The Bookshelf Conversations #186: Tyler Kepner

I knew things would go well when I saw the collection of caps behind Tyler Kepner, senior writer for The Athletic and author of The Grandest Game: A History of the World Series and K: A History of of Baseball in Ten Pitches.

Like Kepner — and most young baseball fans — I had dreams of playing in pro baseball. But then my ambitions turned to become a baseball writer, along the lines of a Shirley Povich, whose career spanned more than 60 years. Even after I became a writer and editor of the sports section for a weekly community newspaper, I was still a bit jealous of the access enjoyed by Tyler and his fellow scribes.

One of the questions you frequently hear asks how a Babe Ruth, a Walter Johnson, or anyone of the stars who played before western expansion would fare today. One of my questions to Kepner was what old-timey writers like Povich, Ring Lardner, even Dick Young, would think about today’s version of the game they covered.

Word of warning: there are a couple of F-bomb variations in the interview. My bad for not warning my guest ahead of time and for lacking the editing skills to remove them.