I created Bush League, a fully independent narrative podcast about the stories from sports you don’t hear on the common sports media networks. Real people playing sports, with real outcomes.
It ran from 2016 to 2018. The stories sit where sports meets politics, geography, culture, business and drama. Every episode is still on Spotify.
- 01
Introduction
Welcome to Bush League.
- 02
Travel Ban Taekwondo
Meisam Rafei, an Olympic taekwondo competitor, faced an unexpected opponent when he tried to enter the US for a tournament in January 2017.
- 03
When The Conditions Allow
Lake surfing is a radically different experience than catching waves along a sunny tropical beach.
- 04
Basketball As An Export
Each year thousands of Americans sign contracts to play basketball in countries outside the United States.
- 05
Thirteen License Plates
In 2015, Newton Baker became the second-oldest person to cross the US on foot, in the Race Across the USA. It started on his 73rd birthday.
- 06
Slackline Destiny
Mickey Wilson is a professional extreme athlete and slackliner. His skills were tested in a dramatic and unexpected way on the ski slopes.
- 07
Bonus: More Mickey
More from Mickey Wilson: why he chose to slackline full time, and what else the sport gives back.
- 08
The Man Who Wanted to Play Hockey on the Moon
Ryan Bahl is an American hockey player who has stepped onto ice rinks on six continents.
- 09
Bonus: More from Ryan Bahl
More from Ryan Bahl, hockey's global nomad.
- 10
The Heel
This one comes with a challenge. Can you accept all sports as equal, and drop the notions that isolate us from people with strikingly similar athletic passions?
- 11
Bonus: The Babyface
The other side of wrestling's hero-versus-villain story: Joshua Singh on match preparation, aerial moves and his bucket list.
- 12
St. Rivalry
For 30 years, a rivalry split Cleveland's Irish community so deeply that some considered it a kind of civil war.
- 13
The Fellowship of Football Code Converts
What happens when an athlete leaves one code of football and tries their hand at another? A trip around the world, and through history.
- 14
Our Final Episode: The Creator's Game
Lacrosse's path from a game played by Native American tribes to the fast-growing modern sport, and the larger story of the people who originated it.