ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Nearly every weekend on this show, we've been bringing you excerpts from podcasts produced by NPR member stations across the country. Now that it's the last weekend of 2024, we're going to take a few minutes to go through some of the stories and voices that stuck out to our team this year, just in case you missed them the first time around. My colleague Scott Detrow takes it from here.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: All right, to start with, earlier this year, I talked to WWNO's Alana Schreiber and comedian Roy Wood Jr. about their podcast Road To Rickwood. It tells the story of the oldest professional baseball stadium in America, Birmingham, Alabama's Rickwood Field and the role the ballpark played in major political and cultural changes - desegregation, women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.
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DETROW: Roy, how much did you know about Rickwood going into this? How much were you aware of this amazing history that the field has?
ROY WOOD JR: I was aware of the park. I played high school baseball there. That was our home stadium. Rickwood, when it's not being used by, like, minor league teams and stuff - it's a city facility, and some colleges use it for regular season games. The history of it - I did not know much of any of it. It's just not taught in Alabama school history. So I just looked at it as an opportunity to not only learn myself, but to, you know - I don't know - maybe educate other people on somewhere that was very, very interesting. And just baseball is kind of the lynchpin, but it's still a great, you know, little four-episode podcast about American history. And if you like history, you'll appreciate it. I think the baseball part of it is just kind of a cherry on top for me.
DETROW: Roy, I feel like I need to apologize now. I talked about all the legends, the baseball legends who played there, like Mays and Aaron. I didn't mention you. I'm sorry about that.
WOOD JR: I batted 183. I'm pretty sure that's not legendary.
DETROW: (Laughter).
WOOD JR: But thank you (laughter).
DETROW: Curious about each of you - you know, you both obviously appreciate history and baseball going into this. Alana, let me start with you. What's one thing you learned making this podcast that just blew your mind?
ALANA SCHREIBER: Oh, my God, there's so many things to choose from. I think that something that was really meaningful was just how much the field meant to the Black community and how people would go straight from church to games. They would make sure the sermons ended early, or they would just leave early so they could go there.
But I think what was also just really special was talking to so many former Negro League players and just kind of hearing what Rickwood Field meant to them because it wasn't a monolith. There were some people who love this stadium, who - it means so much to them. It represents, you know, hope and meaning and opportunity in Birmingham. And other people who were kind of ready to move on and who - looking back at their Negro League careers is kind of upsetting, to think about all the opportunities that they didn't get. And I think that was a really important thing was that this field represents a lot, but it doesn't mean the same thing to everybody.
DETROW: What about you, Roy?
WOOD JR: Yeah, I think it - a lot of that, as well. The opportunity, also to talk with so many retired Negro Leaguers, many of whom who still live in the Birmingham area - you know, we're talking men, you know, in their 80s, some in their 90s, and the memories that they were, you know, open-book sharing with us was, you know - it was just amazing. You hear stories about how if a player was light-skinned enough to pass as white, then on the road trips, they would send them into white-only restaurants to order food for the bus and, like, where they slept sometimes on the bus or a nursing homes and just all of these interesting facts about that life and how hard it was. But then at the end of those conversations, to hear them say, I would absolutely do it all over again. It was one of the best times in my life. And how much baseball helped, I think, to keep them healed, but - not only the players, but also the community to a degree.
You know, there's a reason why Rickwood was kind of the test kitchen for desegregation of sporting events and of audiences. Like, it was the first desegregated crowd as well at that same game. So, you know, it was definitely a safe place where - you know, almost like a - I won't say Switzerland, but it definitely was the closest thing to, OK, we all agree we like this, right? OK, cool. Let's see if we can get along here, and then maybe we can do it everywhere else.
DETROW: Of course, baseball wasn't the only history we delved into this year, though, it did come up a few times. The podcast Dough Dynasty from Michigan Public documents professional sports' deep connections to the cheesy goodness of chain pizza. In this excerpt from my chat with co-hosts Laura Weber-Davis and April Baer, they tell me about what happened after Domino's founder Tom Monaghan bought the Detroit Tigers.
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LAURA WEBER-DAVIS: He was out there living his boyhood fantasy. And so in 1984, the Tigers won the World Series.
APRIL BAER: And, Scott, like, you maybe know, that win was a huge deal with fans...
DETROW: Absolutely.
BAER: ...In Detroit. The '84 Tigers - people still talk about them as one of the best teams assembled in the game. And at the time, this was the first championship for Detroit since 1968. And on the night of the World Series win, the city just loses its mind.
WEBER-DAVIS: Yeah.
BAER: OK, so in our podcast, we covered that moment, which was a really big one for Monaghan in multiple ways.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: The pitch - he swings, and there's a fly ball to the left. Here comes Herndon. He's here. He's got it. The Tigers of the champions of 1984.
BAER: And just like that, the electricity in the city explodes.
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WEBER-DAVIS: The celebration goes on for hours. But at some point, things outside get a little rowdy. Here's reporter Paul Eisenstein at the scene for NPR.
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PAUL EISENSTEIN: The fans began pounding on hoods, smashing windshields. And from there, the situation quickly got out of control.
WEBER-DAVIS: A riot, led by white suburbanites, takes over the streets surrounding the stadium.
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EISENSTEIN: A half-dozen police cars were rolled over, set ablaze. The fans pelted police with beer bottles and stones and anything else they could find.
WEBER-DAVIS: The stadium goes on lockdown, leaving players, their families, the press, some fans, stuck inside. And maybe you're like, OK, but what does this have to do with pizza? Well, what do you do when you're stuck somewhere with a bunch of hungry people and you need to feed the masses? You order pizza. And in this case, if you're a Detroit Tiger, you know a guy, Tom Monaghan.
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WEBER-DAVIS: The team owner also happens to own Domino's and a helicopter. Monaghan calls up his pilot and is like, get over here. We have an issue. The chopper lands on second base, and then Monaghan sends him off to Ypsilanti to go and secure dozens of Domino's pizzas for these world champions. The helicopter flies back to the city, feasibly in fewer than 30 minutes, and they make the ultimate delivery.
DETROW: I cannot picture the scene. I can - this is so over the top.
BAER: I mean, he's kind of the Elon Musk of his time, you know? Why not? Let's do it.
DETROW: Yeah.
BAER: And, Scott, remember, it's the '80s.
DETROW: It was.
WEBER-DAVIS: OK, but the story of the day was really about the championship, I guess. So Monaghan, though this championship was a big deal for baseball - he actually credits that win and those Tigers for making Domino's a truly household name.
DETROW: Now, all of that history was out in the open, but we also talked about stories that happened behind closed doors. I spoke with Karen Brown from Member Station NEPM, about her podcast The Secrets We Keep, in which she explored society's taboos through it secrets, starting with her own families.
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KAREN BROWN: That's when my father said, you know Michele, right? Well, she isn't my goddaughter. She's my actual daughter.
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BROWN: It felt like five minutes before anyone could say anything. It wasn't necessarily bad news, as we really liked Michele, but it felt big, confusing, daunting.
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DETROW: Host Karen Brown joins me to talk about the little things we don't talk about and how they can actually say a lot about us. Hey, Karen.
BROWN: Hi. Great to be here.
DETROW: That clip is from the first episode, where you talk about the fact that your parents hid the fact that Michele was your half-sister until you were in your 20s. Why start this series there?
BROWN: Well, I felt since I knew I was going to be talking with a lot of other people about their deep, dark secrets, that it was only fair to sort of out one of the biggest family scandals from my own childhood. And it also explains a little bit why I find secret keeping so fascinating. You know, this is a big part of my makeup, my life, is this big secret that was kept from me. And I just never understood it. I never understood why the grown-ups in my life were ashamed of it, why they didn't want to talk about it. And I think that might have even had something to do with why I went into journalism, to out other...
DETROW: Yeah.
BROWN: ...People's secrets.
DETROW: I know that's an exact feeling that I feel like I know a lot of people who were told some big reveal about their family had. Like, OK, and what - so? (Laughter) You know, like, this isn't that big of a deal. But...
BROWN: Yeah. It's very generational, I think.
DETROW: Yeah. Absolutely. Let's listen to an excerpt where Michele talks about the origins of the secret.
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MICHELE: It appears the deal was between Mum and Rex that he could have the relationship with me. No problem. But it was on Mum's terms when I would find out who my dad was.
BROWN: When I talked to my mother, Dalia, recently, she had a somewhat different recollection. She says it was also her condition that Michele would only be invited to hang out with our family if no one knew she was Rex's daughter.
DALIA: I was just too protective of my immediate family. It was maybe a competition. No, I have no idea what it was. I can't tell why.
BROWN: But it sounds like you have a little bit of guilt about that now. Is that true? Do you feel
DALIA: Yeah, I feel guilty, but I also can't help the way I felt then and I feel now. And, I mean, these days, kids know everything from age 5 to 6 already. But at the time, it wasn't something that people talked about.
DETROW: Karen, I'm curious, approaching this as a reporter, did you learn more? Did you understand more about why your family kept the secret for so long?
BROWN: I did. I mean, I will say it was helpful to go in reporter mode as opposed to daughter mode.
DETROW: Yes.
BROWN: I mean, the whole thing was quite awkward, I will say, to interview my own family members about something that was so sensitive in my childhood. But I could just sort of ask the questions straight out as a reporter whereas, growing up, it was always something that we sort of tiptoed around. But I hadn't heard these reasons. You know, why did you keep this - you know, my own flesh and blood a secret from me? Why did you get in the way of me having a sister relationship with somebody? Like, those were big things that had really bothered me for years, and I finally basically just used the podcast as an excuse to ask my mom straight out.
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DETROW: Those were excerpts from our coverage of the podcasts The Secrets We Keep from NEPM, Dough Dynasty from Michigan Public and Road To Rickwood from WWNO. You can find them wherever you get your podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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