivia! 05:57: Ariana Eily joins to talk about the Zion Williamson scandal, whether Coach K will continue to be teflon throughout, and how it could rebound back on the NCAA. 26:38: Miles Cottom joins with his massive legal brain to break down the California circuit ruling that the U.S. women’s national team cannot proceed in their case against U.S. soccer on the topic of equal pay. A complicated and super interesting issue, and Miles has the lowdown. 48:52: “Arnold” joins me to discuss the allure of beautiful German soccer, which starts up again this weekend and will be the first major sports league (unless Korean baseball counts??) to hold matches in the Corona Era. He tells us which matches to watch, and why we might love it. 1:06:20: Spike’s take! The infamous billionaire is back in international waters, and as fate would have it, he has an opinion about German soccer. And folks, you are NOT going to like it.

I'm joined today by Will Leitch, columnist for MLB, contributing editor at NY Magazine, and writer at various impressive outlets around the internet, from the New York Times to Washington Post to NBC News. Will is also the founder of Deadspin.com, so we spend some time talking about that site's sad end, family life in Corona times, whether or not Will is a true "punk rocker," The Last Dance documentary, how rich people are ruining the internet, whether sports can actually come back in the near future, why the NFL matters a little more to the general economics of sport, and, of course, the fragility of memory.

Today, we're talking horses, Jay Cutler's divorce, The Last Dance, and the grandstanding pig people of the NCAA. A thriller!

It's time for episode two of Apocalypse Sports Radio, with our special guest Tim Layden. Tim and I talk for an hour exclusively about what it's like to be from the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Just kidding! We hit on our shared roots briefly before talking about what it's like for a writer to work on TV, Tim's time at Sports Illustrated from the golden age of the mid-90s to the sad ending after the Maven purchase, and there's a good deal of writing talk—both about the act and the industry. Then we touch briefly on horse racing and the Olympics before we wrap it up with some trivia.

It's the first ever episode of Apocalypse Sports Radio, and what a lineup we have! First, it's Mark Stevens, the man who shoved Kyle Lowry in last year's NBA finals, here to offer his perspective on that incident and life in general. Then I'm joined by Jake Weindling and Miles Cottom to talk NFL draft, and finally wealthy patron Spike Friedman joins me to offer his take on how the draft should be done differently to honor the most important men of all: the owners.