Hooks & Runs A podcast about baseball, music and culture.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author William "Bill" Ecenbarger is our guess this week to discuss his latest book, "Work, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball's Stars Avoid World War I" (Temple University Press 2024). The book chronicles how Bethlehem Steel's "safe shelter" industrial league in 1917 and 1918 helped Major League players like "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Dutch Leonard and a young Babe Ruth avoid the draft and military service during World War I. In part tw...

Darryl Rhoades has been entertaining audiences with his music and comedy for over half-a-century. As founder and leader of Hahavishnu Orchestra and later as a solo artist, Rhoades recorded several albums and toured across the United States. Rhoades once even opened for The Sex Pistols! He has been featured in Rolling Stone, Village Voice and High Times. Kurt Loder (Rolling Stone, MTV) described Rhoades as, ”one of the most savagely gifted writer/performers in the country today.” R...

Kimberly Ridley has written "Matagorda Magic: The Hidden Life of a Texas Bay" (Texas A&M University Press 2024) about our very own Matagorda Bay estuary right here in our home county on the Texas Gulf Coast. Kimberly joins the podcast this week to talk about the book and her experiences visiting our county and the Matagorda Bay estuary. "Matagorda Magic" includes wonderful illustrations by Rebekah Raye.In part 2, Rex and Craig talk about baseball's latest gambling scandal plus reaction to...

This week Rex and Craig take on Ángel Hernández's retirement, interference & the infield fly rule, Jose Abreu's return, Austin Maddux's arrest and arraignment, Ranger Suarez's hot start, The Chicago White Sox' not-so-hot start, the half-marathon Mom & the pros and cons of embellishing the truth, and the Memorial Day standings and a new album from Riot V.Episodes Mentioned:197 - Bill Veeck, The Second Act w/ Dan Helpingstine 190 - The Jason Lane Phenomenon: Every Pitcher Tells a Story ...

This week, Craig and Rex talk about closers who had one great year then -- nothing after that, along with anticipating Francis Ford Coppola's new film.-->Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/tT8d3pVUsN-->You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including the books featured in this episode, through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandrunsHooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.comHooks & Runs on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/...

Fred Frommer is an author, journalist, editor and sports and politics historian. He is a regular contributor to The Washington Post, where his stories often top the paper's "most read" sports and history sections. This week, for our 200th episode, Frommer joins us to discuss how Major League Baseball and its teams responded to the June 1968 assassination of New York Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. We were honored to have Frommer on the podcast and hope you enjoy th...