Kansas City Profiles Presented by Easton Roofing-Far From Your Average Joe-Joe Posnanski Revisited

The ever prolific Joe Posnanski this week announced the release of his new book "Big Fan" with his good friend Michael Schur, making it a perfect time to revisit our conversation from earlier this year when he released his previous book "Why We Love Baseball". We discuss that and then reprise his full Profile and life story from a couple of years back. Funny, engaging, and a remarkable storyteller, including his own. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Danny Klinkscale Reasonably Irreverent podcast, insightful and
witty commentary, probing interviews and detours from the beaten path.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Kansas City Profiles presented by Easton Roofing, and
another timely catch up with Joe Posnansky. Of course, you
know him from a wide variety of things a long
time here in Kansas City as a great columnist, and
he has done all kinds of things, written many books,
and he's got a new one coming up, and he's
going to be appearing here in Kansas City, and we
will talk about that in just a minute. And of

(00:37):
course you can catch him on a regular basis at
Joe Bloggs and his website and we'll talk about that
here in a minute as well. I am a subscriber
and enjoy it very much and look forward to it.
I wanted to start off differently. The Baseball book is
coming out, and we'll get into that in the specifics
of it here in the second. But I guess you

(00:58):
and I were probably not Kindred spear. It's in many things.
I guess you're far more accomplished person than I am,
but we do both share a love of baseball, and
you write a lot about baseball, probably more than any
other sport. I like baseball more than any other sport.
And are we just dinosaurs, Joe?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I hope not. Not with not with a book called
Why We Love Baseball? I hope, I hope there are
a few of us out there, right. You know, look,
we we we all know the things that are going
on with baseball and and how it's always a struggle
to get young people interested in the game, and how
many people will tell you it's boring and it doesn't

(01:44):
fit the time, and this, that and the other. But
you know, one of the things I thought about, and
one of the things that that sort of led me
to this book, is this is this quitsire of whether
we're even looking at that right because fall yes, of course,
all of the you know, everything everybody says about baseball

(02:05):
and the pace and this and that and the other,
although the pace obviously has picked up this day with
the with the clock. But everything they say is true
to to an extent. But here's the thing, like they've
as been around for one hundred and fifty years, and
nothing else has nothing, no, no other part of like

(02:27):
American culture, American life is one hundred and fifty years old.
There's this is it's kind of singular. And somehow generations
keep finding the game and keep loving the game. And
and I think that's probably much more amazing than the
fact that that baseball has challenges to find new people

(02:51):
and it's it's it's had to find new generations for
you know, since since since the Civil War. So so
I don't I don't think we're dinosaurs. I think there
are there are many among us, and and and this
game keeps keeps selling our imaginations.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, I have been encouraged this year, and you know,
the pace of baseball is great and everything, but I
start my day reading a bunch of box scores and
thankfully ESPN has started over the last year or so.
Including attendance. Again, I'm kind of an attendance geek. And
you know, here in Kansas City, obviously we have a
bad ball club and attendance isn't very good, but even
sometimes during the summer they get some nice crowds. Tampa's

(03:31):
actually drawing this year. But when you look around baseball
this year, over and over again, you see huge crowds,
and you know, in each individual market, baseball may not
be able to draw big numbers for a you know,
Braves Cardinals game from people who aren't Braves and Cardinals fans.
But those ballparks are full.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah yeah, I mean attendance is up what almost almost
ten percent across the game, which is which is incredible.
I mean it admittedly it is after a bit of
a fall, and and after COVID, you know, certainly changed
a lot of things, but people are coming to the
ballpark and people are watching the games locally on television.

(04:11):
It's not the national game that the NFL is, but
locally it's it's huge. It's it's still it's still gigantic.
There's there's a lot of interest in baseball. And I
think baseball has suffered from the fact that it was
once the big dog, right it was the only game
in town for so many years and so dominant over

(04:34):
football and basketball and and everything else, and and those
sports have found bigger audiences. In the NFL, you know,
in particular, has has become you know, the biggest, the
biggest monster out there, and baseball has suffered, you know,
by comparison. But we still like this game. It's it's

(04:54):
still it's still amazing, and you know, people like Shoheotani
come along, uh and and Bobby Witt Junior by the way,
you know, Kansas City. And it's like the game is reborn.
I mean it's it's still it's still a pretty great game.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It is indeed a great game. And you wrote a
great book about it last year and in the past
couple of years, about the one hundred greatest players in baseball.
And it's a fabulous, fabulous read, and each chapter is
about a different one and it's far from just so
he hit so many home runs and great narratives and everything.
And now you've chosen to talk about baseball history in

(05:32):
a book called Why We Love Baseball, A History in
Fifty Moments. So again you've used the template of a
numeric amount of things that will be at the hundred
greatest players or fifty great moments. How did you come
about going about it this way?

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, this was you know, I mean, of course it's
definitely a you know, I fat off off the baseball
one hundred is an idea, but this one ended up
being a little bit different. You know. It is, you know,
called history in fifty moments there and I count down

(06:09):
fifty you know, most magical moments in baseball history. But
there are a lot more moments than fifty books. There
are like one hundred and eight moments in the book
is what I counted, which I love, And what, you know,
what I wanted to do is I started in a
different premise, like with the Baseball one hundred, I wanted
to write about the greatest players in baseball history. In

(06:31):
this one, I really it comes to the title. I
wanted to write about why baseball still captures our imaginations
the way it does. And to me, it came down
to these spine tingling moments, to these incredible statistical achievements,
to baseball movies. To you know, so there's so many

(06:53):
reasons why baseball captures us and and I found that
the best way to do that, I think, was to
have it be a countdown of these moments and sort
of take you through the game and have these moments
be super super famous moments, right like you know, the
Willie Mays catch or whatever, and then moments that I

(07:17):
would hope and imagine that even the most hardcore baseball
fan has never heard of. And I wanted it to
be this mix of those things. And I'm obviously very
excited about the way it came out and I can't
wait for people to see it.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
And it's coming out officially. You can pre order now
and we can get into the mechanics of that. But
you're coming to Kansas City to do a book signing
and presentation with Mike Sure why We Love Baseball. It'll
be through Rainy Day Books. It's at the Unity Temple
on the Plaza Sanctuary on Friday, September eighth at seven pm.

(07:53):
I imagine you've got you've sold out many of these
events already. Where do we stand here in Kansas City?
And can people still go?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
People can still go, but tickets are, I am told,
absolutely flying off the shelves, which is I can't believe
how exciting this is. The Kansas City one is going
to be obviously really special because Kansas City is very
special to me. But I'm bringing my Sure, my buddy
who people will know as you know, he's the guy

(08:23):
who created parks and recreation in Brooklyn ninety nine and
co created some of those and the Good Place, and
he's my podcast partner. He's one of my closest friends.
And we're gonna have a great time. I mean, it's
just gonna be so much fun talking baseball and with
him and so so. Yes, people can absolutely all. The

(08:47):
price of admission is buying the book. You can buy
it at Randy Y Books. A lot of people pre ordered,
I mean a lot of people, I'm not gonna lie
to you, a lot of pre ordered through Rainy Day.
If you're one of those people, you can literally just
call the store and they'll get you a ticket to
the event. But it is, it is filling up. I've

(09:12):
been told it is filling up.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, it should be a fabulous presentation and everybody will
be looking forward to that. And you're doing a lot
of these. I know you're very busy. I don't think
people really almost comprehend how much work an author does
to promote a book of this level.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean this one. Look, this is my
seventh book, and I would say, and I say this,
it is a blessing to be able to do this.
I mean, the book business is super hard. So it's
a blessing. But I am I've got twenty two cities
on my tour now, plus all of the you know,

(09:54):
the many many, many media interviews. It is going to
be you know, two three acts of anything I've never
done before for a book, for promoting it, because the
opportunities are there and people are excited about this book
and that makes me feel incredible. But yeah, you know,
it's one of those things where you feel like, hey,

(10:15):
I wrote this book. It took so much of me,
so much time, so much effort, and you realize, you know, hey,
you're only getting started now. You know. Now you've got
to go out and sell the book.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Absolutely you do. And also your home now is your website,
and you write a lot and people can subscribe and
you also include, like yesterday, stories from others that you admire,
and it's fabulous website, great place to be tell us
for the uninitiated or those who should get more initiated

(10:51):
about that enterprise which is going so well.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, yeah, I would love for people to come on over.
It's called Joe Blogs and it's just me writing about
or thinking about or as you mentioned yesterday, I wrote
a i UH. I was given the opportunity to present
an incredible story about Japanese baseball and the internment camps,
so that that you can find on there uh and

(11:17):
it's free. There are posts that are are behind a paywall. Uh,
so you can subscribe, uh to to to get those,
but it is free, uh and there are lots of
free posts in there, and it's just uh, you know
that the address is just basically Joe Posnanski dot sub
stack dot com. Uh. You can actually just go to

(11:39):
my website Joe Posnanski dot com and and and go there,
uh directly uh to my to my newsletter. Uh and
you just get it in your email and uh, it's
it's it's gone really really well. I've been I've been
thrilled by the response people have had to it, and
and uh, it's great fun for me because you know,

(11:59):
I think you know, you know, Danny, you and I
have known each other for many many years now. You
know all I do is write basically. Basically, I write
and spend time with my daughters who are off to college.
So so all I have left now is to right
this is basically my whole life.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
It is very exciting time for you. You know, we've
seen in following you the senior daughters grow through the years,
and it must be a very exciting change of lifetime
for you.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's it's really exciting for for Margot and I. I
mean this week this week that I'm talking to right now.
We said we loaded up our older daughter for college yesterday.
We're spent taking our younger daughter to who our first
year of college on Saturday. So we are we are
smack dab in the middle of this very emotional and

(12:51):
exciting time. We're so excited for both of them, and
and obviously we're going to be empty nesters and going
to miss them, and I expect it's tears to come.
And then I've got a book and my wife is
going to join me on a bunch of the tour,
so we're going to sort of be exploring our whole
new life together with this. So it's it's it really

(13:14):
is a great time.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And if you want to hear about the old times
of Joe Posnansky, we sat down with him for a
lengthy profile conversation last year and that's going to come
your way next.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
More of Danny's Reasonably Irreverend podcast after.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
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Speaker 2 (14:00):
We're here at the twenty third Street Brewery with Matt
Llewellen all the time. There's exciting things going on, new
water feature, new beers, and this fall football is back
in Lawrence and that's cool.

Speaker 5 (14:11):
Football back in Lawrence. Can you imagine that we actually
had to endure a year without it. Well, it is back.
It's back on campus. We're so happy that they're here,
just like years past. We offer a free shuttle coming
from the twenty third Stree Brewery an hour and a
half before game time. We partner with the Boys and
Girls Club to do that, so it's helping a good
cause also, so come in to the brewery early before

(14:32):
the game. Free shuttle to and from the football game.
We love to have you out here. Excited to have
the Jayhawks back in town where they belong.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Great food, great beers, great fun during football season at
the twenty third Street Brewery twenty third and Castle in Lawrence.
We're here with doctor Brad Wihell from Advanced Sports and
Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Staying active and being active is
part of a healthy lifestyle and something to make you happy,
but also maintaining the level of fitness so that you

(15:00):
can do it is important.

Speaker 6 (15:01):
We all want to perform better, whether we're ten moving
on to our next level of sports or whether we're
fifty wanting to maintain those sports. Staying in motion is
the key, but that motion isn't just the only part.
If our motion isn't balanced with our muscles, with our
joints and communicating through the nervous system, we are not
staying well. And that's where chiropractic can change your life.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
And you have all kinds of things here at the
clinics to do that.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
Lots of different touches and techniques. So if you're used
to traditional chiropractic, you are going to be amazed at
all the many different touches, techniques, therapies and state of
the art equipment that helps you perform better.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Advanced sports and Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture eight locations all
around the Kansas City area, so there's one near you
and you can stay fit, be fit, be happy, and
do all that at the eight locations of ASFCA. If
you'd like to join these and other fine sponsors and
market your business to Kansas City's number one variety, contact

(16:01):
us at Danny at Danny clinkscale dot com. Look forward
to working with you, Joe. One of the most enjoyable
things about doing the personality profiles at Kansas City Profiles
presented by Eastern Roofing is digging into the person's background
and such. And what it has been a joy for
me is it has just accelerated the amount of time

(16:21):
that I have spent reading Joe Posnansky, which I do anyway,
and trying to find some things about your background and such.
But the person who is the subject always the best
thing for that. But reading about your dad and your
mom and your grandmom has been a pleasure. You're grew
up in the Cleveland, Ohio area, So tell me about

(16:42):
young Joe Posnansky.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, well, not a lot of not a lot of
stuff to tell about the young Joe Posnansky Danny, but
plenty of going on with my parents. You know. So,
as you have seen or read, my parents were both
born in the Soviet Union. I was actually I am
a true first generation American. Uh. My parents moved to

(17:09):
the United States about three years two and a half
years before I was born, and so I was truly
raised as a as a first generation American, which was
which was a very cool, uh and wonderful experience. Both
my parents are still are still with us and and

(17:32):
uh and lived not too far away. So uh So
that's uh, you know, I think that it's it's very
interesting to be raised that way. I mean, my parents
were born in the Soviet Union. They're from they're really
from Poland. They had gone to the Soviet Union to
uh escape during the war their families did. They were
both born during World War two and uh and so

(17:54):
you know, so I was really raised learning about America
sort of at the same time that they were learning
about America. You know, for me, obviously that that revolves
around sports. And I was sort of learning about baseball
when my dad was was learning about baseball, learning about
football when my dad was learning about football. So you know,

(18:16):
I know that that's A very big part of you know,
how how it all worked out for me was that,
you know, I was I was raised by very curious
parents who were, you know, sort of seeing seeing all
these things that I was seeing for the first time.
A lot of them they were seeing for the first
time as well.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Dad was a very hard working man. He worked in
a factory, and you know that your Father's Day thing
that you wrote a couple of years ago about discovering
his various talents just sort of randomly, and then he
would do something spectacular like juggle or shoot things at
a carnival or or whatever. What what was that like?

(18:57):
And also what was his his assimilation to the United
States like and what maybe sent Were there any challenges
there or any things that, you know, as far as
the language or things like that.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, I mean I don't remember very much in that way.
My dad, both my parents have very thick accents, and
you know, I'm sure that had some effect, but it
wasn't anything I was aware of. You know. I always
knew my dad as this incredibly hard working guy who

(19:31):
worked six days a week and in a factory, and
I've written about this. I spent one summer working in
a factory with my dad, you know, when I was
in high school, and one summer was enough to tell
me what what what a life he had lived for us,
And you know, and and I would say that that

(19:55):
all of us, you know, I have two brothers, and
I would say that we really were the center of
his life, you know, I mean, like he it was
always very clear that he worked very hard to give us,
you know, opportunities. You know. That was sort of what
was the driving force of my childhood was was both

(20:17):
my parents. My mom didn't start working until later. She
went back to college and got a computer a degree,
a degree in programming and became a computer programmer. But
that was when I was in high school. So when
I was really growing up in Cleveland, you know, it
was it was my dad just you know, getting up

(20:37):
at five point thirty in the morning every morning and
heading to work and coming home at you know, three
thirty or four and and and you know, then going
out in the backyard and playing catch or taking us
to the pool or or or something. You know, it
was always something there was always some activity, usually around

(20:58):
sports that that that he was driving. And my mom
was you know, very much from a different perspective. She
was not a sports fan at all and still isn't,
but she loved movies and television and and sort of
pop culture, and so so that was, you know, it
was it was, you know, we we didn't have anything.

(21:20):
We we were you know, we didn't have a lot
of money obviously, and and and it was very difficult
at times to make against me. But you know, I'm
sure it's the ultimate cliche. We never knew that, right right,
there was food on the table, and my mom would
take us to a matinee movie on the weekends, and
and my dad would play catch with us in the backyard,
and and you know, we felt like we had everything.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
You are always describe your your sports exploits and self
deprecating fashion. But you loved sports and loved to go
to games and love to participate as well. Not at
a high level, as you would say, but what what
was your participation level and how much did you enjoy it?

Speaker 3 (21:59):
I loved it. I absolutely loved playing. I was you know,
I can be self deprecating because I was pretty bad,
but you know, I I was you know, I played,
I played baseball and played it at you know, I
was I was a Little League All Star. I mean,
I don't know what means. You know, so I was
a pretty good fielder. I I did take a lot

(22:21):
of pride. I would spend many many hours in the
basement throwing a ball against a brick wall and and
uh and fielding. I took a lot of pride in
my defense. I don't know how good I was. I wasn't,
you know, super good. I couldn't hit, but I loved
it and I played all the time. But I played everything.
I mean, that was sort of what it was like
for us, right, you know, our our our age. You know,

(22:44):
we didn't concentrate on any one sport. Uh. You know,
so I played. I was very small, I was I
was always the smallest kid in my class. So but
I played football, I played basketball, I played uh you know,
uh soccer in a limited for and later I started
playing tennis, in which I actually was probably was my

(23:05):
best sport. I played tennis in high school, but you
know it was it was always out of pure love.
I would say. By the time I was twelve years old,
I had sort of figured out that I wasn't going
to be able to play professionally in any sport, and
it was I was going to have to figure out
something else to do.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
You talk about going to games in your obsession with
the Browns and the Indians now Guardians, obviously, but you
say it, you write about it and talk about it
in the fashion of you weren't thinking about it as
something you were going to write about or spend your
time about. When did that start to generate for you?

Speaker 3 (23:45):
You know, it's it's really interesting. I guess I used to,
you know, my mom was actually reminding me this of
this not so long ago. I guess I used to
scribble out little about, uh about sports, just for fun,
not not for anything. Like I'd get bored and I

(24:07):
would just write like a little football preview or something,
you know, for for the game. I mean, sometimes i'd
even do that during class. But I just I, you know,
it's hard to describe, you know, now that things have
turned out, you know, to to to be pretty good.
I just didn't think that was a realistic option for me.

(24:28):
I just I didn't think I had any ability as
a writer. I had never been told by anybody that
that I had any ability as a writer. I was
not a particularly good student. I was certainly not a
particularly good English student. I never had a single English
teacher say to me like, hey, you know you ought
to you ought to write more. You've you've got some

(24:48):
you got some talent here. I just so so if
somebody had told me, you know, when I was ten
or eleven, hey, you know, realistically you could be a
sports writer, I probably would have all already really gotten
into that possibility. I just it just seemed so like, well,
I can't do that, Like that's not something that I

(25:09):
have the talent or ability to do. So if it
was in in, it really wasn't until college, and and
it really wasn't until I, you know, realized that I
was not going to become an accountant like I had
like I had hoped when I when I started college,
that I just wrote a bunch of letters to a

(25:29):
bunch of different people, and you know, just asking for
advice and and and you know that I did not
have writing as a particularly high you know thing on
my list. I wrote to you know, radio people and
television people and and you know people and completely you know,
unrelated non sports fields. But one of the people who

(25:52):
roll back to me was the sports editor of the
Charlotte Observer. I was already we were living in Charlotte
by then, and the sports editor the Charlotte Observer said,
you know, we send out people like you to go
to a high school football games or play high school
basketball games and will pay them twenty bucks or something
if you want to write like a little a little story,
you know, and we have these people to do that.

(26:14):
And I'd never heard of that. I didn't know that
that was a possibility or anything like that. But once
I did it, you know, the first time I was,
I guess a sophomore in college. I was nineteen years old.
And once I did that, I was like, Wow, this
is what I want to do with my life. I mean,
it happened incredibly fast. Once I realized it was like

(26:38):
a viable, real possibility, I was like, yeah, this is
exactly what I want to do.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Just to move back just a little bit besides your
obsession with sports and eventually getting into writing as what
was your life like as a teenager?

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Oh? I was pretty much and this will sound self deprecating,
but I don't needed to be because it's one hundred
percent tru. I was pretty much your cliche high school loser.
I was. I just wasn't good at anything, you know.
I mean I see my daughter's uh you know, one
is through high school, one is still in high school.

(27:15):
And and I realized how important it is in high
school to sort of feel like you're good at something,
you know, whatever it is, you know, whether it's theater
or or music, or art or sports, or or be
a good student or being you know, there's like a
million things you can be good at. And I just
wasn't good at any of those things and didn't feel

(27:38):
like I could be good at anythus and then I
was afraid to put myself out. You know. We moved
when I was in high school, and and you know,
everybody will tell you that's that's the worst time to move,
and uh, it probably was for me. You know, you
had to just sort of start over and figure things
out completely in a new way. So, you know, I

(27:59):
just didn't I had friends. I mean, it wasn't like
I was friendless or anything. And I was completely overmatched
when it came to you know, girls at that point
in my life. And so I was just you know,
I really felt like I just I just remember feeling

(28:21):
very unhappy in high school because I just didn't know
my place. I just didn't know what I could do.
And you know, it wasn't I would. I would still.
I played a lot of sports, you know, for fun.
Uh And I don't know if that's as much of
an option now as it used to be, you know,
And it said out it seems like if you play sports,

(28:43):
you've got to play it on on some sort of
official level. I mean, you know, we just we had
constant you know, basketball games, after school football games, after
school baseball games. I did play high school tennis.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
So I played a lot of sports, and and I
just sort of meandered my way by in my classes.
And I had a few friends. I mean, it was
but it was definitely I definitely felt lost a lot
of the time.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Tell me, tell me about that. What was the reason
you moved and what year was it.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
We moved in nineteen eighty one, and it literally was
my dad found a factory, a better factory job in Charlotte.
He went to work for a place called Alisa, which
was a sweater factory, a factory that made sweater material
for you know, various stores and and and he his

(29:39):
job was like fixing and running the machinery. That was
his job. So he You know, my dad has all
sorts of talents, as you mentioned earlier, and one of
those is he could fix anything. He just he just
had that ability to be able to fix anything. So
so there were these certain machines that he could that

(30:00):
very few people actually could. So. Uh So they called
him from from Elisa. He'd been working on these machines,
and they said, we want you to come down here,
and it was you know, it was a pretty big
it was a pretty big break for us. I mean,
I'm sure he was still not making very much money,
but he was making quite a bit more, I think,
than than he had been in Cleveland when we were

(30:23):
just sort of scraping by.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right, what year of high school was it when you
had to make that adjustment?

Speaker 3 (30:28):
So it was ninth grade. It was at the end
of my ninth grade year, and so I was literally
going right into high school. But it was my high
school in Cleveland. Ninth grade was high school here when
I came to Charlotte, Uh, it was I spent one
more year in junior high or a half a year,
I guess in junior high, and then uh and then
went to the big high school. And it was a much, much,

(30:49):
much bigger high school than than I had gone to
in Cleveland. So it was it was pretty eye opening,
you know, just culture shock and and so many more people,
and you know, feeling feeling, you know, like the South
was completely foreign to me. I mean it was. There
was definitely a lot of.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Culture shock and to get back to where we were.
Did you sort of feel like you found yourself in
a certain way when you discovered that this writing thing
could work.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, no, no question about it. I you know, I was
in and I would say it started in college. I
had the first I had the first professor I ever had,
first teacher I ever had who sort of told me
that I had a talent, you know, I just I
think that's so important to hear. And and I had

(31:42):
a teacher. It was an English teacher. I switched majors
to English, and and I guess by that point I
had already started writing for the for the newspaper in
a very limited way, but you know, I was writing.
I remember writing a paper in a class and having
the teacher really tell me how you know, good it was,

(32:03):
and how talented it was I was, and and and
really just sort of opened my eyes to opportunities and
by then I started working at the school paper. And
so yeah, then I sort of felt like, hey, I
I found my way. I still was incredibly nervous because
now I had something I wanted to do, and I
just didn't know if I was good enough to do it.

(32:25):
Like I at that point, I already had the prize, right,
I wanted to be a sports writer. I wanted to
be able to make a living doing this, and and
I just didn't know that I was smart enough or
talented enough or good enough to do it. And and
you know, looking back, it was the wrong thing, because

(32:47):
basically what I needed to know is if you work
hard enough, you could you could do it right. And
so so that was you know, I did work hard.
I mean that was I had found what I wanted
to do, and that really just sort of sprouted. Everything
sprouted at that point, and I just started, you know, okay,
this is it. And I dedicated myself and I worked.

(33:09):
I did work very very very hard to get better
and and and uh and and make this, uh, make
this a real living.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
You went to North Carolina Charlotte. Did you live at
home when you went to college or did you live
in to college?

Speaker 3 (33:23):
I lived at home. For for most of it, I
lived at home and then uh then when I got
sort of a full time job, uh at the Charlotte Observer.
I was working in a bureau in rock Hill, South Carolina,
so I in fact it was it was there was
it was a weird and kind of interesting experiment. They

(33:44):
the newspaper had decided to start these bureaus and all
of these different cities and they were going to create
like a special daily newspaper for those cities. So there
there are a few cities around Charlotte like Hickory and
kill with some others, and they were going to challenge
the local paper. That was what the what the Observer

(34:05):
was doing. And actually, looking back at it, it was
kind of a cruel. It was sort of a Walmart
like move. They were trying to run these little papers out.
But one of the one of the stipulations for them
giving me the job, because I was twenty years old,
nineteen twenty years old and they were giving me a
full time reporting job, and one of the stipulations was
I had to live in rock Hill. So that was

(34:28):
when I moved out of the house. Was when I
had to get an apartment in rock Hill, South Carolina
in order to in order to get my first job.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
And your first job was at the Charlotte Observer. And
did you kind of get you said you were nervous
and everything else. Did you kind of get the feeling
that you had started to take yet another step in
this journey?

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Definitely? I definitely. I mean I was still nervous, you know,
and I don't know that that's ever gone completely away,
but I was nervous. Then I already had the job,
but I wanted it to be a better job, right like,
then you start getting your ambitions. So my first job was,

(35:08):
you know, covering high school sports, local sports. The idea
of the bureau was to basically blanket rock Hill. So
write about everything right about literally write about softball, right
about like local golf events. I mean like literally write
about everything, which I thought was you know, that was fine,
but that wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted

(35:29):
to write columns. I wanted to write about big things,
and so so for me then it was just a
you know, hey, can I can I go cover South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
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of Danny's Reasonably Your Reverend podcast after this.

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Speaker 2 (37:24):
Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered
Investment Advisor member FINRA sipc our guest is Joe Posnanski
is a fabulous writer. He obviously has his own blog
now the location where you can find all kinds of
things that he does. He's written on so many different platforms,
as his own podcast has a perfect name to call

(37:45):
it something cool like a podcast and all that other
good stuff. He recently published the book The Baseball one hundred,
which sits next to me, and I wanted to tell
this story so I don't forget it before we finish
the podcast. Of course, I was written many other books
that we'll get into here in a minute, but I
read I've just about completed your book, but I have

(38:06):
not read your book sequentially. I sort of read it
to bouncing around and you know, one chapter and then
I go back and i'd search for a player I
was really interested in, and so on and so forth.
So I'd probably read about forty players at this point
in time. And I was on vacation. I was at
a friend's house over New Year's and I was laying

(38:26):
down for the afternoon, and I was going to read
your book for a little while and then take a
nap before the evening's festivities. It was New Year's Eve,
as a matter of fact, and I thought to myself,
you know what, I haven't seen Lefty Grove yet. And
I am like the biggest Lefty Grove fan in the
history of Lefty Grove fans, you know, and which in

(38:48):
the end came full circle. So I'm like, my where's Lefty?
And I'm so, I'm you know, bopping around and I'm
still not finding Lefty Grove. So I said, well, I'll
look at the index. Well, the index does not include
the actual chapter of the person if they are one
of the one hundred. It just says where else Lefty

(39:08):
Grove would be mentioned. And I'm like, you got to
be kidding me. He Lefty Grove. It might be seen.
It is ninety ninth and Lefty Grove isn't even ranked.
I mean, what the Joe must have lost his mind.
He can't And so I'm literally saying, you know, I'm
going to talk to Joe. My nap is ruined. I
would literally wouldn't have been able to sleep. And I

(39:30):
tried to nap and I couldn't. And then I picked
up the book again and lo and behold, I opened
it up and there's Lefty Grove at I think twenty two.
I believe he is right. And you wrote all the
things that I say basically about Lefty Grove, which is
that while he's one of the greats of the game,
he's undervalued, so on and so forth. I won't get
into it. People can read your book and basically pair

(39:51):
it everything I just said. But the abject terror I
was feeling because I have so much respect for you,
and I'm like, I can't believe this. This is astonishing
that Joe has time banked Lefty Grove in the top
one hundred. But indeed he did. And my evangelical feelings
about Lefty Grove will only continue and are cemented by Joe.

(40:14):
But to read the book, it's absolutely fabulous. And now
we'll get back to where we should be going, which
is the story of Joe Poznansky. But it's a fabulous book, Joe,
and I congratulate you on it, and thanks for ranking
Lefty Grove and you even said you maybe should have
done it ranked him a little higher.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Well, I think you there is an argument to be
made the Lefti Grove is the greatest picture everything. Yes, yes,
I think it's and I think it's a viable argument.
I mean I think there. I think that might have
been the chapter where I talked about that. I think
there are maybe ten players pictures in baseball history who
have a viable argument for the for the to be
named number one all time. I think that's it was

(40:51):
either that chapter or maybe he was. But maybe he
was Walter Johnson or or Pete Alexander or Maddox, I
can't remember, But I believe there are are like ten
pictures in baseball history who, like you, can argue where
it was the greatest ever. You know, and see Tom
Seaver and Pedro and Randy Johnson and Clemens if you

(41:13):
want to go there. But it's a very very short list,
and I think Lefty Group is absolutely one of those guys.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
So you are trying to push the envelope a little bit.
At the Charlotte Observer, did you come to a point
where you just decided that you had to move on
in order to increase or were their different circumstances.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
No, it was it was absolutely. I just got it
was somebody who I had worked with at the at
the Observer, a guy named Dennis Adamka had become the
editor of the Augusta Chronicle, and he called me and said, look,
we're looking for a sports columnist. And I was twenty
four years old, and you just don't get that opportunity

(41:53):
to become a sport you know, at that time, particularly
to become a sports columnist to twenty four even for
you know, a smaller paper, and especially a smaller paper
that happens to have one of the world's greatest sporting events,
you know. So so it was truly, I mean, everybody
the Observer told me I had to go. I mean,
it wasn't like it was anything I love, I loved
being an Observer, but it was you know the next step.

(42:15):
And and so I went down to Augusta, Georgia. And
I was there for three years and learned a million
things and made a million mistakes, and and uh, it
was it was incredible. I mean it was incredible. I
mean that to get that kind of opportunity at that time,
I mean it was I remember, you know, I mean

(42:38):
I was I was pushing the envelope a lot at
the Observer, trying to figure out, you know, where to
go next. And and one of the people I had
talked to was the sports editor of the Washington Post.
And he called me, or I don't remember if he
called me. I'm sure I called him. He wouldn't have
called me. I called him to sort of say that
I was taking his job at Augusta Chronicle, and and

(43:02):
he said, if you want to be a columnist, which
is all I wanted to do, this is the greatest
opportunity you'll ever get. It's like, this is don't don't
you know go for an NBA job or an NFL job,
or a baseball job, or like, if you want to
be a columnist, be a columnist, and this you'll never
get a better opportunity. So I was very very lucky,

(43:23):
is what I was.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Three years there? What was the next step along the way,
and what were the reasons behind it?

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Yeah? Three years there, and then I was offered a
columnst job at Cincinnati, at the Cincinnati Post, which was
the afternoon paper there. And it was again, you know,
virtually every step, and especially in those days, was was
a very clear step. You know, it was the opportunity
to write a column, not only a daily sports column,

(43:51):
but to do one in a major league sports town,
baseball town, football town with great college basketball, and I
mean it was it was you know, absolutely no a
no brainer for me. And that was amazing. You know,
that was amazing. And I would have and I loved
it at the Post and I would have been happy
to stay at the Post forever. But unfortunately, afternoon papers

(44:16):
we're dying very very fast, and it was very clear
that the Post was was not long for this world.
And and that's when I got the call from the
Kansas City Star.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Talk about coming to Kansas City. You developed such a
love affear for it and in your time here, But
how much familiarity did you have with Kansas City and
talk about the move to come here.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah, virtually none. It's it's really amazing when I think
about how much I love Kansas City and how much
it's become a part of my you know, heart, and
and all of that that I'm pretty sure. The first
time I was ever there was the day I came
to interview from my job and and I remember very
vividly it was a Sunday that I came. And it

(45:00):
was this Sunday in September, and this was ninety six
that I came to interview. I guess, so, you know
the Chiefs. This was already right smack dab in the
middle of the Carl Peterson Marty Schottenheimer Chiefs when the
when the uh, you know, the season ticket waiting list

(45:22):
was like whatever, thirty thousand people or forty thousand people
just on the waiting list. And I came in and
the town was just buzzing. I don't remember who they
were playing, but it was buzzing. And I remember feeling
shocked because I did not realize what a good football
town Kansas City was. Like I like, I knew the
Chiefs were the Chiefs, and they were fine. I was

(45:43):
covering football, you know, a lot with the Bengals in Cincinnati,
and I just sort of thought of Kansas City and
the Chiefs is just another place. And I did not
you know, that day was like very eye opening, like wow,
this is really a passionate sports town. And I, you know,
I did not. I did not appreciate that at all.

(46:03):
So completely completely new eyes when I came to Kansas City.
And you know I've told this story before. I probably
told you this before. The first thing that I did
when I got to Kansas City was going too the
archives of the Kansas City Star down in the basement
and just read like a million old stories, right, just

(46:25):
read all of the all of the Joe McGuff and
and and you know, coverage of the chief super Bowl
and the Royals glory years and the Kansity Kings and
k U and k State Missouri and and try to
just give myself a crash course because I was I
felt like I was coming into something I didn't know
anything about.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
And when you how quickly did you take to Kansas
City and start to discover its its joys and and
and what was it like at the Star in those times,
because that's you know, newspapers are still in full full
flow at that point in time.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Absolutely, it was. I would say I fell in love
pretty quickly with Kansas City. I I just it's just
it just I felt like the people were First of all,
I felt so welcomed, you know. I mean when I
got when I came to Cincinnati, they did like a
little promotion basically making fun of me from being from

(47:24):
Cleveland and saying, hey, we know he's from Cleveland, but
please read him anyway. I mean basically was the theme.
But I came to Kansas City, and I would say
within just a few weeks, people were like, hey, we
love you man. Stay. I hope you stay. I mean
it was really really interesting. And of course, you know,
I mean look I came in and Jason Willock was

(47:45):
the thing at the at the paper, and and people
loved him, and you know, it was there was there
was no question about it. And I was so different
from Jason, you know that. I think people were like,
this is great. You know, I get Jason's you know thing,
and I get this guy who's like very different, you know,

(48:07):
and and and you know, we can we can love
Jason and hate Joe. We can love Joe and hate Jason.
This is like pretty cool. So so I would say
that was a big part of live. People were so
welcoming when I first got there.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
You mentioned your wife and daughters earlier, and tell me
the story of how you met your wife.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
I said, it's good because it was through the Kansas
City Star. My wife is from a very small town
in Kansas, and she went to Kansas State and kind
of bounced around, and that she got a job working
designing the sports section, helping design the sports section, you know,

(48:45):
not long after I got there, and we actually met
in one of the you know, Kansas State Kansas City
Star basketball games, like we were. She was, as I mentioned,
I'm athletically, I am who I am. So she was.
They had her cover meet, like that's how we met.
That she that she guarded me so so yeah, so

(49:10):
Mardo is you know, she she stated the Star. She
she didn't work that much longer in the sports section.
She actually went into marketing and some other things. But
but we met and we were it was a pretty
whirlwind thing. We were married, you know, within a year,
I guess of us meeting and and uh uh, and
then we moved to you know, and we lived in

(49:31):
different parts of Kansas City. We moved into you know,
the Waldo area, which was great and and uh and
then Elizabeth was born two thousand and one in Kansas
City and Katie was born two thousand and five, So
it was a true Kansas City family story.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
You had such great times there, and you mentioned it
there was a great textaposition between you and Jason Whitlock, obviously,
and you talk about, how, however, developing the relationship with
the Negro League's Museum, which has been so endemic in
your career.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, I mean absolutely crucial. Yeah, I mean the Star,
and I think people in Kansas City know this. There
was a glory period at the Kansas City Star. That
is you know, I mean it's like it's it's reminiscent
of like the great staffs of the you know, the
New York Herald Examiner and the fifties, or the Boston

(50:27):
Globe in the eighties, or the or the Dallas Morning
News and the nineties. I mean the people we had
to run through there, you know, right, Thompson and Jeff
Passing and obviously Jason and all of these people that
you will see, Brandon, Sam Mellinger, and I mean it
was it was an incredible staff, just absolutely incredible and

(50:51):
it seemed like every single person we hired just took
it to a whole other level. So so there was
about a five six seven year period there where it
was we were just rocking. I mean, it was just
wild how how many incredibly talented people had come together

(51:12):
into one place to uh, to create this newspaper all
really run bye by Mike Fann and the sports editor
who is you know now the editor of the paper
and uh and a genius in in so many ways,
and he and Holly Lawton just created this incredible, incredible place.
And Mike Faco was there, you know, Mike Uh, you know,

(51:35):
one of my one of my closest friends now the
countless in the New York Post. Uh, he was there
for a while. It was it was just crazy. So
so yeah, so it was really really special and and
but I always thought Kansas City is so special and
one of the things that made it special and unique
in the country was the Negro Leaguees Baseball Museum and

(51:56):
and very specifically Buck living in town. And you know,
by the time I came to Kansas City, Buck had
already become this national figure because of the Ken Burns
documentary and and and the building of the museum. You know,
they're on eighteenth and Vine, and so obviously I was

(52:18):
wanted to write about it often, and I developed a
relationship with Buck and then and and it just kept
growing and growing, and you know, I tell the story
all the time that one day Buck called me up
and I'd written a lot about him, and he called
me up and he invited me to lunch. And we
went to lunch in the old Peachtree restaurant there on

(52:40):
eighteenth and Vine, right next to the museum, and we talked,
we ate, and then we talked for a little bit,
and then he basically told me that he you know,
what he said was, he goes, somebody needs to write
a book about the Negro leagues that tells the full
story of how much fun it was. You know, He's like,
I understand, and everybody wants to write about the pain

(53:01):
of the of of of of segregation, and that's all
true and all of that, but we just had the
greatest time and somebody needs to write about how much
fun it was and what a great time we had
and how great the players were, and and somebody needs
to write that. He just kept saying that somebody, somebody
needs to write that. And as I've said, I was
the only one there, so it was it was clear

(53:25):
that he wanted me to write this piece, this book.
I had never written a book, and I was interested
in writing one, and I pitched the idea and and
and got it sold. And that book ended up being
The Soul of Baseball, my first book, and and uh,
where I traveled around the country with Buck O'Neil telling
his story and the stories that that he has made

(53:46):
so famous, and and uh and it was, you know,
it was one of the greatest experiences of my life
and and something that uh, you know, I I've written
what five books since then, and they're all special in
their own way, but nothing will ever, you know, be
as important to me as that first book was.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
And that's two thousand and seven. And of course, the
landscape of you mentioned this great time for the Star,
but the landscape of sports journalism is changing. And now
you've written a book, so it looks like you're on
the path to something different. Tell me about that path.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Yeah, I mean, and it's been a path that I've
been on ever since. And you know that's that's the
one thing you didn't expect, right, is that like the
entire landscape of our world would change, right and you know,
whether it's the Internet or other forms of technology, or
or you know, the hunger for different kinds of information,

(54:49):
it was it was clear newspapers and magazines we're taking
to different roads. So in two thousand and eight, I
was called after the Olympics, I was called UH and
and asked to join UH Sports Illustrated, which you know
was it was It was I always say it was
my my ultimate dream, but honestly it was something that

(55:10):
was too big for me to ever even dream when
I was, you know, younger. So they called me and
asked me to to to come for Sports Illustrated, And
it was a very difficult decision even though it was
you know, at that time, Sports Illustrated was still the
you know, it's UH. There's a famous, famous story about

(55:33):
Dan Jenkins when he was working for the newspaper and
Sports Illustrated offered him a job and he came into
the paper and said, sorry, boys, the Yankees called, you know,
so it was it was what do you what are
you going to do? But it was very difficult for
me because I loved Kansas City and I loved what
I was doing. I loved all the people I was
working with, but it was Sports Illustrated, and at that

(55:53):
point the opportunity was too it was too great. And
and I'm you know, I'm thrilled. I spent four years
Sports Illustrated and loved absolutely all of it. It was incredible.
I wrote the back page column I wrote, I wrote
cover stories. I was I you know, was fortunate enough
to be named that national Sports writer of the Year.

(56:15):
I mean, it was. It was one of the great
experiences of my life. And then it's like, well, now
Sports Illustrated is beginning to fade a little bit, and
it's like, what are you gonna do now? And and
uh and so, you know, so other opportunities came along.
Din Man, who was the guy who hired me uh
at the Kansas City Star and is one of my
dearest friends, basically begged me to come join him in

(56:38):
a new venture called Sports on Earth and and help
him get that launched and off the ground.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
So I did that, which was, you know, which was
incredibly fun, uh, but but did not have any legs. Uh.
And then I was offered to be the national columnist
for NBC Sports, which took me all around the world
and and didn't incredible things for me, and I won
two Emmys doing that, which is which is very fun

(57:05):
to have on my mantle. Uh so that people come
in and see. And then and then I worked for MLB.
I went and worked for Major League Baseball. So it
was it was a very it's been bumpy. I mean
like it's every step along the way has been incredibly fun.
And I feel like I'm the luckiest person because I've

(57:25):
never been even for one minute without a great job.
But it's been multiple great jobs as the time has
gone on. And and I didn't see myself that way, right,
I saw myself I was at the Star for twelve years,
thirteen years, and that's what I thought. I just thought, Hey,
I'm gonna go to one place and I'm gonna stay

(57:46):
there forever and it's gonna be great. But that's not
where the landscape took us. And so so now I'm
doing my own thing right and now I'm I'm I'm
writing at Joe Pasnansky dot com. I'm doing a podcast,
I've got writing books. And it's great, I mean, it's
absolutely great. But it's it's just different from what I

(58:09):
expected when I first got into this crazy business.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yeah, and sort of a full circle thing for you
came and you you live in Charlotte now, And how
did that come about?

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Well, my parents stayed here, so at some point, when
I was working for Sports Illustrated, I could live anywhere,
and at some point it just kind of became clear
to us that we wanted the girls to be close
to their grandparents. They were close to Margo's parents in
Kansas City, but it had been a good long while.

(58:43):
I mean, it was twenty twenty plus years since I'd
lived in Charlotte, and so so we moved back here
so that the girls could be close to their grandparents.
And and that was tough. I mean, I you know,
but it was tough. But yet I'm in Kansas City
multiple time times every year. I mean, I still think
of it as home in so many ways. But it

(59:05):
was it was the right thing for us to do.
And I'm you know, the years that the girls have
gotten to spend with my parents have been have been
incredibly precious.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
How did you how did you come about the decision
making for your different books? I mean, You've done everything
from you know, college football coach to golf to Harry Houdini,
How how these projects come about in your head?

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Each one is it's sort of its own crazy story.
I mean, you know, the Buck story. So after Buck,
I wanted to write about baseball again, and and I
wanted to actually wanted to write about my the Cleveland
Indians teams that I grew up rooting for and watching.
But I think anybody who's going to buy that book, like,

(59:53):
who's going to want to read about the nineteen seventy
seven Cleveland Indians. So I but I thought, well, people
will want to read about the nineteen seventy five Cincinnati Reds, like,
and you know, that was a team that I was
certainly always aware of, and you know, was jealous of
living up in Cleveland. And then of course later I
went to work in Cincinnati and got to know and

(01:00:16):
spend a little bit of time with all the player
with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan and
George Foster and all of those guys, And I thought
that would be fun. It'd be fun to go back
and look at that seventy five season and sort of
do almost a day by day of that year. And
that book was a great, great fun And so I
loved doing that. And then that book was, you know,

(01:00:38):
pretty successful. It was an Eeric Times bestseller and and
and so then I was sort of like kind of
in demand. But everybody wanted everybody. I mean, the publishing
house wanted me to write this big, big, sweeping book.
And you know that, I was working at Sports Illustrated
and I went to write a big story about Joe

(01:01:00):
Paterno as he was closing in on the all time
win lead. And I found the guy to be very
interesting and uh, and he loved the piece that I
wrote about him, and his family loved the piece that
I wrote about him, and they they we we just
started talking about the possibility of writing a big biography

(01:01:22):
of Joe Paterno, which obviously turned out to be something
very different than than when I first started. But but
you know, it was it was I just thought, this is,
you know, I'm ready to take this giganic step. You know,
I'm ready to try to do something like this, which
is which is no matter you know, before the controversy,

(01:01:43):
before the before you know, the whole Sandusky fiasco was
already going to be this enormous challenge. And I went
and I got an apartment in State College and I
lived there for for a few months and well for
a year actually, and as it turned out, and uh,
and then of course, in the middle of it, the
the you know, most horrible scandal in in uh in

(01:02:07):
college football history breaks out with me right there in
the middle of it. And then he gets cancered like
that week. I mean, it was like it was a
it was a surreal place to be and and uh
and I found myself, you know, writing a book that
that had no chance of being viewed, uh, you know,

(01:02:27):
clearly by anybody. Like no matter what I wrote, people
were gonna we're gonna say, uh, incredibly horrible things about it.
But that was okay, That was okay. I I I
felt like, hey, I've got a great book here, and
I can write a great book. And I kind of
feel like I did so So that was that was
an eye opening experience, being in the middle of that

(01:02:49):
whole thing. And then the next book was I wanted
to write a book. I won't want to write a
book about Tom Watson, you to talk about Kansas City
and how unique it is. I'm mean, you know, that
was one of the first things I found was was,
you know, you have Buck O'Neill here, and you've got
Tom Watson there, and and I'd written a lot about Tom.

(01:03:09):
He'd never had a book written about him. He didn't
want a book written about him. And I came up
with this idea of, well, what if I wrote a
book about the incredible relationship between Tom Watson and Jack Nicholas,
their their rivalry and their friendship and all of that.
And and that book was an absolute blast to do
as well. And it was fun, you know, it was.

(01:03:32):
I wanted to do a book that was really fun
and and and took me away from from some of
the complications that the Paternal Book had provided. And then
I wanted to try something wild and different and completely
off the beaten path. And that's I. I love magic.

(01:03:53):
I find it fascinating. I found Deani fascinating. I had
this question in my mind, why is it that we
still know Harry Whodini is? Why do we why do
we care about this guy from one hundred plus years ago?
And Uh, and I convinced UH the publishing house that
I that I could write a book about it, which
I didn't know that I could do. I didn't know anybody.

(01:04:15):
It's not like, not like I had any sources or anything.
So so that led to Houdini and then you know,
the Baseball one hundred came out for that. So each
each book was its own little adventure for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Well, you mentioned the place you're in now doing your
own thing, and you you're obviously and people are so
used to hearing dogs barking in the background on podcasts
and everything else, so that's cool. Uh yes, but you're
still definitely relatively young man, And what do you think
the future holds for Joe Posnansky.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Well, I love this, you know, this is this is
an absolutely unique opportunity for me writing over at at
Joe Ponsanski dot com because I'm working with a company
that has you know, become now pretty well known called Substack,
which allows you to basically right for the people that
want to read your work, you know, and and you
have subscribers, and so it's it's kind of like going

(01:05:08):
into business for yourself, which is not something that we
and in in the crazy media business, are necessarily any
good at. You know, We've always basically been you know,
hired by other people and and do the work for
them and they handle all of the all of the
other stuff. Right, they figure out how to how to

(01:05:29):
make the money, and they'll figure out how to pay you,
and now you've got to do it yourself. But but
it's been so incredibly rewarding. It's grown so fast. I mean,
I've already got you know, thousands and thousands of readers
and and you know, and I'm it's it's it's wonderful
because I'm it's a different kind of writing in a

(01:05:51):
lot of ways, because I'm writing for my audience. You know,
I'm not I'm not you know, I'm not writing for
a sort of a wide audience. I'm not writing for
you know, I'm not like, Okay, well today I'll go
do this sport and today I'll do this sport. I'll
you know, I'm I'm writing for an audience. And they

(01:06:11):
and I ask them all the time, what do you want?
What do you want to read? Where do you where
do you want me to go? And and so it's
a it's really cool. It's like a relationship that that
that I'm building with with this audience, and and it's
going really well. So I'm I'm very excited about that,
you know, I'm obviously the book thing is probably my

(01:06:33):
biggest thing now. I've just signed to write a book
called Why We Love Baseball, which is going to be
a countdown of the fifty greatest moments in baseball history
as I see them. Uh and it's going to be
I mean, I'm I'm working on it now and it's
it's gonna be every bit as much fun, more fun
in some ways than the Baseball one hundred was. So

(01:06:55):
uh so I love that. And uh yeah, I'm still podcasting.
You mentioned that I'm doing a podcast with a guy,
Michael Shore, who is a television producer, television producer responsible
for some of the greatest shows over the last twenty years,
Parks and rec and Brooklyn ninety nine and The Good

(01:07:16):
Place and and Hacks and a bunch of others. And
he and I have been doing this crazy thing for
a decade now and we kind of still like it.
So we're still we're still doing that. So that's a
lot of fun. So yeah, I'm I'm definitely not without

(01:07:38):
you know, I'm not without things to do, let's just
say that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
And you mentioned it's been a great ride, a bumpy ride, whatever,
but a successful ride. And from the time you found
this particular calling it's it's gotta have a great sense
of satisfaction for you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
It really does. I you know, I mean, I have
so many friends in the business who, through no fault
of their own, through bad luck, through circumstance, are either
out of the business or have had really hard times.
And I've never had any hard times. I I it's
you know, I'm knocking on all the wood all around me,

(01:08:18):
but I've just I've always been really really lucky as
far as you know, uh opportunities not only to to
you know, take a living and do well and support
my family and all those things, but to try new
stuff like I it's it's it feels like every step
along the way people have have given me the chance

(01:08:40):
to like, hey, you know, you haven't you haven't done
anything with you know, with Premier League football. Here's NBC calling,
you know, to to offer you to do some of that,
and and you know, it's it's just feels like every
step along the way has been has been like that.
And you know that's I. I. I've been asked many

(01:09:02):
times like how why do you think you've had the
success that you've had, And I don't have any good answers,
so I don't feel like I'm anything special other than
I've always been open, I think to new opportunities. I've
worked very hard, and I've been really lucky. I mean,
I just really believe that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
This podcast was made possible by our great sponsors like
Eastern Roofing, the presenting sponsor of Kansas City Profiles at
the Danny klink Scale Reasonably Irreverent podcast Eastern Roofing, where
integrity matters. We hope you enjoyed the latest Danny Klink
Scale Reasonably Irreverent podcast. Come back soon for something fresh

(01:09:46):
and new