Episodes

The Sports Literati convene to discuss Premiership soccer through Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg's book about the history of the economics of the Premiership. They take a look at the business of premiere league football and how English soccer transformed itself in the early 90s from the unruly days of English hooliganism to one of the most polished, dominant leagues in all of sports. Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam.

This week, in a special collaboration with Medhum.org, The Sports Literati sit down and discuss The Tennis Partner, a masterpiece of medical humanities that just happened to be a sports book!

This month, the Sports Literati convene to discuss Arnold Schwarzneggar's classic sports memoir about his early days as a bodybuilder and his quest to go from Mr. Universe to Hollywood.

This month, the Sports Literati sit down to ponder and ruminate over one of the most high brow, intellectual books they have ever read. Okay, maybe not. But it just might be one of the most fun books they've ever read.

This month on the Sports Literati, we get out of our comfort zone and test our range by reading David Epstein's ideas about the power of diverse groups and why early specialization might not be great for children.

The Sports Literati reconvene to talk about the beautiful game, through the lens of Franklin Foer's classic soccer book How Soccer Explains the World, first published in 2004.

The Sports Literati revisits one of the seminal sports books of the 1990s: The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith. A close examination of the 1990-91 Chicago Bulls, we talk about an up and coming Michael Jordan and how misery just might breed success.

The Sports Literati convene to discuss how the United States 8 man crew rose from the depths of the Great Depression to take down the big, bad Nazis at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The Sports Literati enter the world of mixed martial arts for the first time, as they dissect the memoir of Rickson Gracie, the undefeated legend of Brazilian Jujitsu.

The Sports Literati take a look at Kent Babb's fly-on-the wall account of the 2019 Edna Carr high school football team as it sought a fourth consecutive Louisiana state championship. The book examines the hopelessness afflicting young, urban, blacks in a city with one of the highest rates of gun violence in America, but only a stone's flow from the affluent tourist neighbourhoods of New Orleans. Intro and Outro Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam...

The Sports Literati convene to discuss John Krakauer's seminal classic about an ascent on Mount Everest that goes horribly wrong. What constitutes a sport? How do intelligent human beings manage to make such a series of bad decisions? Join us as we make an ascent into the world of mountaineering.

This week, the Sports Literati convene to discuss Linsanity, one of Dave's favourite topics (try to guess which Dave!). Matthew Salesses is a Korean American writer who has written, as far as we know, the first literary novel based on Jeremy Lin's epic period of wonder with the New York Knicks in 2012. Join us as we take a look at this novel and discuss the impact of Linsanity on race, literature, and basketball.

The Sports Literati turn back the pages on a hockey classic, Peter Gzowski's The Game of Our Lives, a behind the scenes account of the 1980-81 Edmonton Oilers, led by a young Wayne Gretzky. They also discuss hockey as Canada's national myth, and whether it is still at the core of Canada's national identity today.

This month, the Sports Literati reconvenes to discuss the memoir of their collective, favourite basketball player of all time! And no, it's not Lebron James!

This month, the Sports Literati reconvenes to discuss Mike Tyson and his totally raw and visceral autobiography Undisputed Truth. Is Mike Tyson a good guy or a bad guy? Who's the biggest villain in Tyson's life? Join the Sports Literati as they go deep on one of the most famous and infamous athletes, if not people, of his generation.

This month, the two Daves convene to discuss America's past time. They reminisce about their own memories of baseball and listening to games on the radio before diving into Jared Diamond's book about how the new science of hitting has revolutionized the game in the last decade.

The Sports Literati sit down to talk about Scottie Pippen, the 1990s Chicago Bulls, and that big, bad, bald elephant in the room, Michael Jordan. If you're a casual basketball fan who only knows about Michael Jordan, or a basketball diehard who wants to know where Scottie Pippen ranks in the list of all time greats, this is the show for you. Intro and Outro Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam.

The Sports Literati sit down to talk about America's Team, also known as the Greatest Sports Team of All-Time according to Dave Hsu, the 1990s Dallas Cowboys. They break down the behind the scenes antics, the Jerry Jones/Jimmy Johnson feud that tore the team apart, and celebrate the much maligned Barry Switzer on this trip down nostalgia lane.

The Sports Literati returns after a hiatus to discuss The Sports Gene by David Epstein, a book that examines the science and genetics behind elite level sports performance. Intro and Outro Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam.

In this episode from the Sports Literati Vault, the two Daves step out of their comfort zone and talk about Soccernomics, a book that tries to make sense of the analytics of world soccer, and answer such vital questions as why certain countries and clubs succeed at soccer and others don't. Intro and Outro Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam.

In this Sports Literati Classic episode, the two Daves sit down and discuss The Victory Machine: the Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty by Ethan Sherwood Strauss. They talk about the factors that went into the fall of the Golden State Warriors dynasty, and look at the psyche of their misunderstood superstar, Kevin Durant. Intro and Outro Music: Sergei Rachmanioff Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32 performed by Justina Sam.

The two Daves dig into one of the most highly touted sports books in recent memory, Open by Andre Agassi. Andre Agassi was a child tennis prodigy who eventually became one of the top players in the world. If you followed sports in the 1990s, you couldn't have missed Agassi's fancy hairdos, neon coloured outfits and elaborate marketing campaigns. In Open, written a few years after his retirement, Agassi takes us with him as he recounts the story of growing up with a tennis obsessed father, throu...

The Sports Literati take a look at the business side of sports and the early years of one of the foundational brands in the modern sports world. Shoe Dog is a bestselling memoir of Nike's early years as told by the company's founder, Phil Knight. The book traces the origins of Nike from a humble, bunch of salesmen selling a Japanese track shoe named the Onitsuka Tiger out of the back of their trunks, to one of the most recognizable brands in the world. In this episode, Dave and Dave discuss suc...

The Sports Literati induct the founding book title into the Pantheon of Sports Literature. The Game by Ken Dryden was published in 1983 and remains quite possibly the most highly regarded hockey book, if not sports book, of all time. Ken Dryden was a Hall of Fame goalie for the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s, and later became a writer and a Member of Parliament in Canada's federal government. He was also the President of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1990s. The Game follows a week in the life...