Media

I’m often asked to speak about all aspects of baseball — modern, historical, or statistical. If you’re a reporter working on a story, a student working on a paper, or a fan with a baseball question, please feel free to contact me. Here are a few recent interviews and clips:

Skate or hammer? MLB historians split on Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal

fos-logoBy Margaret Fleming
March 22, 2024
One of the sports world’s biggest stars is engulfed in a betting scandal, and he plays the sport that has historically been the toughest on players for gambling. After bombshell reports that Shohei Ohtani had wired millions of dollars to an illegal gambling operation and accused his interpreter of stealing the money without his knowledge, Front Office Sports spoke to several historians, journalists, and experts on baseball’s long history with gambling.  Click here to read the full article at Front Office Sports.

Records of 1924 Milwaukee trial shed new light on Black Sox Scandal

mjs-logoBy Chris Foran
January 29, 2024
The final chapter of baseball’s biggest scandal closed in a Milwaukee courtroom 100 years ago this month. One of the game’s biggest stars, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson, sued the Chicago White Sox, saying the team owed him $16,000 in back pay. The Milwaukee trial, which began January 29, 1924, was a front-page story, took some unexpected turns and had a surprise ending. And then the record of the two-week trial was nearly lost to history. Click here to read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The untold story of when Shoeless Joe sued his team

On-the-Merits-podcast-logoBy David Schultz
November 28, 2023
The story of baseball’s Black Sox Scandal, when a group of ballplayers conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series, has been the subject of countless books and articles—not to mention at least two Hollywood movies. But what’s now largely forgotten is a subsequent civil trial when one of those ballplayers, the famed Shoeless Joe Jackson, dragged his former team to court. However, that trial is forgotten no more with the recent of the unabridged court transcripts, once believed to be lost to time. Click here to listen to the full episode at Bloomberg News’ On The Merits podcast.

New book reveals Shoeless Joe Jackson’s involvement in Black Sox Scandal

WFLD-Fox-32-News-logoBy Dane Placko
November 2, 2023
More than 100 years after the biggest scandal in sports history, there is new information being made public about the Chicago Black Sox. And it’s coming from beyond the grave of one of the most famous players at the center of that scandal — Shoeless Joe Jackson. A pair of local historians have published a book making public for the first time transcripts from a 1924 trial that sheds new light on a question that has puzzled baseball fans for decades — did Shoeless Joe help throw the 1919 World Series? Click here to watch the video segment at WFLD/Fox 32 News.

Long-lost trial transcript answers many questions about Shoeless Joe

ABA-Journal-logoBy Randy Maniloff
October 18, 2023
Until this year, fewer than 10 living people have seen the long-lost trial transcript that’s been a matter of public record for a century. It’s from Joe Jackson v. Chicago American League Baseball Club, a two-plus-week trial held in Milwaukee in early 1924. In the recently published Joe Jackson, Plaintiff, vs. Chicago American League Baseball Club, Defendant—Never-Before-Seen Trial Transcript, its editors promise that the unearthed testimony settles many persistent questions in baseball’s “who killed Kennedy.” Click here to read the full article at the American Bar Association Journal.

My Baseball History

My-Baseball-History-podcast-logoBy Dan Wallach
October 11, 2023
My Baseball History is a long form interview podcast. Each episode, host Dan Wallach talks to someone new who has some sort of association to the game of baseball, learns about how they fell in love with the game, and how they got where they are today. In Episode 0301, Dan talks with Jacob Pomrenke, Director of Editorial Content at the Society for American Baseball Research and chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. Click here to listen to the full episode.

Why do baseball games have such weird start times?

npr-marketplace-2023-logoBy Janet Nguyen
October 28, 2022
During the World Series, you may have noticed something unusual about the game times. Instead of being scheduled for the top of the hour, playing is set to start at 8:03 pm ET. Baseball games are scheduled off-the-hour throughout the season, starting at any number of minutes after the hour in a way that seems oddly specific. Click here to read the full article at NPR Marketplace.

The Replay: Sports on the Big Screen

The-Replay-podcast-logoBy Bruce Murray
September 26, 2022
While it’s almost impossible to know exactly what happened considering that the incident was over 100 years ago, we explore the most likely scenarios and discuss how each of these men were portrayed in the film. Guests include D.B. Sweeney and Jacob Pomrenke. Click here to listen to the full episode at Apple Podcasts.

Midnight Meets: The 100th anniversary of the Black Sox trial

BBC Radio 5 Live logoBy Colin Murray
August 2, 2021
Colin Murray discusses the story behind one of the most controversial betting scandals in history, the Black Sox Scandal, with Jacob Pomrenke on the BBC Radio 5 Live’s “Midnight Meets” show. Click here to listen to the interview (MP3) or click here to hear the replay online at BBC.co.uk (where available).

Baseball’s Big Swing At Sports Betting: How It’s Shaping The Future Of MLB

8073A05C-B1F4-4A6B-87F8-924351276CF8By Jonathan Chang and Meghna Chakrabarti
May 21, 2021
Major League Baseball’s embrace of the billion dollar American sports betting business. Will it sully the game? Or could it save it? Click here to listen to the full show at WBUR.org.

The Sunday Edition: Revisiting the 1919 Black Sox Scandal

cbc-radio-logoBy Michael Enright
October 12, 2019
One hundred years ago this past week, eight Chicago White Sox, players took bribes from gamblers to fix the World Series. The heavily favoured White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, the conspiracy was revealed, and the eight White Sox players — thereafter known as the Black Sox — were banished from baseball for life. Jacob Pomrenke joined The Sunday Edition‘s Michael Enright for a conversation about the 1919 World Series and how historical research has debunked a number of myths about the Black Sox scandal. Click here to listen to the full interview at CBC.ca.

The baseball obsessives correcting the record about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal

the-athletic-logoBy Zach Buchanan
October 4, 2019
To the extent that you know any of the real history of the Black Sox, it is because of SABR’s Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. They, more than anyone else over the last 20 years, have chipped away at the bastardized version of events popularized by “Eight Men Out” in print and on film. Together and individually, committee members have written at least a dozen books on the subject, examining the scandal from various angles. They are the authorities. And if you still believe the myths of “Eight Men Out,” well, they would like your attention. Click here to read the full article at TheAthletic.com (subscription required).

Infamous America: The Black Sox Scandal

InfamousAmerica-BlackSox-logoBy Chris Wimmer
September 25, 2019
Season 2 of the Infamous America podcast series on the Black Sox Scandal hit No. 1 on Apple Podcasts’ history charts and more than 250,000 listeners tuned in to hear about the 1919 World Series in the summer of 2019. Produced and hosted by Chris Wimmer of Black Barrel Media, Infamous America debuted in August with a weekly six-episode narrative arc of the Black Sox Scandal, plus two bonus interviews with Jacob Pomrenke of SABR and Mike Nola of BlackBetsy.com. Listen to the series on your favorite podcast app or streaming service, or online at BlackBarrelMedia.com.

Here are some other interviews I’ve done:

Television

Radio/Podcasts

Online