Bouton, who died Wednesday, spoke to Fresh Air in 1986 about his 1970 tell-all memoir, in which he drew on his seven years with the New York Yankees to offer an insider’s guide to baseball.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Jim Bouton, the former big-league pitcher better known for his prose than his fastball, died Wednesday at his home in Massachusetts. He was 80.

In 1970, Bouton wrote the book “Ball Four,” a raunchy insider’s look at the game that drew heavily on Bouton’s seven seasons with the New York Yankees. He wrote about players getting drunk, peeping through keyholes at women and popping amphetamines like candy. The book enraged players and some sportswriters and drew a rebuke from commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but it was a bestseller.

After a respectable baseball career, Bouton wrote several other books, did some acting and sportscasting and was a George McGovern delegate to the 1972 Democratic convention. Bouton spoke with Terry in 1986 and began with a story from “Ball Four” about Mickey Mantle.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

JIM BOUTON: I think the most controversial story in the book was I told about the time Mickey Mantle hit a home run with a hangover. And it wasn’t really even so much as a put-down of Mickey Mantle as it was a story of what a great athlete he was. I told about the time we were in Minnesota. And we’d been out the night before a game, having a few drinks – about 2 o’clock in the morning, I guess it was. I don’t want to say Mickey was drunk, but he spent about a half an hour trying to make a telephone call from a grandfather’s clock.

So he comes into the ballpark the following morning, and he’s hungover. And the manager says, you know, sleep it off. Most managers were players themselves. They understand you come to the ballpark once in a while with a hangover.

So Mick is sleeping in the trainer’s room. We’re playing the Minnesota Twins. We get – stick somebody else in the outfield. And so the game’s going on, and it gets tie score after nine innings. And in about the 12th inning, the manager says, I hate to do it, but I need a pinch hitter in the 13th. Go in and wake up the Mick.

So we go in the trainer’s room, you know, wake up Mickey Mantle, dress him in his uniform, steer him through the tunnel up into the dugout. Thirteenth inning comes around – he put a bat in Mickey’s hands and point him in the direction of home plate. The Mick staggers up to the plate. Fortunately, he’s a switch hitter – doesn’t matter what side he gets on – steps into the batter’s box.

To show you what a great athlete this guy was – and Mickey was the best ballplayer I ever saw – he takes one practice swing and hits the first pitch into the center field bleachers, a tremendous blast 450 feet away. We win the game. The crowd is going nuts, and the players are going crazy in the dugout. We’re laughing and pointing and screaming and slapping each other on the back. And suddenly, it occurs to us he still has to round those bases.

TERRY GROSS: (Laughter).

BOUTON: There’s a rule in baseball that you must touch the bases in order. Fortunately, he heads off in the right direction. The minute he hits first base, the entire dugout goes, make a left – goes around, touches second, touches third, comes across, misses home plate – we have to send him back for that – comes over to the dugout.

And, of course, the fans are giving him a standing ovation. And as he’s waving to the crowd, he looks at us in the dugout, and he says, those people don’t know how tough that really was. I went over to his locker afterwards, and I said, how did you do that? You couldn’t even see up there. He said, it was very simple. I hit the middle ball.

GROSS: (Laughter).

BOUTON: So if this destroys America’s illusions about baseball or Mickey Mantle, then I don’t know what you do with all the literature that’s come out since then where each player tries to top the next in terms of what he can tell or how far he can go.

GROSS: Pitching careers are subject to more problems than other careers are, I think, because your arm is so vulnerable. And your career depends on your arm, and it’s what you’re abusing all the time.

BOUTON: Sure. And pitching is not a natural motion. Throwing a ball as hard as you can 120 times every four days is not natural.

GROSS: Did you have to change your pitching style because of injuries you were getting?

BOUTON: Well, I had to change my pitching style when I wasn’t able to throw hard anymore. See, what happened was I threw very hard when I first came up. I was a overhand fastball pitcher. And then when I hurt my arm, I wasn’t able to throw hard for a while. And then when I did, it – the ball didn’t have that zip on it anymore. It didn’t have that snap. Even though the ball was traveling as fast, it wasn’t moving.

So it’s like taking a rubber band and stretching it too far, and then it never gets its elasticity back again. And that’s what happened to my arm. So I had to change from being a fastball pitcher to a knuckleball pitcher.

Fortunately, when I was a kid, I threw a knuckleball, which is not a pitch that requires very much strength. It’s a skill pitch. You push it off with your fingertips. The idea is to get the ball to go through the air without any rotation, and then it jumps around all by itself. And so I became a knuckleball pitcher to compensate for the fact that I couldn’t throw hard anymore.

GROSS: How hard are knuckleballs to hit?

BOUTON: They’re almost impossible to hit when you throw a good one. The difficulty is throwing a good one. When you don’t throw a good one, anybody can hit them. That’s the problem with a knuckleball. Nobody can hit a well-thrown knuckleball, and almost anybody can hit a poorly thrown knuckleball.

GROSS: Say it was a full count, and there were a couple of men on base. What would you throw? Would you throw a knuckleball, knowing that if you made one more – one wrong move, it might be a home run ’cause…

BOUTON: Yes.

GROSS: …It’s easier to hit?

BOUTON: I would throw a knuckleball. I would throw a knuckleball because my feeling is I would rather live and die with my best pitch than take a chance with something that wasn’t my best.

GROSS: Did you have any gestures that you had to do before you threw a pitch and, like, rub your hand on your side three times or (laughter)…

BOUTON: Nothing that was superstitious. Sure, I went through the same sort of little rituals before I threw the ball because it’s important to do that. And athletes need to do that and many performers need to do that because those are the little steps that are really part of the process.

Throwing a ball is not just throwing a ball. Part of it starts when you walk out to the mound – how you walk out to the mound, how you feel about yourself and the fans and the batter and the whole – I mean, all of that – the rosin bag in your hand, how the ball feels. And you want to start playing with that ball in your hand so you get that feeling, and you want to recreate the memory – the muscle memory that brings you back to the last time you were really throwing well. And that whole process starts long before you actually throw the ball.

GROSS: Why do pitchers like to chew when they’re on the mound?

BOUTON: Part of it is because of the nervousness and the tension. And it’s sort of – chewing relieves that. But the spitting part is different, OK? Spitting – and also all this crotch grabbing and spitting back and forth that you see in Major League Baseball – there’s a real reason for that. There’s a behavioral reason for that. And that is that what these are is macho displays, OK? It’s a man-to-man challenge out there, the pitcher versus the batter. And it’s very much like two cats squaring off where they both have to sort of urinate on the shrubbery, saying, OK, this is my yard. I own this space. And the other cat’s saying, yeah, but I own my space, and then they’re fighting.

You see, what the batter is is – he steps into the batter’s box and he spits all over the place. He’s saying he’s – that’s his turf. The pitcher is saying, oh, yeah? Well, (imitating spitting) this is my turf out here, and now we’ll see who’s the best. And so that’s why you have that. It’s that mano-a-mano challenge situation, you know? And that’s what they are. They’re animals marking their territory.

GROSS: Jim Bouton, I want to thank you very much.

BOUTON: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.

DAVIES: Jim Bouton spoke with Terry Gross in 1986. Bouton died Wednesday at the age of 80. Coming up, we’ll remember actor Rip Torn, best known for his role as Artie on “The Larry Sanders Show.” This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF WES MONTGOMERY’S “FOUR ON SIX”)

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Rachel Bachman, senior sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal, about how this year’s World Cup title might help the National Women’s Soccer League thrive.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

This year’s ticker-tape parade is over for the women’s national soccer team. Now back to work. How can women’s soccer take advantage of a monthlong commercial for the sport? When the women won their second World Cup in 1999, they had a lot of momentum. But since then, two different pro leagues have launched and folded. Fans and players hope the current league, the National Women’s Soccer League, will be different.

Joining me to talk about this is Rachel Bachman. She’s a senior sports writer for The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to the program.

RACHEL BACHMAN: Great to be here, Audie. Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: So this is the women’s fourth World Cup title. What do you think will be different this time around?

BACHMAN: One of the things that’s changed most dramatically is the backdrop of their victory. The Women’s World Cup is just so much more popular than it was back in ’91 when it started when hardly anyone even knew it was happening. FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, estimates that 1 billion people watched this Women’s World Cup, and that’s simply unprecedented.

CORNISH: In March, the women’s team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Soccer alleging that the federation pays them less than men. People have been talking about this a lot. How does this affect their argument?

BACHMAN: Well, if I were the U.S. women’s soccer team, I would take the audio from the World Cup final in which the crowd was chanting equal pay and submit it as evidence because what they have now, in addition to a World Cup title, is they have the public unequivocally on their side. And I would think that can only help them in their lawsuit.

CORNISH: In the meantime, it looks like the private market is starting to step up. Can you talk about how this win has basically kind of brought more attention to the team from the business world?

BACHMAN: Well, two significant things happened during the World Cup itself. One, ESPN announced that it will broadcast 14 games in the NWSL. Another thing that has happened is Budweiser announced a four-year sponsorship agreement with the NWSL as well. And this is a league that really has largely run on a shoestring budget. If it’s going to succeed long-term, it needs deep-pocketed investors, owners and, certainly, sponsors. And Budweiser is a very significant first step on the way of what could be increased investment in the league.

CORNISH: Does it make a difference that the team has this charismatic international star in Megan Rapinoe? I mean, is that something that can really be a defining moment for a sport and a league that is trying to push itself forward?

BACHMAN: Absolutely. It’s just been remarkable to see the rise of her star. You know, let’s not forget she certainly was a very good player for the team going into the World Cup, but certainly not what we would say the unequivocally best player. She scored all four goals in two of the U.S.’ knockout round games. She, of course, very famously struck this outstretched arms pose during the France game. And, of course, her sparkling, very effervescent personality.

CORNISH: Yeah, she’s good for a soundbite.

BACHMAN: Exactly. And I think that can only help the league. Certainly, in every city she goes to, she’ll be the LeBron James of the NWSL, and that can only help boost attendance.

CORNISH: Is there anything other women’s pro leagues, like the WNBA, can take from this moment from soccer and apply it?

BACHMAN: Well, I think the most significant contribution the U.S. women’s soccer team has made to other women’s leagues is the pay discrimination suit because what that did was to launch this national conversation about pay for female athletes, highlighting the fact that some of these leagues are struggling, including the WNBA. So now I think fans understand that the onus is on them, in part, to make sure these leagues survive.

CORNISH: But have we seen this movie before? I mean, we talked about, in the introduction, the idea of leagues coming and going – right? – folding off the momentum of a moment. What makes you think this moment will last?

BACHMAN: Well, one thing that’s different is the NWSL is already twice as long as either of the two leagues that preceded it. It’s got a little bit thicker of a foundation. It’s working off of a larger platform. The Women’s World Cup is simply a much bigger deal now than it was when those two previous leagues folded.

In addition, you know, it is becoming international. I mean, Marta, the great Brazilian star, plays for the Orlando Pride of the NWSL. Samantha Kerr played for the Australian national team in the World Cup, plays for the Chicago Red Stars. So you know, these are also stars that the NWSL can market to try to sort of broaden the base of the league.

CORNISH: Rachel Bachman is senior sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks so much.

BACHMAN: Thanks so much, Audie.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The U.S. Women’s National Team won the Women’s World Cup championship for a fourth time. As the players return home, they’re ramping up their fight for “equal pay for equal play.”

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The celebration for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team shifts this week from France to New York City. On Wednesday, the World Cup champs will get a ticker-tape parade and keys to the city. Then the players will turn their focus back to a more serious matter. In a lawsuit filed before the tournament, they demanded equal pay to their male counterparts. As NPR’s Tom Goldman reports, many U.S. women’s team supporters say a fourth World Cup title makes the case even stronger.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: In the stadium in Lyon yesterday, it didn’t take long for the pivot from joy to indignation. As U.S. players hugged and celebrated their hard-earned victory over a tough Netherlands team, the chants bubbled up from the stands.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER FANS: (Chanting) Equal pay, equal pay, equal pay.

GOLDMAN: And then the booing…

(BOOING)

GOLDMAN: …For members of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, which reportedly will pay the U.S. women a $4 million bonus, compared to the 38 million it paid to last year’s men’s World Cup winners.

Megan Rapinoe, the outspoken U.S. winger, won the Golden Ball award given to the tournament’s most valuable player. But after the match, she assumed her other role as outspoken plaintiff in the class-action suit filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation in March. The suit was brought by U.S. players, but Rapinoe says everyone at this World Cup helped push the fight forward.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MEGAN RAPINOE: Every player at this World Cup put on the most incredible show that you could ever ask for, and we can’t do anything more to impress, more to be better ambassadors, to take on more, to play better, to do anything. It’s time to move that conversation forward to the next step.

GOLDMAN: The next step is mediation, as the U.S. women and their federation try to resolve issues of equal pay and better working conditions. On the surface, resolution seems easy; pay the U.S. women what the U.S. men make. Look at the women’s success versus the men’s lack thereof. The men didn’t even qualify for their last World Cup. Look at what the teams make for their federation. The Wall Street Journal reports in the last three years, U.S. women’s games generated more revenue than the U.S. men.

Still, sports law expert Michael McCann says resolving the issues is tricky.

MICHAEL MCCANN: It’s a complex topic. It’s not as straightforward as I think it’s depicted.

GOLDMAN: McCann is a law professor at the University of New Hampshire. He says there’s debate about how revenue is attributed to the men’s and women’s teams. There’s debate about how sponsorships are awarded. The two teams have different pay structures. The men are paid when they play. The women have guaranteed pay. And McCann wonders what happens if the women are successful in their efforts.

MCCANN: Here, this is an entire group of players bringing in a case over pay. That complicates it in the sense that – how would any increases be distributed?

GOLDMAN: McCann says the lawsuit is suspended during mediation. But if talks fail, the women will resume litigation. Emily Martin says women everywhere in this country should pay attention to this case over pay inequality. Martin is with the National Women’s Law Center. She says when you compare women and men who work full time, women are paid about 80 cents for every dollar paid to men.

EMILY MARTIN: I do think it will inspire individual women to come forward and say, pay me what you owe me. I also think that when you see this kind of high-profile excellence fighting for equal pay, that that is an important prompt for lawmakers to do the same.

GOLDMAN: Martin adds, considering the U.S. women’s sustained excellence, maybe pay equality is aiming too low and it’s time to ask for better pay.

Tom Goldman, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The United States won the Women’s World Cup after a thrilling 2-0 victory against the Netherlands. With the win, the U.S. has won the World Cup a record four times.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Well, they did it. The U.S. women proved once again they are the best in the world, defeating the Netherlands 2-0 in the Women’s World Cup final today. The U.S. has now won the tournament a record four times. NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley was at the final in Lyon, France, and she is with us now.

Hi, Eleanor.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.

MARTIN: Well, Eleanor, let me contain – or try to contain – my jealousy that you are there and I am not. But it was tense enough to watch from here. What was it like inside the stadium?

BEARDSLEY: Michel, it was amazing. I’ve been to some of the games during this past month, and they just built up and built up. And today, it was the buildup of a whole month of the tournament. The stadium was at a fevered pitch. There were 60,000 people. It was filled to capacity for, you know, these two teams. The U.S. has been like a well-oiled machine all month, just rolling through France, steamroller. And, you know, the Netherlands is No. 8, but they’ve been really scrappy. They won the European Championship last year. So this was a great game. The U.S. was a favorite team, but the Netherlands was good.

In the six previous games, the U.S. has scored within the first 12 minutes, so everyone was waiting for that. But it didn’t happen. In fact, we didn’t score, Michel, until the 62nd minute, into the second half. So people were just on tenterhooks. It was the most tense game that I’ve been to. And Megan Rapinoe scored then in a penalty kick. And then, seven minutes later, Rose Lavelle scored. And then by then, we had two goals to nil. The momentum was with us. The Dutch really defended their goal, but they couldn’t score after that.

MARTIN: So talk about that run, if you would. I mean, this capped this really amazing month-long run for the U.S. Why was the U.S. so dominant?

BEARDSLEY: The U.S. is has so much talent. It’s almost like two teams came to play. There was the team out on the field that played, and there was another one ready to go on the bench. You know, coach Jill Ellis played 21 out of the 23 players. Only the two, you know, backup goalies didn’t play. We have so many talented players, and I think that speaks to the way the game is just so successful in the U.S. It’s so supported. It has funding. And it’s not really – doesn’t have that depth in Europe. You know, the Europeans’ teams have caught up, the rest of the world is catching up, but we’re still really dominant.

MARTIN: To the question of funding, there was a moment after this game where fans were chanting equal pay, and that is a reference to the lawsuit that the women’s team has filed against U.S. Soccer demanding pay at least comparable to the men’s team, particularly given their success both on the pitch and in attracting supporters and fans. So do you have a sense that this is an issue that actually really resonated with the fans?

BEARDSLEY: Yes, it really does. You know, the women earn supposedly 30 million for this while the men in their World Cup got 400 million. It’s just too big of a gap. People were chanting that here. You can hear it.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Equal pay, equal pay, equal pay…

BEARDSLEY: And then also what was really telling is when the president of FIFA came in, the entire stadium booed.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Booing).

BEARDSLEY: People such as Mr. Kenneth Lloyd (ph), who I spoke to from Austin, Texas, who brought his family for the World Cup – they want the women to earn what they deserve. Listen to what he says.

KENNETH LLOYD: It should inspire the men, and it should inspire the United States to level – to pay these women what they deserve to be paid because they are the champions of the world more than one time.

BEARDSLEY: He brought his son and daughter out, and he said, you know, these women are phenomenal. They’re doing an incredible job. Let’s pay them.

MARTIN: That is NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley in Lyon, France.

Eleanor, thank you so much.

BEARDSLEY: You’re welcome, Michel.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with College Athletics Players Association founder Ramogi Huma about a California bill that will allow compensation for college athletes.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team is contending for a fourth Women’s World Cup tomorrow. At the same time, its team members have been fighting for pay comparable to that of their male colleagues. Meanwhile, the debate over how college athletes are treated recently reached a new level as well. A bill that allows athletes to be compensated for their names, images and likenesses is now making its way through the California Assembly. The so-called Fair Pay to Play Act passed the state Senate in May. And it’s gotten national attention after being criticized by the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Mark Emmert.

We wanted to know more about it, so we called Ramogi Huma. He was behind the 2014 attempt to unionize Northwestern football players. He is the founder and executive director of the College Athletes Players Association. And we started our conversation by asking how this bill is different from past efforts to compensate college players.

RAMOGI HUMA: This is state legislation, and state legislation is different than some of the major pushes in the past. If you look at some of the most compelling battlefronts, you’re looking at lawsuits. And some of the lawsuits were – are successful to a certain degree but have not provided what we see as equal rights and protections. I think that right now, this is probably the best leverage that college athletes have ever had in terms of breaking through that threshold.

MARTIN: I’m thinking – the analogy that you draw here is – would be, say, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, which is that if he started working on Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard, Harvard doesn’t think they have a right to a piece of Facebook. But I think the analogy that the universities might use is a student using the lab facilities to work on some breakthrough cure for cancer, let’s say, the university would think, because you’re using my facilities to advance your talent, they then deserve a piece of your breakthrough. Do you understand what I’m saying?

HUMA: Yeah. There’s a couple aspects to that argument. Number one is the players already had a reputation. Otherwise, they would not be competing in college sports. Does the college seek to enhance that image? Yes. And athlete’s reputation – yes. But when a player goes and signs an autograph, does the school somehow have the right to literally just own that player’s name, image and likeness? Is that player property of the university? Our answer is no.

Another anecdote was – it was really interesting. David Drummond, who’s a vice president of Google – he used to play football at Santa Clara University. And in a keynote address at a symposium, he talked about the fact that Google was developed at Stanford, in part by student researchers. Stanford paid those student researchers very well. So it’s not some kind of a rule or moral high ground that says the university has to monopolize every bit of talent whether or not the student is advancing gains using the university’s computers or not.

MARTIN: The NCAA president, Mark Emmert, sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to delay the bill, suggesting that the players would be harmed by this. I mean, that was kind of the language that he used. But he said that players, for example, could be ruled ineligible for competition. What’s the basis of that? And is that a credible threat?

HUMA: You can never protect someone by stripping them of their rights. The premise is that unless California lawmakers become complicit in denying California athletes equal rights, then somehow those players will be harmed. And that’s just a false premise.

MARTIN: And before we let you go, do you feel like you’re making headway? Like, you know, part of the reason you got started with this – you were a former UCLA football player yourself. You saw the NCAA suspend your teammate for accepting a bag of groceries when he had no food. You know, you’ve seen a lot over the course of time that you’ve been working on this. And I’m just wondering if you feel like your arguments are making headway. Are people starting to take the questions around how college athletes are treated more seriously?

HUMA: I do think there’s progress. Not as fast as I would like – you know, you look at the multi-year scholarships are now available, the name, image and likeness lawsuit from Ed O’Bannon that resulted in stipends. There’s still a ways to go. Let’s put it that way. But I do think there’s reform. I think a lot of key people are listening, especially lawmakers.

MARTIN: That is Ramogi Huma. He is the founder and executive director of the National College Players Association, an organization founded to advocate for college athletes.

Ramogi, thanks so much for talking to us once again.

HUMA: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The U.S. will face the Netherlands in the Women’s World Cup Final on Sunday. The U.S. women are the defending champs and looking to secure their fourth World Cup title.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

On Sunday, soccer fans will be watching the final game in what has been a thrilling Women’s World Cup, especially thrilling if you are a United States fan. The defending champion U.S. team plays the Netherlands. This is the Americans’ third straight World Cup final, and they are going for a record fourth title. The Dutch meanwhile have never gotten this far in the tournament.

NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins us now to talk about the Women’s World Cup and what to expect this weekend. Hey, Tom.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So safe to say the U.S. is the favorite going into this game. Why are they so darn good?

GOLDMAN: Yeah, very safe to say. They have an incredibly deep lineup. They beat a very good English team in the semifinals without the star who has carried them through the knockout round, the lavender-haired Megan Rapinoe. She was out with a hamstring injury for that game.

KELLY: Yeah, is she going to be back for the final, by the way?

GOLDMAN: You know, she says she will – so fingers crossed on that.

KELLY: OK.

GOLDMAN: Then, you know, you have players like Carli Lloyd, Christen Press, Mallory Pugh, outstanding players who could start for most other teams. They haven’t regularly been in the U.S. starting lineup. And on top of that, you’ve got the firepower – great attacking scoring forwards. Alex Morgan is tied for the scoring lead in the tournament. The U.S. has scored early in all of its games, so the Americans have put opponents back on their heels early.

And of course the U.S. defense has been stout when it’s needed to be. Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher had a number of game-changing saves against England – so just a few reasons, Mary Louise, why this is a heck of a formidable group.

KELLY: Yeah, good offense, good defense – and tell us about their opponent, the Netherlands team. How are they shaping up?

GOLDMAN: Yeah – very good team. Obviously you have to be to get this far. They are the reigning European champions. And most of that championship team from 2017 is playing on this World Cup squad. So there’s continuity. There’s familiarity, and that helps a lot.

KELLY: Experience, sure.

GOLDMAN: Yeah, and specifically they have a trio of attacking forwards who make the Dutch a very exciting team. And I am going to pronounce their names effortlessly for you or at least attempt to.

KELLY: (Laughter) OK, go.

GOLDMAN: We have Vivianne Miedema. We have Lieke Martens. And we have Shanice Van de Sanden. So they…

KELLY: Flawless. I love it.

GOLDMAN: Almost flawless.

KELLY: Yes.

GOLDMAN: A little hitch on that last one. A potent group of scorers although their attacking style of play also could lead to problems for them. If the U.S. defense is on form, it could leave Holland vulnerable to counterattacks.

KELLY: Now, meanwhile, a little controversy brewing – which is that as exciting as this match you’ve persuaded me is going to be on Sunday, it’s not the only big soccer match happening on Sunday, which is prompting some questions, I gather, from the women’s team about having to share the spotlight. What’s going on?

GOLDMAN: Yeah, that’s right. You have the Copa America final matching the top teams in South America. You have the CONCACAF Gold Cup final also on Sunday. Now, that’s normally a great matchup between the U.S. men and Mexico archrivals. Kudos to the U.S. men, by the way. They’ve not had the same international success as the women, and it’s good for them to be in a final like this.

But Rapinoe in particular was outspoken about her disappointment that there’s this confluence of events. The women play at 11 a.m. Eastern on Sunday. The other finals are later in the day – so no overlap. But Rapinoe, you know, puts this in a larger context of the women always having to scrap for more money, better working conditions. And it’s her strong belief that this is just another slap.

KELLY: All right, lots of soccer, lots of play coming on Sunday. That’s NPR’s Tom Goldman. Thank you.

GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Midway through the baseball season, commentator Mike Pesca offers this ode to a sports radio talk show host who can turn even the most dismal game into high stakes drama.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We are halfway through the Major League Baseball season. There’s a record number of home runs and Oakland’s Mike Fiers pitched the 300th no-hitter in baseball history. Commentator Mike Pesca isn’t paying attention to these accomplishments, though. He’s been listening to a painful and familiar tale of disappointment, as told by a maestro of sports talk radio.

MIKE PESCA: The Mets 83rd game of the year, played last Thursday, will not be looked upon as an inflection point. The Mets had just lost three games in a row to the Phillies in a manner both dramatic and predictable. The Mets get a lead. Philly stage a comeback. Phillies win the game. But last Thursday’s game promised to follow a different script.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

MIKE FRANCESA: That’s the biggest hit the Mets have had this year.

PESCA: Sports radio station WFAN’S Mike Francesa was on the air doing his daily show. Now, no player, coach or general manager has lasted as long in the New York market as Francesa, who, over the decades, has attempted to enforce some accountability to all those who wear the uniform of any New York team, and as the dean of sports talk radio, watched this game on a monitor inside his radio studio. The Mets’ Todd Frazier hit a ninth-inning home run to put the team up by two.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: Frazier pumped blood into the Met corpse.

PESCA: Francesa builds drama, concocting hope from near hopelessness – this could be a big win for the Mets, they could head into their upcoming series with the Yankees having momentum. He doesn’t dwell on the rational, folks, this is a team that’s seven games under 500. Let’s be real. He gives voice to the emotional.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: You cannot lose this – not this game. This game has to be the Mets. Case closed.

PESCA: The Mets relievers had to shut down the Phillies, just had to get out of the inning. Now listen as the game unspools before him.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: This game has got to be the Mets. It’s tied.

PESCA: Yes, the Mets were ahead. Then the game was tied, as described by Phillies broadcaster Tom McCarthy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TOM MCCARTHY: In the end of left-center field. Going back on it is McNeil. It is done.

(SOUNDBITE OF BASEBALL FANS CHEERING)

PESCA: And so was Francesa.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Can’t happen.

PESCA: He screams. He laments. He continues to describe the action to his radio listeners, who, to be clear, could listen to the regular official game broadcast just one click away on the radio dial but would rather stick with Francesa’s show, an alternative universe of heightened stakes. Turned out to be the more rewarding choice, as the inning continued and Phillies slugger Jean Segura stepped up to the plate.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: Let’s see if he can get Segura out first. Segura hits a shot. Home run. Unbelievable.

PESCA: Sports talk radio is id, exultation and catharsis. It also gives voice to rage, a rage more articulate – or at least more amplified – than the frustration that one fan can muster in isolation. Think of it this way. No matter what theology officially teaches, when the clergyman offers his prayer, it does seem more likely to reach God’s ears. Francesa performed this function last Thursday.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “MIKE’S ON: FRANCESA ON THE FAN”)

FRANCESA: This is a disgrace. I don’t – I can’t even believe it. You got to be kidding me. Get rid of all of them.

PESCA: Had the Mets won, they would have had a record of 38 wins and 44 losses, just as certainly, the same sad, desultory and underachieving team they are. But had they won, we would have been denied one of the great clutch performances of the year, not on the mound, but on the mike.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: Mike Pesca hosts the Slate podcast “The Gist.”

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.