Hooks & Runs is a podcast about baseball, music and culture. Our podcast includes interviews with news makers in the sports and music world plus commentary from the co-hosts on interesting current and historical events. Hooks & Runs releases a new episodes every Thursday (more or less).
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This week Craig and Rex take a look at players that led their league in home runs after 1920 but hit less than 200 career home runs. The list includes one Hall of Famer (George Kelly), some that came close (Jake Daubert) and some that leave all but the most fervent fans scrambling to Baseball Reference (Nick Etten). Consider supporting Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including those featured in…
This week we resume our series Texans in the Hall by looking at the lives and careers of two great Texan ballplayers - Louis Santop and Biz Mackey. Santop and Mackey were both born in the Texas in the late 19th Century and represent two of the four former Negro League catchers inducted into the Hall of Fame. Our guest is Thomas Kern, a contributor to ¡Arriba!: The Heroic Life of Roberto Clemente…
Bruce S. Allardice joins us this week to discuss the Chicago White Sox in the years immediately after the Black Sox scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series. Allardice is the author of After the Black Sox: The Chicago White Sox in Transition, 1920-1926 (McFarland Press 2026). The discussion covers the World Series scandal, the players involved, the "Clean Sox" - players like Dickie Kerr and…
Professor Willie Steele (Lipscomb) joins us this week to discuss the forthcoming 9-Online Virtual Baseball Conference . Steele is a conference co-director and past editor of NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture . Steele is also an expert on the works of W. P. Kinsella ("Shoeless Joe") so naturally, the conversation veered that direction. Also this episode, some thoughts on AI music and…
Professor John Ferling (University of West Georgia) joins the podcast this week to talk about his new book, Baseball As It Was: Building Champions Before Free Agency Changed Everything (Tatra Press, May 2026). The book examines the period 1946-1957, the years after World War II, with particular focus on the Cleveland Indians and the Boston, and later the Milwaukee Braves. John Ferling, Ph.D. -…
This week on Hooks & Runs, the theatrical doom metal quartet Castle Rat gets a major article in Spin, Craig wanders into more Astro sign stealing controversy on social media, the truth about (Babe) Ruth (in 1922), Portland vs Salt Lake City as an expansion candidate, and remembering René-Robert La Salle's vacation to our home county. Source: Steve Appleford, " Castle Rat Brings to Life a Mythic…
Randall Sullivan, former contributing editor to Rolling Stone and author of The Price of Experience , and Untouchable , joins Hooks & Runs this week to discuss his latest book, The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR and America at the Crossroads (Grove Atlantic, June 2026). The First All-Star Game chronicles a defining moment for both baseball and the nation, weaving together the sport's early…
Between players jumping contracts and entangling themselves in gambling scandals; the lack of a clear, consistent enforcement authority and conference (league) realignments, one could easily confuse current state of the NCAA with the chaotic state of 19th Century baseball. This week, John A. Fortunato joins us to make sense of college sports today. Fortunato is a professor of communications and…
Chapter 1 - Paul Hofmann, Ph.D., Associate Provost for International Affairs at the University of Louisville and Society for American Baseball Research member, joins us this week to discuss Charlie Ferguson, a forgotten 19th Century baseball star. Ferguson played four seasons in his early 20s with the Philadelphia Quakers (now, Phillies) in the National League and by 1887, Ferguson's final season,…
Author Perry T. Cooper is our guest this week. Cooper's new book, "The 1890 Louisville Cyclones: Major League Baseball's Original Worst-to-First Team" (McFarland, March 2026). Louisville finished the 1889 American Association season with 27 wins, 111 losses, the first Major League team to lose 100 games during a campaign. Under new manager Jack Chapman, Louisville rebounded in 1890 to first place…