Episode 97: “Baseball’s Ballast,” or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in The Minor Leagues of Baseball
From Upper Middlebrow by Upper Middlebrow
November 4, 2025 · 59 min · Season 3 · Episode 29
About this episode
The episode discusses John Feinstein's insights into the lives of minor league baseball players as depicted in his book.
John Feinstein’s baseball writing is as sharp as ever, the anecdotes of Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball portraying a desperate but determined subculture of professional baseball. The many characters of Feinstein’s book hunger to make it to the bigs, whether they are past their prime, approaching that point, or beginning to suspect that their prime won’t be good enough for that callup. It’s a heartbreaking and affecting yarn, but does some of the impact fade into a forest of similar stories?
People in this episode
Host: Upper Middlebrow
Topics covered
- baseball
- minor leagues
- sports writing
- anecdotes
- professional baseball
- character studies
Keywords
- John Feinstein
- baseball
- minor leagues
- sports writing
- anecdotes
- professional baseball
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in The Minor Leagues of Baseball
More episodes of Upper Middlebrow
- Episode 101: ‘What Thrums Below,’ or Herman Melville’s Billy Budd · May 18, 2026 · 59 min
- Episode 100: “Dutiful Dreams,” or Project Hail Mary 2026 Film · May 4, 2026 · 54 min
- Project Hail Mary Part I (REPOST) · March 12, 2026 · 1h 14m
- Episode 99: More Robot Friends!: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Robot Visions’ Part 1 with Justin Reich. · December 1, 2025 · 54 min
- Episode 98: ‘Minor League Stew,’ or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Part II · November 17, 2025 · 52 min
- Episode 96: “The Clustercus,” or David Halberstam’s The Amateurs, Part II · October 23, 2025 · 1h 22m
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