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In this week’s episode of Slate’s sports podcast Hang Up and Listen, Stefan Fatsis and Mike Pesca talk with Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer about the life, death, and legacy of José Fernández, the Miami Marlins pitcher who died in a boating accident on Sunday at the age of 24. They also talk with MSNBC host and lifelong Chicago Cubs fan Chris Hayes about the morality of supporting a team whose paterfamilias is a Donald Trump supporter. Finally, former Denver Broncos tight end Nate Jackson discusses his new book, Fantasy Man: A Former NFL Player’s Descent into the Brutality of Fantasy Football.
Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned on the show:
- Slate’s Josh Levin wrote that José Fernández “played with a generosity of spirit that is rare at any level of sport.”
- The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh said Fernández’s death “is to baseball what Buddy Holly’s was to rock and James Dean’s was to movies.”
- Follow Ben Lindbergh on Twitter and read his book The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team.
- In 2013, Jordan Ritter Conn profiled Fernández’s journey from Cuba for Grantland.
- Conn eulogized Fernández for the Ringer, saying the star pitcher was “deeply uninterested in his own myth.”
- Eduardo Perez’s remembrance of Fernández on ESPN was moving.
- On FiveThirtyEight, Neil Paine examined the statistics that confirmed Fernández’s budding greatness.
- Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci wrote that “the death of a player this accomplished and this young is virtually unprecedented.”
- As Dan Le Batard wrote in the Miami Herald, Fernández was an icon in Miami’s Cuban community.
- A list of Major League Baseball players who died during their careers.
- Chris Hayes threw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field.
- Follow Chris on Twitter.
- Former Obama adviser and Chicago Cubs fan David Axelrod discussed the team’s World Series hopes for the New Yorker.
- Wright Thompson profiled Cubs baseball operations president Theo Epstein and his team-building strategy for ESPN the Magazine.
- Fangraphs says the Cubs have an 18 percent chance of winning the World Series.
- Joe Ricketts decided to donate $1 million to Donald Trump after spending nearly $6 million on anti-Trump efforts in the Republican primary.
- Read an excerpt from Nate Jackson’s book Fantasy Man: A Former Player’s Descent into the Brutality of Fantasy Football.
- Follow Nate on Twitter and read his first book, Slow Getting Up.
Hang Up and Listen’s weekly Wildfire Schultes:
Mike’s Wildfire Schulte: Hall of Famers Addie Joss and Ed Delahanty, and other active players who died while still playing baseball.
Stefan’s Wildfire Schulte: How do you pronounce the name of teenage soccer sensation Christian Pulisic?
On this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, for Slate’s 20th anniversary, Josh, Stefan, and Mike listen to, and comment on, some of the favorite Afterballs in show history. Visit slate.com/hangupplus now and get 30 percent off the price of an annual membership—a full year of Slate Plus for just $35.
Podcast production and edit by Mickey Capper.
Our intern is Shane Monaghan.
You can email us at hangup@slate.com.
