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The Intelligence from The Economist

The Weekend Intelligence: Baseball at the border

The Intelligence from The Economist

The Economist

News, Daily News, Global News

4.6 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sarah Birke and Aryn Braun report frequently on tensions at the border between America and Mexico—even more so during a year in which both countries have elections. But rarely do you hear from the people who experience life on the border every day, and learn how that has changed.


In this episode of the Weekend Intelligence Sarah and Aryn tell the story of the world’s only professional bi-national baseball team, Los Tecolotes de los dos Laredos. It is a tale of a team—and a community—striving for the fronterizo way of life.



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the weekend intelligence. You're listening to a free episode.

0:04.5

To listen every week you'll need to be a subscriber.

0:07.5

For a free trial of Economist Podcasts plus, click on the link in the show notes

0:12.0

or just search Economist podcasts in your very favorite

0:15.0

search engine.

0:20.1

The Economist. For a lot of you, this song is going to conjure up a scene with great clarity.

0:37.0

For those of you who have not had the joy of peanuts and cracker jack, let me just tell you that

0:45.2

baseball is central to the American self-conception.

0:49.6

Other sports are more

0:53.7

elemental, like American football, but baseball is the one called America's pastime,

0:56.0

the one that feels more elemental somehow.

0:58.9

Also, Cracker Jack is caramel-coated popcorn.

1:01.6

It's nice. Now, lots of other countries love baseball, like Japan,

1:06.3

South Korea, lots of Caribbean nations, and of course America's neighbor to the South,

1:11.6

a neighbor with whom relations have been strained recently, to put it lightly.

1:16.0

They're sending prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients, and terrorists the worst they have in every country all over the world this isn't just in South America

1:25.6

the border will be a deciding factor in the American election this year

1:29.4

it's constantly in the spotlight the crack through which so many Americans only see illegal migrants and drugs and violence spilling in.

1:38.0

But you know what else is coming and going all the time with no trouble at all?

1:42.0

A Mexican baseball team.

1:44.0

I'm Jason Palmer and this is the weekend intelligence.

1:50.0

My colleagues Aaron Braun and Sarah Burke come at the border from two perspectives,

...

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