Q+A: Will Carroll, Baseball Prospectus Radio

Voting for baseball’s All-Star Game wraps up today, and it’s hard to think of a better way to spend the long weekend than at the ballpark. I’ll be getting in at least one game this weekend.

If you need something to listen to on your way to or from the ballpark, try the Baseball Prospectus Radio podcast, a show I have heartily recommended in the past. And check out the interview below with the smart and amiable host, Will Carroll.

I’ll be taking off the rest of the week to enjoy some fireworks and grilling, but I’ll be back next week with some brand new reviews.

When and why did you decide to start podcasting?

We initially did it as an adjunct to the radio show, which was satellite distributed. As the concept caught on, the cost savings while not losing distribution just made more sense for a growing company. In addition, it gave us much more freedom -- if an interview goes ten minutes, that's cool. If it goes a half hour, that's cool, too.

You do lots of interviews with people who aren't in the dugouts, which is, in some ways, unusual. Can you talk about why having these outside perspectives is important?

Much of it is a function of access. ESPN and XM are going to spend more time on the recognizable people and have a higher tolerance for cliche than I do. Players seldom give the most interesting interviews. By going to that next tier, the guys that help make decisions or have an interesting viewpoint, we're giving a different insight into the game.

Based on other interviews I've listened to, it seems like it's tough to get sports people to talk in something other than cliches. How do you get people to open up?

For me, it's about making them feel comfortable. They know me, they know who I am, they've heard the show. I'm not about “gotcha,” but I am going to give them the freedom to say what they want to say. The freedom podcastiing gives me on time helps this a lot. Guys that don't have to speak in 20-second sound bites say more interesting things.

When you're not doing this podcast, you write frequently about sports injuries. Can you talk about how you developed that expertise, and how knowing more about them can add to people's understanding of the game?

I'm just a reporter with an interesting beat! I figured out a long time ago that it was something that not a lot of people understood and I already “spoke the language” of doctors and trainers, having grown up around sports medicine. I was just lucky to find the niche. Most of my writing is a “public education,” as Murrow said. I'm learning along with my readers. I want them to feel like I'm their buddy at the bar, telling them what I know. I've always wanted my readers to feel like their taking the journey with me.

What podcasts do you listen to?

This Week In Tech, Jon Gruber's Show, and I love Ask a Ninja!

Anything else you think readers should know about your show?

I produce the show entirely on Macs using off the shelf equipment. Our interviews are done via Skype, mixed in GarageBand, and both are done off my MacBook Air. It's pretty amazing to people when I show up with a sliver of a laptop and can do all the things a studio can do.

Howcast Summer Necessities Review: And the Livin’ Is Easy

As a Minnesotan, I think I can safely say this: My people? Love their summers. Even when it is not summer at all.

Anyone who’s lived through one of the state’s bone-chilling winters can tell you that there’s always a day in February when the mercury rises to 50 degrees or so. After temperatures of 30 below zero, it really does feel like a tropical heat wave. People bust out the shorts and t-shirts, optimistic restaurant owners drag chairs and tables to the outdoor patio, and the craziest ones even pay for the “privilege” of jumping into ice-covered lakes. (Hint: that is snow, not white sand. Brr.)

So when summer actually comes around, like right now, we occasionally need to re-orient ourselves. We need to stop pulling on our snowsuits, and start pulling on sarongs.

And that is where Howcast’s Summer Necessities comes in. Its delightful 2-minute video podcasts provide a flurry of tips on everything from making the most of your time at the amusment park (the days that are least busy are Tuesday through Thursday) to earning more dough at your next yard sale (wrap things like non-matching utensils in ribbon to make it seem like what you're selling is classy, not crappy). Each episode focuses on a specific activity, from (legally) turning on a city water hydrant to making a water balloon launcher to shaving your legs, you simian beast.

Though not every tip is innovative on an explode-your-head scale (wait, I should use shaving cream when shaving my legs? Who knew?), I’ve found that pretty much every podcast provides at least one good tip that hadn’t occurred to me. And if I could learn one new thing every two minutes on a regular basis? Well, I probably wouldn’t have locked myself out of the house today. For starters.

The best part is that these are all things that you can do today, instead of waiting until you’ve secured that house in the Hamptons. (Really, O at Home Magazine, since when did s’mores require dragging out ovenproof cake stands, bringing heavy cream to a boil, and putting things in an oven? And how does this fit the headline of the piece, “Your Guide to the Laziest Summer Ever”?

Watch the podcast and learn. Then let the summer truly begin.

Q+A: Curtis Gilbert, Electionwise

Plenty of organizations are using the upcoming presidential elections as the launching point for a podcast. One of the best, in my opinion, is MPR’s Electionwise. Here’s the formula:

(RadioLab – Science + Politics) – 50 minutes = Electionwise

Pretty perfect, huh? Curtis Gilbert, one of the podcasts hosts, shared his thoughts about the podcast and the process.

When and why did you and Molly Bloom start this podcast?

Molly and I are working on a special election-related project at MPR called Engaging Americans. It's funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the goal is to cover the election with guidance from our audience and the general public. The podcast is one way we're doing that. But there are also traditional reports, public forums, online games, local and national programming. There are lots of different ways we involve the public in our news coverage. We tell their stories through a series called "The Day You Won My Vote." We ask them to help us spot trends and identify issues to cover. And in the case of this podcast, we let them tell us what questions are on their minds this election year. We started Electionwise in mid-April, and the plan is to produce one program a week through election day. After that... who knows?

How did you home in on the tone of the podcast, which is definitely less serious than a lot of political podcasts out there?

Radio is a passive medium. Podcasts are an active one. Unlike the stories I do for Morning Edition and All Things Considered, no one is going to accidentally happen upon Electionwise while they are stuck in traffic. They have to actively decide to subscribe to it. And they have to make the choice to listen to it on their iPod, instead of one of their favorite songs.

So, we decided it needed to be short, fast-paced and fun, while it teaches you something -- ideally something that will make you sound smart when you're talking with your friends. Molly and I spend more time at work than we'd care to admit sending each other random online videos. That's the genre of humor we're going for. If it works for YouTube, why not a public radio podcast?

The shows seem more complicated to create and produce than those of a typical podcast. Can you talk a bit about how you decide to include things like political impersonations/politicians as kids/American Idol clips into a given podcast?

First of all, we wanted to incorporate the heretofore largely untapped voice-acting talents of MPR political editor Mike Mulcahy. He has been covering politics in Minnesota since the 80's, and can do a pretty good impression of just about every politician in the state. So every week, we have to figure out some embarrassing thing for him to do. And when we need a really piping child's voice, we always have Molly's cousins, Brita and Danny Hunegs.

We have to come up with at least one moment of silliness for every week's show. We usually figure out what it's going to be while we're researching the answer to the listener's question. It can be something as simple as a quotation on the New York Times Op-Ed page ("American Idol primary") or it can be something our guest says during the interview. We had no idea that John Koza from the National Popular Vote project had published a board game based on the electoral college back in the 1960's. But as soon as he told us that, we looked at each other across the mics and started grinning: We had the perfect bit to end the show with!

The main thing we want to do is surprise our listeners. Maybe people will listen every week just to see what off-the-wall thing we do next.

Your shows are based on listener-generated questions -- have you gotten any questions that, for one reason or another, you don't think you could ever do an episode on? Can you give an example?

We've gotten lots of questions that we can't use. Sometimes people ask very pointed, sarcastic questions that are directed at a specific candidate: "Why do you think it's O.K. to lie to the public about X, Y, Z..." That's not going to work very well. What we're looking for are questions about the candidates, the issues or the election, itself. I especially like questions about those things we take for granted -- the two-party system, the electoral college, the long, drawn-out primary process, etc. Those questions always boil down to: "How'd it get to be this way?" It's also helpful when the question ends with a question mark.

What podcasts do you like to listen to?

Curtis currently subscribes to: On the Media, This American Life, Radio Lab, Flight of the Conchords, Word for Word and Electionwise (gotta keep those subscriber numbers up!)

Molly listens to Filmspotting, Radio Lab, The Sound of Young America, The Naked Scientists from the BBC, and This American Life.

It seems that public radio has made a significant commitment to podcasting -- in a way that most other media outlets haven't. Any thoughts about why?

If people are going to be walking around listening to iPods, instead of Walkmen, I think we'd better make sure we're there! I think we're still figuring out what works as a podcast and how that's different from what works as a radio program. But we do know how to produce and edit audio, and we know a thing or two about journalism. So that gives us a big advantage.

Is there anything else you think readers should know about Electionwise?

Please send us questions about the election, the candidates and the issues! The podcast is only as good as the questions!

Scam School Review: And For My Next Trick

You know when you were a kid and you could be genuinely awed by the uncle who could pull a quarter from your ear or guess the card that you’d chosen from a full deck?

This is sort of the feeling you’ll get when you tune in to Scam School. The weekly episodes give viewers an inside look at some new (and old) street cons.

The best part is that Brian Brushwood, the Guinness-toting host, gives you all the knowledge you need to perform these tiny but memorable tricks yourself. All you need are the tools you’ll find at a bar: napkins, matches, pint glasses, and straws.

In the five- to ten-minute videos, the spiky-haired Brushwood will teach you to turn yourself into a human jack-o-lantern, demonstrate superhuman strength, and make a match jump off the palm of someone else’s hand.

Some of the tricks are groan-worthy. There’s no magic in balancing a frosty brew on your buddy’s two thumbs, for example, but you might earn yourself a punch in the nose when he realizes the only way he can extricate himself is to tip the glass. Ha ha! Be sure to pick someone smaller and slower than you are when performing it.

That said, they’re generally neat little tricks, and I’m willing to bet they’re endlessly popular for anyone who’s loaded up on an alcoholic beverage (or six). Brushwood, a pro magician in who tours the college circuit, has a genial delivery. The bar setting, where he uses real volunteers to showcase his tricks, is a winner as well.

Not all the tricks in the podcast are particularly original (you can find the thumb trick here, for example), but you’ll have a tough time finding a better collection in a single place.

Mostly, he offers the tricks up as a way to win yourself a free beer, but even if you don’t have a frosty mug on the line, you can still impress your friends. If they just find the shenanigans exasperating, well, magician or not, you might have to do your own vanishing act.

ThreadBanger Review: DIY Or Die Trying

I’ve never been particularly handy or crafty, a fact emphasized this weekend when some friends came over to help rebuild a portion of my deck. My primary responsibilities? Fetching drinks and ordering lunch.

Still, I’ve always dreamed that someday I would miraculously wake up with an ability to understand—and complete— do-it-yourself projects. I’ve had patient friends try to teach me to knit. I’ve kept dozens of back issues of the hipster DIY manual, ReadyMade, in my files. Oh, and I’m on the mailing list for the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, believing (absurdly) that I will someday build my own perfect little house.

Now I’ve got a podcast to add to my growing list of DIY lust. ThreadBanger is a perfect little podcast for those who need a bit of inspiration for their next project. Or those who just dream of doing projects.

Hosts Rob Czar, Corinne Leigh, and Meg Allan showcase a cool project each week (Make your own planter! Headboard! Lampshade!) and include videos of additional projects creadted by ThreadBanger fans (known as Thread Heads).

This is crafting for the 20-something set: a cross-stitched “BRB” takes viewers to commercial breaks, and they’re focused on making a post-college apartment—not a five-bedroom house in the suburbs—cozy. They efficiently document each step visually, cutting out the boring parts and the swearing.

Episodes end with a quick tip that can be implemented even by those of us who are closer to the left end of the Neanderthal → Evolved Human scale. Total time? Five to ten minutes. As the name indicates, the podcasters are plenty clever and none too serious.

They lighten up the how-to formulas with the occasional air-guitar riffing on weed whackers. Each podcast ends with the equivalent of a DIY secret handshake: the index and middle fingers extended, clipping like scissors.

If the projects occasionally verge on the ridiculous (are you really going to make that tree-branch curtain rod? How about that jean-collar sweatshirt?), everyone involved is so genial and winning that it’s hard to fault them on the truly impractical project.

And after all, what do I know? The last thing I truly crafted involved construction paper, Elmer’s glue and macaroni shells. For anyone who’s a bit more advanced (or just wishes they were), ThreadBanger is a cut above the rest.

7 Magazines (And A Presidential Candidate) That Need Podcasts

I'm always thrilled when a big name enters the podcasting fray -- it seems to add just a bit more weight to the medium. But for the much-loved pubs below, I've been waiting (and waiting) in vain.

1. Entertainment Weekly. While it appears that the magazine tried podcasting oh-so-briefly in 2006, they need a jump start. The publication's writers some of the most lucid and inventive takes on entertainment and pop culture around, and they could do the same with a podcast.

2. McSweeney's. Author Dave Eggers blew everyone away back in the late 1990s when he began publishing the achingly hip quarterly mag (or book, or CD, or whatever format seemed cooler than the last). It attracted some of the brightest writers around and included plenty of ground-breaking ideas. Instead of pouring resources into the destined-for-failure DVD pub Wholphin, McSweeney's should look to reinvent the podcast in the same way they reinvented the magazine. Please?

3. Bust. Though the women's magazine has ties to the delightfully zany Threadbanger DIY site and podcast (which I hope to review soon), it would benefit from its own podcast, too. I think the kind of smart and snarky environmental news podcast that Grist offers up every couple weeks would be the perfect model.

4. Esquire. So many options, Esquire! Do readings of all those famous stories from the magazine's heyday in the 60s and 70s. (There are still ways to milk that much-loved Gay Talese classic, "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold.") Maybe do more in-depth interviews with the folks who are part of those popular "How To Be a Better Man" and "What it Feels Like" stories. Talk with your mag's best-selling authors, like Chuck Klosterman and AJ Jacobs. I'm sure it would be a hit.

5. Men's Health. Men's Health, you are king of the health factoid, the fitness factoid, the "Eat This, Not That" factoid. Now turn those all into two-minute podcasts, and people will eat them up like so many pretzels at the bar. (Because they are healthier than the honey-roasted peanuts, dontcha know.)

6. Women's Health. Same as above.

7. Readymade. DIY+hipster+humor. That sort of trifecta that almost guarantees podcast success.

+1. Oh, and John McCain? You need a podcast, too. Obama has *four* if you include his senator podcast and the poorly-updated BarackTV. A 71-year-old trying to convince America he can connect with younger voters should put a podcast on his to-do list. Just saying.

Anyone you'd like to see?

Vanguard Plain Talk On Investing Review: Long Walks On the Beach Not Included

ISO a stable, reliable, good provider committed to sticking around for the long haul. No games! Honesty is a must, and our goals should be in sync. Serious inquiries only, please.

Trite enough to make you die a little inside? I know. Hear me out.

The relationship we have with our money can be just as complicated as the relationships we have with real people. And what we say we want—stability and security, for example—isn't what we actually find appealing. Like so many people who crave attractive-but-unreliable sweeties, many people end up being swayed (financially) by the adrenalin rush of Jim Cramer, get-rich-quick schemes, and can’t-miss ground-floor "opportunities."

But money drama—just like relationship drama—rarely works out successfully. And that’s why Vanguard’s Plain Talk on Investing is a breath of fresh air in the world of investment and finance hucksters. Shouting may secure book deals and snake-oil salesmen might lure in suckers, but neither can promise good returns over time.

The fact is that the most reliable formula for achieving wealth is astonishingly simple:

Savings+Diversification+Time = Wealth

Every other smart thing you can learn about money is just a variation on that general theme.

Plain Talk helps tease out that formula through twice-a-month podcasts that help you understand the importance of regular savings, low expenses, and staying rational in turbulent times. The 6- to 12-minute episodes spell out everything you need to know in simple—but not simplistic—terms.

The shows are scripted and soothing, and while they occasionally mention Vanguard products, they're not heavy-handed. If these podcasts are sales pitches, they're very subtle ones.

If you and your money are finally looking to settle down, Vanguard’s Plain Talk on Investing will help make sure you treat each other right. This? Could be the start of a beautiful relationship.