Welcome back to A Pod of Their Own, an all-women led Home Run Applesauce podcast where we talk all things Mets, social justice issues in baseball, and normalize female voices in the sports podcasting space. 

This week, we are joined by very special guest Laura Albanese, who covers the Mets and Yankees at Newsday. We begin our conversation by asking Laura about how she got to where she is now and what barriers women still face in the industry.

We then shift our focus to the Mets and discuss the cultural shift within the Mets’ organization that includes an emphasis on family, which was part of what attracted Sean Manaea and Juan Soto to the Mets as free agents. We also talk about cultural differences between the Mets and Yankees and Laura’s favorite 2024 Mets bit. 

We also talked about the offseason, the current free agent market, and labor issues - what the deal is with Pete Alonso’s free agency, whether the Dodgers are good or bad for baseball, Laura’s 2025 predictions, and more.

Finally, we wrap things up with Walk-off Wins, where each of us talks about what’s making us happy this week, baseball-related or otherwise. 

You can listen or subscribe to all of our wonderful Home Run Applesauce podcasts through Apple Podcasts, where we encourage you to leave a review if you enjoy the show. It really helps! And you can find us on the Stitcher app, Spotify, or listen wherever you get podcasts. You can also support our work by subscribing to our Patreon, which will get you bonus episodes, access to our Discord server, livestream experiences, an exclusive monthly playlist, and more!

You can follow A Pod of Their Own on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky (@apodoftheirown) and you can follow Home Run Applesauce on Twitter and Instagram (@HRApplesauce). You can find Laura Albanese’s work at Newsday and you can follow her on Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram. You can also follow our co-hosts on Twitter and Bluesky: Allison McCague (@PetitePhD), Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162), and Linda Surovich (@LindaSurovich). You can also email the show at [email protected]. 

Look for A Pod of Their Own in your feeds every week and don’t forget: there’s no crying in podcasting!

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