November 25, 2024: Podcast Thanks: A Serendipitous Conversation

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

Asattentive readers of this blog will remember, for many years The Celestials’Last Game was a book manuscript and proposal. The transformation into apublic scholarly podcast didn’t happen in any one moment, but the idea for it actuallydid: while taking part in retirement celebrations for my PhD advisor, ProfessorMiles Orvell, I happened to have a conversation with one of his recentundergrad students at Temple University. She was kind enough to ask about whatI was working on, and when I described both the project and my struggles toland it with a publisher, she (an avid podcast listener herself) mentioned thatit sounded like a great idea for a podcast. Despite having appeared on manypodcasts as a guest, I have to admit I had never thought about creating one ofmy own, so this serendipitous conversation was really important in presentingme with that possibility and lighting the initial spark that would end up withmy first podcast.

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. I’d bethankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know your thoughts!