Category Archives: Uncategorized

“You make us all smarter.” That’s what ESPN’s Mike Tirico once told Andrew Brandt—and it’s the foundation of this illuminating, behind-the-scenes memoir from one of the most trusted voices in sports business. For more than two decades, Andrew Brandt has lived at the intersection of money, law, and sports—first as a player agent, then asContinue reading “Podcast with former agent and front office executive Andrew Brandt about his new book Smarter About Sports: My Life Navigating Athletes, Agents, Media, and the Business of the NFL”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/finding-ren%C3%A9e-richards Fifty years ago, tennis player Renée Richards made international headlines in her fight to compete in the women’s draw of the 1977 US Open—marking the first time a trans athlete sued to participate in professional sports in the gender category with which they identify. Renée eventually won her case. Though she lost in theContinue reading “Podcast with Julie Kliegman about their new book Finding Renee Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/one-day-in-september-baseball-brotherhood-and-the-birth-of-the-all-star-game On a crisp September afternoon in 1917, as the country waged war and the national pastime faced questions about its purpose, baseball paused to reconsider what it stood for. At Fenway Park, the game’s greatest stars-many of them rivals, some near the end of their careers, others just emerging-took the field together in anContinue reading “Podcast with Scott Reich about his book One Day In September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/foul-or-fair There’s more to sports than what occurs during games. Check your social media, listen to sports talk radio, or watch ESPN–there are daily stories of social issues in sports regarding concussions, playing hurt, gambling, Olympics and politics, athletes as social activists, paying college athletes, recruiting violations, academics, youth sports, diversity and gender issues, hazing,Continue reading “Podcast with Larry Atkins about his book Foul or Fair: Ethical and Social Issues in Sports”

Forty year ago the Portland Trail Blazers selected Arvydas Sabonis and Drazen Petrovic in the NBA draft. The league would never be the same. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/22/nba-draft-1986-international-era-trail-blazers-sabonis-petrovic

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-mad-manchurian-from-the-internment-camps-of-tokyo-to-the-hardwood-courts-of-the-nba# I was born in Harbin, Manchuria, (later China), in 1938. At the outbreak of the Second World War my mother, sister and I, along with other non-combatants of the Allied countries, were taken by the Japanese to an internment camp in Tokyo where we would remain four year–to the end of the war. MyContinue reading “Check out my podcast with Tom Meschery about his book The Mad Manchurian: From the Internment Camps of Tokyo to the Hardwood Courts of the NBA.”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/baseballs-outcast When twenty-three-year-old Ron LeFlore played his first organized baseball game, it was in a yard at the State Prison of Southern Michigan where he was serving five to fifteen years for armed robbery. An extraordinary athlete, the Detroit native had luck on his side: his coach, a convicted felon, had connections to the DetroitContinue reading “Podcast with Adam Henig about his book Baseball’s Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore”

In anticipation of the new Amazon documentary Jerry West: The Logo, I did a podcast with Jonathan Coleman about his exceptional book with Jerry. Jonathan went into great detail about Jerry’s life and character and what it was like to work with the legend. https://newbooksnetwork.com/west-by-west He is one of basketball’s towering figures: “Mr. Clutch,” whoContinue reading “Podcast with Jonathan Coleman, co-author of West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/building-the-milwaukee-bucks In three short years, the Milwaukee Bucks went from merely an idea to NBA champions. What started as a quest by Marvin Fishman and eventually Wesley Pavalon to get Milwaukee back in the big leagues became something bigger than they could have imagined. They attracted a hard-working coach in Larry Costello, a pioneer inContinue reading “Podcast with Jordan Treske, author of Building the Milwaukee Bucks: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and the Rapid Rise of an NBA Franchise, 1968-1975”