The following podcast includes explicit language, not restricted to words beginning with F, S, B, and Q.

Hi, I'm Josh Levine, Slate's national editor, and this is Hang Up and Listen for the week of August 17th, 2020.

On this week's show, we're going to discuss the 100th anniversary of the Negro leagues

and what Major League Baseball should do to honor the game's Black Pioneers.

The New York Times' Rory Smith will also join us for a conversation about soccer's

Champions League, where an American shined and Leonel Messi went down to a humiliating defeat.

Finally, we'll talk with Louisa Thomas about losers, dispatches from the other side of the scoreboard,

a new anthology co-edited by Louisa and Mary Pilon.

I'm the author of The Queen and the host of Slow Burn Season 4. I'm in Washington,

D.C., where for the first time and a long time, the temperature is less than a billion degrees.

Joining me from D.C., Stefan Fatsas, the author of the book's Word Freak, and a few seconds of panic.

And Stefan, I think it's important for the people in Podland to understand we make the ultimate sacrifice for them. We turn off the air conditioning. Yeah, I'm in an attic. I mean, I'm glad to have an attic, but it's fucking hot in this attic. So I will start sweating unless I turn on the air conditioner between segments, even on a nice balmy day in the low 70s here in Washington.

With us always from Palo Alto, Slade Staff writer, host of Slowburn Season 3, Joel Anderson, so devoted to the podcast listeners that he doesn't even have air conditioning. So he's not tempted to turn it on. Yeah, I didn't realize until I moved to the bay that air conditioning is considered an amenity, you know, that it's not necessarily standard

with your home. And the way I found that out was on the first day I moved here, it was 95 degrees. And we asked our landlord, hey, where's the air conditioning? He's like, oh, we don't have that. So that's what I'm going through today. I live in a hot box. Joel, thank you for toughing it out. you're an American hero. I am. I'm trying to do what I can.

All right. So for the last four months, I've been saying that the Joel, thank you for toughing it out. You're an American hero. I am. I'm trying to do what I can.

All right. So for the last four months, I've been saying that the coronavirus pandemic has made it a challenge for us to do this show in a financially sustainable way. I've been saying it because it's the truth. And so we moved our full show to Slate Plus every other week to try to encourage folks who listen us to sign up

and support us. And a bunch of you did just that, and we are very grateful for it. And now,

while America is still an enormous mess, colossal mess, it is again possible for us to do the show

like we've typically done it.

So that means no more Slate Plus-only additions.

So that is hopefully welcome news for all of you.

For everyone who has subscribed to Slate Plus, who's done it recently or a long time ago,

...