Zak Ford is a lifelong baseball fan from the Bay Area, specifically the human interest side of the game. That is why he is the author of the book Called Up, which chronicles 109 different players' stories of getting the call up to the big leagues. He has another book coming out in 2026 about the final moments of players' careers. He discussed both books with Check Your Brain's Tony Mazur, as well as how much the game has changed compared to the childhoods of the athletes he interviewed.

Zak's books are available to purchase on Amazon. Here is the link for the 2023 book: https://www.amazon.com/Called-Up-Ballplayers-Remember-Becoming/dp/1476692793

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at [email protected].