Hang Up and Listen - The Round Mound of Rebound and the Cat Litter Scientist Edition
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Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2018
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levin are joined by Shirley Wang to talk about her dad’s friendship with Charles Barkley. Jane Leavy also joins to discuss her Babe Ruth biography The Big Fella, and ESPN’s Joel Anderson helps assess the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas documentary 42 to 1.
Lin Wang and Charles Barkley (1:50): Why Shirley Wang’s story about their unlikely friendship had such a profound effect on so many people.
Babe Ruth (14:20): Jane Leavy explains how the Bambino changed sports and celebrity culture, and how she debunked myths about Ruth’s childhood.
42 to 1 (34:42): Looking back at one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports, and pondering what we should make of Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas today.
Afterballs(53:54): Stefan on Babe Ruth’s best nickname and Josh’s continuing Pat Summerall / House of Buggin’ quest.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains explicit language. |
| 0:08.6 | Hi, this is Josh Levine, and this is Slate's sports podcast, Hang Up and Listen for the week of December 24th, 2018. |
| 0:18.1 | On this week's show, Shirley Wong will join us to talk about everyone's favorite story of the year, |
| 0:23.8 | her account of her father's friendship with Charles Barkley. |
| 0:28.2 | Jane Levy will also be here to discuss her Babe Ruth biography, The Bigfella, |
| 0:33.4 | and ESPN's Joel Anderson will help us assess the 30 for 30 documentary, 42 to 1, on Buster Douglas' shocking win over Mike Tyson. |
| 0:45.1 | Joining me in our Washington, D.C. studio is Stefan Fatsis, author of the book's Word Freak and A Few Seconds of Panic. |
| 0:53.5 | Happy holidays, Stefan. We're allowed to say |
| 0:58.4 | happy holidays on this show, Josh. The War on Holidays has not yet reached the Washington |
| 1:04.3 | DC studio of Hang Up and Listen. I just want to give you a heads up, Stefan, that we are recording |
| 1:09.5 | this week show in advance. Thanks for letting me, that we are recording this week's show in advance. |
| 1:11.4 | Thanks for letting me know. |
| 1:12.5 | Yep. |
| 1:13.3 | Also, next week's show we're recording in advance, so do not come to the studio on New Year's Eve. |
| 1:21.0 | Next week is our call-in show. |
| 1:23.6 | I will not be giving out the phone number. |
| 1:25.5 | I do not want to encourage more people to call because by the time you would call, it would be too late. But it's going to be good. We got a lot of really good calls. So congratulations. I want to call and leave a message for us. It's always nice to hear from everybody, especially during the holiday season. It is. Why don't you call? You never write. You never call. But for those of you who did |
| 1:45.8 | write and did call, we love you, most of all. When I woke up on Saturday, December 15th, |
| 1:52.6 | every person on the internet was reading and listening to the same story. Eric Umanski of |
| 1:58.5 | ProPublica tweeted, this is the best story ever. Ohio Governor John |
| 2:03.5 | Kaysich tweeted, what a great story. This really represents the best of America. |
| 2:09.0 | ESPN's Mike Greenberg. I cannot recall the last sports story I read that touched me more than this one did. |
... |
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