Interview: Tyler Kepner

Interview: Tyler Kepner

By Scott Bolohan

Tyler Kepner’s work for the New York Times and his bestselling book K: A History of Baseball have established him among the best baseball writers today. For his latest book, The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series, Kepner takes on the World Series—all of it. But he does it in a way that focuses on the stories that make us love the World Series, from the GOATs to the goats, the legendary moments to the forgotten—but equally important—moments that allowed the famous ones to happen. Written with his typical mix of humor and deep knowledge and passion for the game, it would be impossible to read it without finding out something new about the pinnacle of the baseball season.

We talked to Kepner the day before the start of the 2022 World Series about the Phillies, his favorite finds when researching, and Larry David.

I know you were a Phillies guy growing up. Are you excited to cover the Phillies in the World Series again?

Oh, sure. We’re all humans, right? We all come from somewhere, and I come from Philadelphia. I have a lot of friends and family who care a lot about the team. And I still do. I just happen to know a lot of people around that town, so I know how exciting that town gets when they win and when good things happen. I’m not going to reflect it in my writing. But I think it helps my writing to have that institutional knowledge of the Phillies and hopefully, I share it in a way that’s illuminating for fans.

How did you begin to tackle something as big as the World Series, which means so much to so many people?

The way I looked at it was I knew what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to do a reference book or a chronology. So then I thought, how do I get at this? And I looked at what are some themes that are kind of universal over the years. What are some themes that stand out through the 117 playings of this thing? That’s how I hit on the idea of dealing with World Series pressure, managing a World Series team, and constructing a World Series team. Also, looking at the unlikely heroes and guys who failed in the big moments, and how to deal with the big moments. The biggest challenge was thinking about how not to retell every story that most fans know anyway, but going behind the scenes. Not to focus on Kirk Gibson, but to focus on Mike Davis’ walk that set that moment up. Or not focus necessarily on Babe Ruth himself, but more on Charlie Root, the pitcher who gave up the so-called ‘called shot’ and how he would have reacted to the Babe if he had really shown him up by pointing to the seat. I thought looking at the sidebars and the stories beyond the main characters was a fun way to go about it.

That was one of my favorite parts of the book. Were there any legendary moments that you were really happy to discover more about?

I discovered at the 1919 Reds were actually a really good team. They weren’t some lucky team. They were good enough to win anyway. I would never have thought that that team had a better win/loss record than any of the Big Red Machine teams.  Realizing that Christy Mathewson had really been instrumental in putting that team together and finding the pitching staff they had that year was cool. Also realizing that the White Sox didn’t have their ace starter Red Faber, a hall-of-famer, for that series because of injury, so they were diminished already. They were ripe to be upset in that series. Historically, we think they would have won if they only tried. We don’t know how it would have been if things were level, and if it had been, the Reds were better.

For the book, you got to talk to all sorts of people who participated in the World Series. Was there something you learned or were surprised by from those who were a part of the World Series?

I think it’s something that most of them tend to really remember very and with incredible precision. But I think of Carl Willis, who came out of nowhere to have a big series for the Twins in ’91. He talks about how he wishes he could remember more about it. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. So it’s different for everybody. But I think they realize that that’s where you can really make a legacy and even though your life is going to unfold however it’s going to unfold, you can always turn back to those moments and say, ‘Yeah, you know, my team really needed me. I came through, or I didn’t, but I gave it my best shot.’ As time goes by, they realize how special and rare it is. You always hear guys say, ‘I made it when I was young, I thought we were going every year.’ When you experience it, you think you can do it again. But it doesn’t happen. Plenty of great players didn’t even get the chance once.

Along the same lines, you wrote about guys who had token appearance in the World Series. I loved hearing the stories about how much that meant to them that they had a chance to just get in the World Series. How did you even think to track down these people?

I remember very distinctly watching that ’88 World Series and seeing Todd Burns come in for one batter. That really stayed with me. I was to be able to develop a nice relationship with Tony La Russa and talked to him about that years later. I think he was tickled a little bit that I noticed. He talked to me about how much it meant and I thought that was particularly significant with La Russa. You think, he’s a guy who’s not going to give anything away to sentiment, he’s going to be looking for every little edge at every moment. But throughout his World Series, he sprinkles in guys for one at-bat or one batter, just to make sure they feel like they were a part of it. I think that’s really powerful.

I played a dice baseball game that my dad made up for me. I used to play it all the time. I’d recreate old World Series and I’d see the cumulative box score and try to get all those guys in. I always thought how rough would it be to say, ‘Yeah, it was on that team, but I never played in the Series.’ I always thought that would have been such a letdown.

Baseball keeps tinkering with rule changes. Do you think the World Series needs changing?

No, I don’t. I love the continuity. The continuity has changed quite a bit because of all the playoffs. And we can have great moments now in the LCS and Division Series and Wildcard games that in some ways eclipse the great moments in the World Series. The postseason now is what baseball promotes. And I get it. It’s fun, it’s more teams involved, but I think there’s still something really precious about the World Series. I wish they would have one day game again. That hasn’t happened since 1987. I wish the games didn’t go quite as long. But it’s still an awesome event. I still pour everything into my coverage of it. I think even though the ratings are not what they once were, there’s a reason that networks still pay so much for it. And there are still millions and millions and millions of viewers who enjoy it. So it’s diminished somewhat compared to 40-50 years ago and in American importance, but I think there’s still a resonance there that will always be there. I think it’s important that we try to preserve as much of the history as we can.

I’m a huge “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fan. I was actually an extra in the season with the Bill Buckner episode. The Buckner episode is my favorite ever. How did Larry David end up in the book?

I felt like so much had been written about Buckner that I just wanted to get at it from a different angle. When you look at Buckner’s post-career arc, by the time he was on “Curb” he had already made his peace with Boston fans. After the ’07 championship, he threw out the first pitch in ’08 and that really put a lot of that stuff behind him after a few tough years. But it took Larry David to really do it on a national scale. The Buckner moment was such a crossover thing. I just thought it was genius. I wanted to find out from his perspective, how America’s least sentimental comic could be so sentimental about Buckner and what it was about him that made him want to do that. I reached out a few different ways, and I was finally able to get ahold of him. And he was terrific. He’s a baseball guy. He and Jerry are both baseball guys. It was something that he was happy to do. It was a big highlight for me.

You also ran a baseball magazine when you were growing up. What was it like running one?

You know, it was such a different time. We didn’t have internet back then and I think I benefited from the idea that it was a kid doing it. But it sounded more polished than it than a typical kid’s. I think that’s partly why it appealed to people. But I had no business sense or anything. Like I was able to grow it. I just got a lot of free publicity because people love the idea of a kid doing it. There were many articles, TV appearances, and stuff that helped. That helped grow it by word of mouth, so I never really had to advertise it. Although we did retain a really good percentage of our subscribers, I never focused on building it business-wise.

How big did it end up getting?

I think the most subscriptions we had was about 600. We would mail it and my mom took care of all the mailing stuff and all the business side of it, keeping track of the subscriptions and whose was up when, how to let people know when their subscription was up, where each separate issue would go, and postage and all that. So she took a lot of that off me. And I was able to just focus on putting it all together and the writing. We didn’t do the transcriptions.

That’s the dream.

My dad’s secretary, I think she just took a few extra hours and I would get these beautiful transcriptions. When I went to college, I’m like, ‘Wait, I have to do this myself?’

Tyler Kepner is the New York Times baseball writer. His latest book, The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series, is available here.

Scott Bolohan is the founder of The Twin Bill. The first World Series he remembers is 1993, when he was rooting for the Blue Jays because John Kruck scared him.

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