SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Ben Mankiewicz (Episode #28) – Society for American Baseball Research

Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer. SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.

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Neyer is a longtime baseball writer and editor for ESPN.com, SB Nation, and FoxSports.com. He began his career as a research assistant for groundbreaking baseball author Bill James and later worked for STATS, Inc. He has also written or co-written seven baseball books, including The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Bill James), winner of the Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award, and most recently Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, winner of this year’s CASEY Award.

Current Episode

Episode #28: October 7, 2019

Our guest this week is Ben Mankiewicz, a television, radio, and YouTube personality. Since 2003, he has been a host of Turner Classic Movies, where he’s introduced thousands of movies on the air. He is also a film and television critic, having co-hosted the nationally syndicated “At the Movies.” He also regularly contributes to TYT Network’s main show, “The Young Turks.” In 2014, he and Rob Neyer came together to discuss the 30th anniversary of the beloved baseball film The Natural. Ben moved to Los Angeles nearly 75 years after his grandfather, Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, headed west to work in the film business. He’s a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and previously worked as an award-winning reporter and anchor in Charleston, South Carolina, and Miami, Florida.

Click here or press play below to listen to Episode #28:

What’s Rob reading this week?

“Braves’ Ronald Acuna is doing his part in ruining baseball”
By Phil Mushnick, New York Post

“It grows tiresome, redundant, writing about baseball in steady ruin. To ignore the impossibly foolish and preposterously selfish play of the Braves’ Ronald Acuna on Thursday night would be to ignore what contributed to his team’s Game 1 loss vs. the Cards. Even his teammates and manager were unable to dismiss it as anything other than inexcusable.”