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Sports March 24, 2019

The Last American Baseball Glove Factory

Baseball’s opening day is right around the corner and one company will be paying close attention. Nokona is the last remaining glove maker that still produces the gloves in the U.S. for MLB players.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Baseball is back again. The first games of the regular season were played last week in Tokyo. America’s oldest professional sport has grown worldwide and the industry that supports it. But a tiny town in Texas is holding onto one tradition. KERA’s Bill Zeeble in Dallas takes us to the factory that’s still making gloves in the U.S. for major league baseball players.

BILL ZEEBLE, BYLINE: About a hundred miles northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth past pastures of crops and cattle sits Nocona, Texas, population 3,000, home to the Nokona baseball glove factory.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY WHIRRING)

ZEEBLE: Inside, stacks of tanned and dyed kangaroo, buffalo and calf skins are piled at one end of the 20,000-square-foot shop.

ROB STOREY: We literally bring leather in through one door. And magically, ball gloves come out the door at the very end – that and about 45 labor operations, then you’ve got a ball glove.

ZEEBLE: Rob Storey should know. He’s Nokona’s executive vice president. And this is the family business. To survive the depression, his grandfather Bob Storey added ball gloves to the family’s line of leather goods in 1934. Since then, just about every U.S. competitor has moved production overseas. Grandfather Bob, who died in 1980, said he’d rather quit and go fishing than import Nokonas.

STOREY: In some ways, we see it as a competitive advantage because we have people that understand the game of baseball. Our competitors are making them in factories. A lot of those factories – people have never even seen a baseball game or know what it is. Sure, it would be easy to go over there and do something. But that’s not who we are. We’re not about easy.

ZEEBLE: Nokona and it’s 75 employees are about making, marketing and selling their mostly handmade gloves in the town with the same name. The brand honors Comanche chief Peta Nocona. The company couldn’t legally use the city’s spelling, so Storey’s grandfather changed the C to a K. And its been spelled that way ever since. Martin Gomez has been Nocona’s master glove turner for 19 years. That’s a big deal because every glove is first sewn inside-out.

MARTIN GOMEZ: It’s not that hard. No, but it takes some time to learn, to get used to. Like, the first time you start to work, it give you a blister all over your hands. But you get used to it.

ZEEBLE: Storey says Gomez is modest. If he’s not careful, he can tear the leather and hand-stitching. Gomez slides a rod in each inside-out finger, pushes it hard against a wooden dowel and turns each leather finger back the right way. First, he sprays leather softener on the inside-out glove. Then, says Storey, he heats it on a 250-degree metal form.

STOREY: It’s very critical to do that so that you don’t rip out any of the seams while we’re going through this process because this process, in some ways, is more difficult on the glove than, actually, the game of baseball.

ZEEBLE: The game of baseball, after all, is what Nokona’s all about, even if it’s not nearly as well-known as giants like Rawlings or Wilson. In the youth market, though, it’s big.

ROBBY SCOTT: I grew up using a Nokona glove. My first glove that I ever really remember was a first baseman’s mitt that was a Nokona.

ZEEBLE: That’s Arizona relief pitcher Robby Scott. When we first talked long distance, he was with the Red Sox between World Series games. Nokona found him while searching for player endorsements. Scott says there’s just something special about it.

SCOTT: I will never wear a different glove. It’s a special bond that I have with them. They could have 200 players wearing their gloves. But to me, it seems special because they make it seem like I’m the only one.

ZEEBLE: And, says Storey, Nokona’s the only maker he knows of that’ll refurbish its old, tattered mitts. He says try that with a glove made overseas.

For NPR News, I’m Bill Zeeble in Nocona, Texas.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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.

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Sports March 23, 2019

Opinion: How America's Pastime Became So Slow

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Chicago Cubs’ Kris Bryant, right, is hit by a pitch as Seattle Mariners catcher Austin Nola looks on at a spring training baseball game on Tuesday.

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Elaine Thompson/AP

And amidst all this urgent news, the 2019 Major League Baseball season also began this week. Organized baseball worries that the game once considered America’s pastime has become slooowww, old, and tedious.

In 1948 — when Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson were on the field — an average 9-inning game lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. Today, it takes more than 3 hours.

It’s not just more commercials and on-field promotions. It’s increased analytics. The data that tell managers a certain player might stand a .001 percentage better chance of getting a hit off a certain pitcher, or the reverse, causes managers to stop the game, go to the mound, pull pitchers, pinch-hit for batters, and move players around like Legos.

A 12-year-old who starts to watch a game at 7:10 on a school night might grow a beard before the game is over. Games seem to last longer than the Mueller investigation. The average age of a Major League Baseball television fan has become as old as George Clooney.

And analytics may have made the game more tame. Fewer players try to steal bases these days. It’s a high-risk play, with a low success rate, in an era when players are paid more just to stand and clobber the ball.

This season, Major League Baseball will reduce the time between innings from two minutes and five seconds to … two minutes. This will trim 40 seconds off a 3-hour game, which is like boasting that a new production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle is just 14 hours and 58 minutes, instead of 15 hours long.

I’d like to offer a few more proposals to speed and enliven the game many of us love, often because of its unhurried pace and multifarious strategies:

Don’t bother with actual pitches and hits. They take time and are hard to predict. Have the pitcher point to his stats on a screen, the batter point to his, then each touch a button on a home screen and have algorithms flash the results. Single! Walk! It’s outta here!

Bury gold bricks under each base. Incentivize the play! A potential payoff might encourage more base stealing.

Make managers remove one item of clothing each time the opposing team scores a run. That’ll keep managers in the dugout.

And to really speed up the game, put in antelopes as pinch runners. Antelopes can run 60 miles an hour. If baseball is to become America’s national pastime again, why not let the deer and the antelope really play!

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Sports March 22, 2019

Headless Goat Polo Is A Top Sport At World Nomad Games

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The Uzbek and Russian teams clash in the World Nomad Games as Uzbekistan tries to score in a game of kok-boru — a form of polo played with a headless goat carcass.

Nicolas Tanner for NPR

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

Two bare-chested men on horseback wrestle. The goal is to pull your opponent off the horse so a part of his body touches the ground.

Three dogs chase a dummy clad in a fox or hare skin to see who’s fastest. Biting an opponent is grounds for disqualification.

Two competitors engage in er-enish — wrestling on horseback.

Nicolas Tanner for NPR

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

And then there is this sport: “Each team seeks to throw as many goat carcasses as possible into the tai kazan (goal) of the opposing team.”

They’re definitely not Olympic sports but they are a part of another global competition: The World Nomad Games, held in Kyrgyzstan last September. That’s the landlocked central Asian nation of 6.2 million that, centuries ago, was a stop on the Silk Road traveled by traders from China to the Mediterranean. In modern times, it was part of the Soviet Union until it declared independence in 1991.

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Police officers stand guard during preparations for the opening ceremonies of the third World Nomad Games in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, held in September.

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

This was the third iteration of the games, which were spearheaded by former Kyrgyzstani president Almazbek Atambayev and highlight both unusual regional sports as well as more traditional ones like archery. According to the local press, 2,000 athletes from 80 countries competed before an audience of 150,000, about a third of whom were foreign tourists. The overall cost was about $6.7 million, with $2.3 million covered by private sponsors and the rest picked up by the government.

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A Turkish tightrope walker shows his skills at the games.

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The government involvement has prompted some local criticism, according to a New York Times report. “Keep in mind that Kyrgyzstan, compared to its neighbors, is a relatively open country with regard to freedom of speech. So people there tend to be more vocal in criticizing the actions of the government,” wrote Kanybek Nurtegin, a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University who grew up in Kyrgyzstan. “While the country could indeed have used the funds on other pressing issues, I think the idea of bringing people together to enjoy peaceful events, reviving cultural traditions and hosting guests from dozen of countries is a great idea.”

In a country that’s not rich in natural resources, he adds, “tourism is a promising industry.”

Nurtegin thinks the games “have put Kyrgyzstan on the world map.”

A Kyrgyz woman from the southern part of the country (center) and other onlookers watch the Nomad Game events.

Nicolas Tanner for NPR

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

Nicolas Tanner, a photojournalist and student at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Portland, Maine, chronicled the third World Nomad Games. “There were so many bloggers there,” Tanner says, “to do Instagram stories, showing this thing to the world.”

Tanner, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz village of At-Bashy from 2008 to 2010, spoke with us about the Games.

Kyrgyz teenagers pose with hunting dogs and eagles that are part of the Nomad Games.

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

How do the Kyrgyz maintain their ancient traditions in the face of modern influence?

By choosing to stay by super hardcore tradition – their sense of tradition is sacred to them. If you ask a Kyrgyz person who their father’s father’s father’s father’s father was, they can tell you. They can tell you who was in their family like seven generations back. That’s how you bring the past forward.

A Kyrgyz performer at the games poses with his daughter.

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Nicolas Tanner for NPR

Are there still nomads among the Kyrgyz people?

Kyrgyz are partially nomadic: In the winters [some of them] live in a house, then in the summers they’ll go out. Traditionally, they would just go out in what’s called the jailoo, which is a mountain pasture. Now they have these cellphones, and they can communicate back down to their families or with each other. So it makes their ease of movement actually easier or more efficient.

Cellphones in general are sort of a wild, little nomadic tool — it sort of makes all of us nomadic. We can now kind of be anywhere and still be communicating to anywhere else.

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A member of the Mongolian horse wrestling team passes a flag to another member who is preparing for a victory lap around the stadium after a match victory.

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Since we’re Goats and Soda, I have to ask: what is headless goat polo like?

It’s called kok-boru [which means gray wolf, said to be the animal first used in this sport.]

They cut the hooves and the head off the goat. They’re basically [two teams of] men on horses trying to get the goat into the other team’s goal. It’s a physical game, guys get bloody and horses fall down.

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This target was used during the horseback archery event.

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The next set of games, in 2020, will take place in Turkey – which is one of the sponsoring countries. How do the locals in Kyrgyzstan feel about that?

I did talk to some that said essentially, That’s fine, whatever. But these games are mostly Kyrgyz and we created the games, so why not keep it here? Well, because it’s worth money now, so Turkey wants in.

Freelance writer Joel Goldberg covers sports, science and culture and has contributed to NPR, National Geographic Magazine and On Tap Magazine.

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Sports March 21, 2019

Blair Braverman And Her Dogs Finish First Attempt At Iditarod

Blair Braverman just finished her rookie attempt at the nearly 1,000-mile Iditarod race in Alaska. She sent a radio diary of the most-notable moments from her first go at the race.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The Iditarod stretches for nearly a thousand miles through the Alaskan wilderness from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and their sled dog teams race through frigid temperatures and rugged terrain. This year’s competition wrapped up earlier this week, and about a quarter of the racers dropped out along the way. Iditarod rookie Blair Braverman became a Twitter sensation as she prepped for the race, posting stories and photos of her charismatic dogs. We spoke with her in the days leading up to the race.

BLAIR BRAVERMAN: If I think about the race, it’s terrifying. But if I think about being out there with my dogs who are my best friends and my family, I just get so much strength from that, which gives me all the courage I need.

CHANG: Now, critics say the sport is cruel to dogs. She is aware of the criticism but says the animals are highly trained athletes and are never happier than when they’re running. Braverman took a recorder with her on the trail, and she sent us this audio diary.

BRAVERMAN: So I’m 29 miles into the Iditarod. The dogs are doing good. They had some little pieces of chicken for snacks. I passed a sign that some people had painted that said only 986 miles to Nome (laughter). I think that was about a mile out of the starting chute.

(SOUNDBITE OF HARNESSES JANGLING)

BRAVERMAN: Come on.

We spent our first night on the Iditarod Trail, and the dogs did well. It’s a beautiful day. It is, like, 4 degrees. We’re averaging about 8 miles per hour but 10 miles per hour when they see a bird (laughter). We’re going over some overflow, but it’s not bad. It’s just sort of like going through melted snow cone – sounds like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF SNOW SLUSHING)

BRAVERMAN: Helli is in heat, and Boo is very horny. He’s a teenage boy. He’s not neutered. But he’s far away from Helli, so he’s turned his interest to Ebony instead. Boo – eyes forward. OK, time to navigate some forest trail, so I’ll put this way.

OK, so I’m on a big, wide frozen river on – it’s about 20 degrees. It’s beautiful. The sun’s coming out from a snow shower. I will say we’re spending a lot of time pooping on the trail. In training, they poop while running, and they seem to have come to a collective decision. They’re running a thousand miles. They’re going to stop to poop (laughter).

So the last couple checkpoints, everyone sees you off. And they’re like, goodbye; have a good run. Ten feet later, Ebony stops to poop. And then they all sort of, like, laugh. And then they’re like, OK, bye; like, you can go. And then, like, 8 feet later, like, Spike stops to poop. At this point, people are just feeling, like, pretty uncomfortable because you’re not gone yet, but it’s just ’cause the dogs are pooping. Ready – oh, no, we have another tangle.

We’re on our way from McGrath to Takotna, and this is supposed to be a pretty easy 18-mile run. And I will say they’re definitely tired, and – oh, steep hill, whoa. OK – went down onto a riverbed. So I’m a little worried about if they’re going this slowly – if it means that it’s going to be too much for them to keep going. And I’d be bummed, but I’m nothing but, you know, just completely consumed with pride and amazement and gratitude for these dogs. OK, we’re going up a hill into the village. I can see lights from windows.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good evening.

BRAVERMAN: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Which number?

BRAVERMAN: Eleven.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Eleven – you going right through?

BRAVERMAN: No, I’m going to stop here.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: OK. That sounds good.

BRAVERMAN: Hey, buddy – back feet. There you go.

OK, I’m heading out into the most rural part of the trail, and – what’s going on up there? Helli – oh, my God, Helli, you broke that harness, too. How? How do you do it so fast? I don’t have another one for you. Oh, boy, I don’t know, man. I don’t know if we’re going to finish this race or we’re not or – who knows? We’re just going to keep going.

Someone told me there was a really bad storm coming, and it got really dark. Like, I was using my headlamp at 1:30 in the afternoon. And I, like, wasn’t even thinking. I just – I was like, well, safety first and race second, and I turned the team around, and we went back to the previous shelter cabin. I took care of the team, and I fed them and bedded them down. And I thought we don’t have enough dog food for this extra 20 miles we just added to the run. Yeah, we have to get out.

I don’t think we can do it. I don’t think we have enough dog food – oh, God (crying).

So some interesting things have happened. I was sitting in the cabin. I think I was there for about 20 hours. And I called the race judge. And he’s like, do you have enough dog food? And I said, not really. And he goes, there’s a crew of three mushers ahead of you. They’re traveling together. If you can catch up to them, maybe they would have extra dog food. Then you may continue the race. So I mushed for three hours. We get to Old Woman cabin, and what do you know? But there’s three dog teams parked there.

So the people are Victoria, Jeremy and Cindy. And Victoria’s like, dude, I packed for the apocalypse. She pulls out, like, 30 pounds of dog food. She’s like, you want this? I don’t need it. So I feed my dogs. And now I’m mushing into the sunset that we turned away from last night. We got this crazy second chance.

(Laughter) I see the lights of Nome. I see them. We’ve got to get over this mountain, but I see the lights in the distance.

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Let’s give a big, warming, Saint Patrick’s Day cheer for Blair Braverman.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Right here.

BRAVERMAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Welcome to Nome.

BRAVERMAN: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: All right.

BRAVERMAN: Hey, good job, you guys. You did it. Oh, my gosh, Flame, oh. OK, let’s get you guys to bed and get you a good meal ’cause I’ve been promising you that for 70 miles now.

CHANG: Seventy miles of the 1,000 total miles that Blair Braverman traveled during the Iditarod. It took 13 days, 19 hours and 17 minutes. She came in 36th place. Braverman’s Twitter followers raised money for Alaska schools while she raced, bringing in over $100,000. This story was produced by Lu Olkowski and Dave Blanchard.

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.

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Sports March 20, 2019

There's Word Of Another Record-Shattering Baseball Deal In The Works

The Los Angeles Angels reportedly are very close to signing Mike Trout to a record breaking 12-year, $430 million deal.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Can a single baseball player really be worth $430 million? The Los Angeles Angels may soon find out.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The Angels are in the process of finalizing a deal to re-sign Mike Trout. If the center fielder commits, the $430 million price would set records. That would be his pay over the course of 12 years.

MARTIN: We asked another Mike, Mike Pesca – the Mike Trout of sports commentators – how the Angels star could command so much.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: So beginning with his first full season, when he was all of 20, Mike Trout finished second in the MVP race, second again, then first, then second, then first, then fourth, then second. It is unprecedented for a guy who is 26 – he’s 27 now – to put together that body of work. By comparison, Babe Ruth finished in the top five a total of three times in his career. Mike Trout is off-the-charts, Hall-of-Fame good. Literally, if this guy retires tomorrow, he really should make the Hall of Fame just on his merits.

INSKEEP: Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results, but the Angels can hope.

PESCA: Mike Trout is a bargain at what they’re paying him – an absolute bargain. Forget the sticker shock. The return on the investment is a bargain by anyone’s metrics. What this does is it allows and, in fact, forces the Angels to build a great team, the team that Mike Trout deserves. You are not going to get as good a bargain with other free agents. It’s just impossible because the value that Mike Trout’s contract gives you is not easy to replicate. But that’s OK. This can be a team that makes the playoffs for years to come.

MARTIN: Mike Pesca, host of Slate’s podcast “The Gist” and author of “Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs In Sports History.”

(SOUNDBITE OF ELEPHANT GYM’S “SPRING RAIN”)

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.

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Sports March 19, 2019

Mike Trout To Finalize $430 Million Contract With Los Angeles Angels

Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels are finalizing a $430 million contract, the largest in professional sports history. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Jonah Keri of The Athletic.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

To potential news now of the biggest contract in baseball history. Now, if you’re having a flashback moment, that might be because not even three weeks ago, we reported that star outfielder Bryce Harper was signing a $330 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. Alas, Bryce Harper’s record deal may not stand long because today we learned that LA Angels star Mike Trout is finalizing a deal to stay with that team for another 12 years and to earn $430 million over that time. To talk about what may become the latest largest contract in baseball history, we are joined by Jonah Keri of the website The Athletic. Welcome.

JONAH KERI: Thank you for having me.

KELLY: What makes Mike Trout worth $430 million?

KERI: Well, the short version is if you’re a baseball historian, you’re probably familiar with a gentleman named Willie Mays. Willie Mays is one of the two or three greatest players of all time, and Mike Trout is essentially Willie Mays. When you look at their statistics, for the first seven full years of their careers, pretty much identical – offensively, defensively, base running. That’s how great he is. And Trout is also quite young relatively speaking to be so accomplished. He’s just in his late 20s right now, should have many more years of productivity. So you’re talking about the greatest player of his era. Right now, he’s got the same numbers as one of the greatest players of all time. And he’s young, so there’s room to project much more. That’s why he’s making the money that he’s going to make.

KELLY: Yeah. I was reading Sports Illustrated had a profile of him last year, and they called him the best individual asset baseball has – for years, its undisputed best player; sounds like you would agree.

KERI: No doubt. He’s actually won several MVP awards, but you could argue that he should have been the most valuable player six of the seven years that he’s played in the league. That is really, really hard to do.

KELLY: However, I’ll push back at you and ask this – can any player be worth that much, particularly one who, by the end of this 12-year contract, is going to be pushing 40?

KERI: Well, this is where people might get angry at me, but I would argue that Mike Trout is underpaid at $430 million.

KELLY: OK. Make the case.

KERI: Well, there you go. Professional athletics, listen; it’s not the same as fighting fires or teaching school, certainly, but if you look at supply and demand, how many people on Earth can do what Mike Trout can do? One. Mike Trout is the only guy.

KELLY: Let me channel my inner skeptic here, though, because no matter how great you are, you can’t win the World Series by yourself. Does paying so much money to one player maybe take away from possibility to sign other valuable players to fill out the roster?

KERI: It gives you an idea of the immense cash cow that is baseball. So if a team says, woe is us, we can’t spend money, we have an expensive outfielder – that is hooey and applesauce. It ain’t true. You can go out and get as many pitchers as you want, as many second baseman as you want. You could fill your roster with all kinds of superstar players to complement the Trout and still be left with a profit.

KELLY: Big picture – what is going on in baseball with, you know, the all-time record deal that Bryce Harper just signed getting overtaken within just weeks?

KERI: Yeah. It’s kind of a coincidence. Harper and Trout came into the major leagues at roughly the same time, along with Manny Machado, by the way, who also signed a tremendously large contract this offseason. And so all these guys happen…

KELLY: A mere $300 million, as I remember.

KERI: Exactly. So when you’ve got players coming up on free agency, that’s when they get paid. It’s a little bit different than other sports where if you are in the NFL or the NBA, especially the NFL, you get paid a lot of money right off. In baseball, your salary is kind of suppressed for the first six years of your career. In some ways, you’re even more underpaid to that point. So it’s only when you get to cash in on free agency or near free agency that the big contracts come in. This year, you had Harper and Machado both coming out and Trout being two years away from free agency being the talk of baseball. Everybody said here’s Harper. What’s going to happen with Trout? We know what happened with Mike Trout. He’s $430 million richer.

KELLY: Thank you, Jonah.

KERI: Thank you.

KELLY: Jonah Keri writes about baseball for the website The Athletic.

(SOUNDBITE OF J RICK’S “SHORT”)

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.

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Sports March 18, 2019

Minnesota High School Basketball Game Has A Fantastic Finish

After a last-second basket, Albany fans stormed the court. The referees conferred and it was determined the basket didn’t count, and Albany had lost. That’s when Melrose fans stormed the court.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I’m Steve Inskeep with congratulations to two Minnesota high school basketball teams because fans of both thought they’d won the same game. Albany made a last-second basket to seemingly win. Its students stormed the floor. Then referees conferred. The last-second shot was actually a just-after-the-last-second shot, a buzzer beater that did not beat the buzzer. Albany had actually lost. So their fans retreated. And fans for the other team, Melrose, stormed the court instead. It’s MORNING EDITION.

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.

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Sports March 16, 2019

Peter Kaiser Takes First In Iditarod — Marking A Win For Alaskan Natives

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Peter Kaiser and his team of dogs take off at the start of the Iditarod race.

Courtesy of John Wallace

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Courtesy of John Wallace

Snow whipped past Peter Kaiser and his eight-dog team as they passed under the famous Burled Arch at the end of the grueling, 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race, cinching a first place win.

After racing for miles in inky darkness across the Alaska wildnerness, Kaiser was greeted in Nome, Alaska by bright lights, cameras, and cheering fans chanting “Way to go Pete!”

It was the 31-year-old’s tenth time competing in the Iditarod, but his first time winning the championship — making him the first musher of Yup’ik descent to ever win the race.

Just after his finish at 3:39 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Kaiser raised both arms in a double-fist pump celebration.

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Peter Kaiser celebrates his first-place victory at the finish line of the Iditarod race.

Courtesy of John Wallace

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Courtesy of John Wallace

“Honestly, I’ve heard this from many different people that have won, but it hasn’t sunk in,” he told NPR’s Melissa Block. “Like, you actually have to think about it pretty hard and you’re like, ‘oh man, I actually won this.'”

Kaiser managed to edge out the defending champion, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, by 12 minutes. His winning time was nine days, 12 hours, 39 minutes and six seconds.

“We just got some trail that the team really likes and we didn’t see much of that this race,” Kaiser told Alaska Public Media. “My team really likes hard, fast trails where they can go fast, and that was probably the best type of trail for that kind of race, so when they got on that they really wanted to roar.”

His win is a point of pride for his hometown of Bethel, Alaska which is situated in the Yukon Delta. The delta is where the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers empty into the Bering Sea on the western end of the state — and is the traditional land of Yup’ik people.

“It’s about time somebody wins from Kuskokwim,” Bethel resident Nelson Alexie told KYUK’s Anna Rose MacArthur.

Over the course of the race, Kaiser’s supporters — many of whom were from the same area as him — cheered him on and followed his race through his website and Facebook page. One native, Evon Waska, spoke in the Yup’ik language about the significance of the win for Alaskan natives.

“We Yup’ik people, are very proud,” he told KYUK.

Unlike other competitors, who hail from prominent mushing families, Kaiser doesn’t come from a dynasty of champion mushers.

“We kind of have our own little mushing story but it’s not quite as mainstream as some of the others,” Kaiser said.

Though Kaiser is Alaskan on his mother’s side, it was his father, Ron Kaiser, originally from Kansas, who introduced him to mushing. His father had a dog team and started mushing in the late 70s — but never competed at a high level.

At first, Kaiser mushed for fun, but after graduating high school and trying out college, he decided he wanted to make a career out of racing. In the winters, he trains and races, and in the summer he works seasonal jobs. He owns a total of 40 dogs at his kennel, which require attention, care and training all year round.

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Of Kaiser’s eight-dog team — Morrow, Lucy, Frieda, Sky, Zuma, Pronto, Charlie and Arbor — Morrow and Lucy were his two lead dogs that pushed the team across the finish. Kaiser said he thinks the dogs know they accomplished something special.

“They have an idea of when teams are in front of them on the trail or not,” he said. “They’re real spunky right now and probably ready to go for another run, but they’re going to get some good time off.”

In the past, his best finishes had been a fifth place spot in the 2018, 2016 and 2012 races. His prize for winning this year’s race includes $50,000 and a new truck. He is also planning to take some time to enjoy himself.

Some dogs on Peter Kaiser’s sled team howl before the start of the Iditarod race.

Courtesy of John Wallace

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Courtesy of John Wallace

His secret for success this year? He’s not quite sure — he said there are a variety of factors that may have helped him triumph.

“I can’t put my finger on one thing in particular, but I guess we have a whole year to kind of figure out what we did right.”

Kaiser regularly pays attention to the small details that contribute to a win. He jots down extremely precise details about his dogs and various races in many notebooks that he regularly studies to enhance his performance.

One big factor is the snow itself. The record for the fastest winning time in the Iditarod is a time of eight days, three hours, 40 minutes and 13 seconds by Mitch Seavey in 2o17. By comparison, this year’s race was a little slow — partially due to how the warmer weather over the past two years has impacted the snow.

“Anytime you get fresh snow and drifting snow and warmer temperatures, you’re going to have a slower race,” Kaiser explained. “So the pace of the race is really more dictated by trail conditions and weather than dog teams.”

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Peter Kaiser and his team of dogs crossed the finish line just past 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Courtesy of John Wallace

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It’s too soon to tell whether Kaiser is kicking off an Iditarod dynasty for his six-year old son and 1-year-old daughter.

But, his son Ari took to the dogs from an early age — making puppy-like howling sounds — and likes to mush with the family’s retired racing dogs. Since his son only weighs about 45 pounds, his sled team is a lot smaller than Kaiser’s — it’s comprised of one dog, instead of eight.

About a week before Kaiser left to race the Iditarod, his son went on a dog sledding exursion of his own — bringing his baby sister, Aylee, along for the ride.

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Sports March 15, 2019

Brown's Trade For Odell Beckham Jr. Excites Cleveland Fan

After the Browns signed receiver Odell Beckham Jr., one fan ran around his neighborhood screaming “We got Odell” so loudly and uncontrollably, a neighbor called 911 and kept her kids in the car.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I’m David Greene. NFL fans know when your team signs a star player, it’s exciting – right? – especially if it’s the Cleveland Browns, who have not won anything in forever. After the Browns signed receiver Odell Beckham Jr., one fan ran around his neighborhood screaming, we got Odell – so loudly and uncontrollably a neighbor called 911 and kept her kids in the car. Police didn’t arrest the guy. They simply explained to the woman who called that the Browns got Odell.

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.

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Sports March 14, 2019

A Marriage Proposal For Memphis Fans

At an NBA game, a woman was delighted when her boyfriend asked into a microphone, “Will you Grit N Grind with me forever and ever babe?” It’s the slogan for the Memphis Grizzlies.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I’m David Greene. Proposing at a game – risky. I mean, maybe your spouse wanted something more romantic than – will you marry me? – on the Jumbotron. But at an NBA game, a woman was delighted when her boyfriend asked into a microphone, will you grit and grind with me forever and ever babe? “Grit and Grind” is the slogan for the Memphis Grizzlies. Deadspin reports the couple are big fans – apparently loyal in good times and in bad because the team this year is just awful.

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.

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