Left of Baseball

The Say It Ain't Contagious panel mourns the passing of Henry Aaron and tries to place his experience in context.

1.What did Henry Aaron Mean to You?
2.White Supremacist Attacks on Aaron.
3.The Lost Centrality of Baseball in American Life.
4.The Absence of African Americans from Today’s Game.
5.Aaron and Barry Bonds.
6.Aaron and Dick Allen.

The panel sees Joe Biden inaugurated and exhales, but clenches again when it comes to Major League Baseball's scouring of the minor leagues.

In the first episode of the ongoing SAIC podcast, the panel reacts to the sack of the Capitol, Major League Baseball’s “recognition” of the Negro Leagues, and finds the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates preferable to both.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.Who are we and why are we here?
2.Coup attempt at the Capitol. On “Banana Republics” and the United States in Latin America. MLB PAC suspends donations. White Supremacy in the Republican Party.
3.MLB “Recognizes” the Negro Leagues. Self-congratulatory Jackie Robinsonism. Baseball Jim Crowism and Stats in context. The poor quality of pre-integration baseball. Better means of making amends.
4.Who gets to tell the story of Black baseball? The exploitation of Latin American prospects. In praise of the Negro Leagues Museum.
5.Rennie Stennett vs. Donald Trump for the record books. Stennett consequences and Stennett regrets. The function of stats in storytelling. The egalitarian 1970s Pirates. The Giants internationalize integration. Your Masanori Murakami mention for this week. And Manny Mota too. Goodbyes.

Say It Ain’t Contagious is an ongoing discussion of baseball, social justice, the politics of our country, and how they are inevitably intertwined. Six scholars, activists, and baseball pundits use the game and its history as a lens into issues of race, economics, and American culture. Featuring Adrian Burgos, Craig Calcaterra, Steven Goldman, Frank Guridy, Lincoln Mitchell, and Tova Wang.