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:

Chicago Stories: The Black Sox Scandal

WTTW Chicago Stories

Chicago PBS (WTTW)
WTTW’s award-winning documentary series Chicago Stories uncovers the fascinating history, rich diversity, and breadth of human experience that shaped this great American city. In 2024, a new film premiered, focusing on the most notorious scandal in the history of professional baseball. It was an event that ruined the reputations and careers of some of the greatest players of all time and broke the heart of a nation.  Click here to watch the full documentary at WTTW.com.

Baseball’s .300 hitter has nearly gone extinct

By Andrew Greif, NBC News
From the time baseball began, a .300 average has been the benchmark by which a player’s success at the plate has been judged. But only seven Major League Baseball players reached that mark during the 2025 season. The dip has coincided with a general decrease in overall averages. Click here to read the full article at NBC News.

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

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By Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
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.

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

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By Dane Placko, WFLD/Fox 32 News
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

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By Randy Maniloff, American Bar Association Journal
Until now, 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

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By Dan Wallach, My Baseball History
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.

The Replay: Sports on the Big Screen

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By Bruce Murray, The Replay
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, BBC Radio 5
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, NPR On Point
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

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By Michael Enright, CBC Radio
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

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By Zach Buchanan, The Athletic
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

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By Chris Wimmer, Black Barrel Media
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