A Pod of Their Own, Bonus Episode: Win a Nimmo Gnome!

Welcome back to A Pod of Their Own, a show by the women of Amazin’ Avenue where we talk all things Mets, social justice issues in baseball, and normalize female voices in the sports podcasting space.

This week, we take a little break from podcasting for the Fourth of July holiday. We hope all of our wonderful listeners enjoy the break as well.

Instead of a regular podcast, we will be sharing our thoughts on our favorite episodes so far. We have come a long way since our first episode. We interviewed a couple of amazing guests, Linda screams with regular frequency, Maggie coined the phrase “group dong,” and Allison is a saint for trying to keep us on track. We also hope we shined a light on subjects that too frequently get left in the dark.

We have had a lot of fun recording despite the fact the Mets drive us crazy, but we would love to hear from you about your favorite episode as well. Email or tweet us your favorite episode and tell us why it is your favorite. After you hit send, you will be entered to win an awesome and super happy Brandon Nimmo gnome! To be qualified to enter you must be following us on Twitter.

Now without further ado, our favorites:

Allison’s Favorite

I always love when our shows bring in outside perspectives, whether that be in the form of a guest interview, guest co-host, or responses from folks on a given topic. That is why I’m really proud of the episode we did about online harassment (Episode 12: Don’t be an a**hole)—because it allowed us to share stories from folks from a wide range of identities and perspectives. While it is certainly no secret that people who do not identify as cis men deal with all sorts of nonsense online, I think it’s important to shed light on it for people who don’t necessarily deal with it every day to demonstrate just how pervasive and often sinister these experiences are for the people going through them. Beyond that, it’s also crucial to have conversations not just about the issues themselves, but also about how to make the situation better. And I like to think we achieved that in this episode by giving pointers about how to be a better ally and make our online world just a little less toxic. As members of the Amazin’ Avenue community, we can especially appreciate how so many powerful connections are made online within fandoms and how treasured these connections are to people, especially those who belong to marginalized communities. Having conversations like the one we had in this episode goes a long way toward making sure our online communities are safe and awesome places for everyone to share their passion for the game they love and the team they love.

Linda’s Favorite

This was hard for me to pick but I chose the episode where we discuss domestic violence. This was Episode 6: Baseball Has a Domestic Violence Problem. I don’t know if I can specifically call this a favorite since it infuriates me that we continually have to have this discussion, but at the same time it felt empowering to give a voice to a problem that always seems to get silenced or swept under the rug. It was emotionally draining but these conversations are absolutely essential to have if any progress is to be made and I hope we did a tiny part to help that.

Maggie’s Favorite

Way back in Episode 3, when we were still just finding our feet, we did an interview with Dr. Meredith Wills discussing the work she had published last year about the difference in the baseballs. It was already clear at the time that 2019 was going through another home run surge and the conversation created an amazing foundation to understand the how and the why and the wherefore. Dr. Wills was a delightful guest who offered us a window into life in astrophysics (and knitting!) and we all left the call that day feeling just a little bit smarter. It was the moment when I started to feel like we were really coming together with a voice of our own - one that was thoughtful, emotional, and funny.

Be sure to follow A Pod of Their Own on Twitter (@apodoftheirown) so you can enter our giveaway. The winner will be announced in two weeks. Also be sure to follow all of our co-hosts on Twitter: Allison McCague (@PetitePhD), Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162), and Linda Surovich (@LindaSurovich). You can also email the show at aa.apodoftheirown@gmail.com.

Look for A Pod of Their Own in your feeds every Wednesday and don’t forget: there’s no crying in podcasting!