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On the NBA BeatAuthor: Aaron Fischman, Loren Lee Chen
A show bringing you nuanced perspectives on the NBA's most important stories, hosted by USC alums Aaron Fischman, Joshua Jonah Fischman and Loren Lee Chen. Find us on our website at OnTheNBABeat.com or our Twitter page (@OnTheNBABeat). Language: en-us Genres: Basketball, Sports Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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On the NBA Beat Ep. 195: "Interstate '85" Book Special With Marshall Garvey
Episode 2
Monday, 13 April, 2026
Marshall Garvey, author of Interstate '85: The Royals, the Cardinals and the Show-Me World Series, joins the show. Enjoy! Here are some highlights –3:26-4:39 : “The ’85 Series always stuck in my mind in a really weird way just because of all the emphasis on Don Denkinger’s missed call. It just seemed a little jaundiced to me, but it stayed in my head for 20 years, kinda rattling around in there. It got even more layers in my mind when the Royals finally won it again in the mid-2010s. … My buddy Jonathan Daniel, he wrote the book Suds Series…that’s the ’82 World Series. That (book) got me on a train of thought when I was taking a run one day…and it just like blew up in mind, like, ‘Oh, my god, ’85, no one’s really written about this. … I’m gonna write the definitive book about ’85 and find out there was more than The Call,’ and boy, oh boy, did that turn out to be true.” 7:17-8:40 : “It meant everything. This World Series was just, and still is over 40 years later, an epochal moment in Missouri’s entire history, and Missouri has a really rich history, with lots of innovation, lots of crucial events both for the country and even the world at large. … It was especially a point of pride ‘cuz it was a defiance of bicoastal expectations – a lot of people wanted a Mets-Yankees World Series that year, a Subway Series – and instead it forced all eyes on Missouri. … It was a transcendent moment for the just over 5 million people living in Missouri at that time. I thought that was really beautiful.” 30:03-31:10: “It was obviously a very tough thing. It was tough to miss a big call like that and all the hate mail and threats he received, but what I emphasize is that Denkinger learned to live with it, and he learned to live with it pretty fast. Denkinger embraced it, he never tired talking about ‘The Call,’ and again, I do not think The Call comes close to defining him. There was so much more to him and he was a great umpire, but he learned to embrace it, learned to live with that flaw and even could have fun with it. Like, he would sign autographs of him, Worrell and Orta, saying, ‘Oops! – Don Denkinger.’ I think that’s one of the big lessons: learning to embrace that folly and not let it define you at the same time.” 31:58-32:45: “Joe Beckwith changed the book and honestly my life. I realized what the stakes of the book were: getting this done for someone’s dying wish. That was really heavy, and it changed how I look at my life. … I think about him every day. I miss him a ton, and I’m just grateful I got to make that connection just in time.’” 37:45-40:07: – “I got a copy of The Wax Pack early on in the book’s development, and I fell in love with it. I was blown away by the ease and depth of Brad’s humanistic storytelling. My jaw hit the floor at how fun and irreverent but also earnest and detailed it was. I knew I wanted to tell a deeper story about ’85, but when I saw that humanistic prose, I was like, ‘This is a good model for what I wanna do. This is your aspiration.’ But a few months after that, this is where the story really gets interesting. In September of 2021, I purchased a videogame on my Nintendo Switch called Return of the Obra Dinn. … When I got back to it, Brad Balukjian’s writing style – I felt I was able to elevate my style and be a lot like that – and all the things from Obra Dinn, the things that taught me about looking for specific clues, being able to identify people, capturing their legacy in a larger narrative. Obra Dinn inspired me every step of the way.”*If interested, Interstate '85 is available for purchase here, among other places.
