Best Podcast in Baseball 9.04: 'Crushed' and Reckoning with 1998's Brawny Home Run Race

Best Podcast in Baseball

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sports, Baseball

4.8 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What are baseball fans, their interest set ablaze by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and the brawny dizzying home run race of 1998, supposed to think about a summer that was so electric at the time -- and so inauthentic in hindsight? That was a question sportswriter Joan Niesen, a St. Louis native who spent years writing for Sports Illustrated, set out to ask in her podcast 'Crushed.' What she found was how baseball players on the brink of the majors faced a similar, uncertain and nebulous question, and that Steroid Era's scar on the game is more complex than a few stars dragged before Congress. Niesen joins the Best Podcast in Baseball host and St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss the genesis of her podcast, the revelations from a former Cardinals farmhand who faced a common fork in his career -- to use PEDs, or not -- and her own personal reckoning with the summer that captivated her imagination as a baseball fan. 'Crushed' is a seven-part series produced by Religion of Sports and PRX and it is available wherever you find podcasts. So is BPIB. The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The best podcast in baseball is brought to you by closets by design.
0:05.7	Update your closet, garage, office, pantry, and more.
0:09.0	Imagine your home totally organized with closets by design.
0:12.6	Call 1-800 by design.
0:14.4	That's 1-800 by design.
0:17.1	So much of baseball is what's passed down.
0:20.6	And baseball evolves. And, you know, your dad's baseball,
0:23.1	your mom's baseball isn't your baseball and your kid's baseball isn't your baseball. And you tell,
0:28.0	but you tell stories that I know so much about Bob Gibson and Kurt Flood and, um, and Lou Brock from my dad.
0:35.0	And for me, it's like, what are the stories I would tell? And I guess,
0:39.1	you know, with the strike, it's like, well, the World Series didn't happen. There is no story.
0:43.1	You know, this thing that could have been this fabled time in baseball just didn't happen. And
0:46.9	for me, it's like, what happened? But it was all under false pretences. Am I allowed to be like,
0:52.5	that's baseball? I don't know.
0:58.6	Hello everybody and welcome to the best podcast in baseball brought to you by Clause by
1:01.9	design. I'm St. Louis Post Dispatch Baseball writer Derek. We'll join this week by writer
1:07.3	podcast host. You probably know her work from Sports Illustrated. You definitely should know
1:12.6	her work from the podcast crush, which we're going to talk about. And she's a St. Louis native.
1:17.6	Joan Neeson, Joan, thank you for joining me this week to talk about your podcast crush.
1:22.9	Thanks for having me, Derek. I've been listening for a long time, so it's fun to be on the other side of
1:27.1	things. Yeah, I, this is overdue. But I'm glad that we get a chance to talk. We should have
1:33.1	just talked baseball before, which is what we're going to talk, but we're going to talk about it
	...

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