Joe Healy, writer and podcaster at D1Baseball
episode
Breaking In with Kevin Fishbain: A Sports Media Podcast
40 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How did Joe Healy first become interested in baseball and what role did his grandmother play?
Hey everyone, welcome to Breaking In with Kevin Fishbane, the podcast that tells the origin stories of your favorite sports media personalities. It's episode 63, and my guest is Joe Healy, writer for D1 Baseball. He's the co-editor of SEC Extra, D1 Baseball's Premium SEC subsite, and the co-host of Highway to Hoover, D1 Baseball's SEC Focused Podcast. The College World Series is underway this week in Omaha, and that's where Joe Healy is for the biggest week in college baseball. That's the sport he has been passionate about since he was a kid living near Rice University, a powerhouse in the nineties and early two thousands. Seven months ago, Joe emailed me to introduce himself. He listened to Breaking In and wanted to throw his hat in the ring.
Maybe that was this podcast's Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and I greatly appreciated Joe's interest in the show and why his story would be unlike any of the others we've had on Breaking In. You're gonna hear how Joe worked his way to D1Baseball.com, following some dead-end jobs, a tech gig that allowed him the time to go on his own topic. cover baseball games, and how he continued to write in network for little to no pay before getting to be one of the authorities on college baseball. Before we get to Joe, a reminder of recent episodes. Last week was Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden on the 90s Knicks teams. Prior to Chris was Paul Tenorio, author of The Messi Effect, and senior soccer writer at The Athletic.
Reminder, this show is on YouTube, so be sure to subscribe there to see this video form of the podcast. All right, here's how Joe Healy broke in. Joe Healy covers college baseball for D one baseball dot com. And Joe, since we're gonna be talking about your path to this baseball job, I wanna start at the beginning. What drew you to the sport of baseball originally?
My grandmother. My grandmother was one of those little old ladies who would sit in her she sat in a in a rocking chair in her living room at her retirement community and she would knit and crochet and watch baseball games. And a lot of times it was the Cubs on WGN because they played during the day, oftentimes, and then at night she would watch the Astros. I grew up in Houston and and that was her team and She referred to them as her boys. It was always about her boys, you know, and what and what they were doing. And so I would sit next to her rocking chair and I'd be fiddling with, you know, my toy cars or G.I. Joe's or or whatever, and sit next to her while she was watching baseball. And after a certain amount of time, I stopped paying as much attention to my toys and started paying more attention to baseball and asked my grandmother a lot of questions about what was happening.
And she taught me how to score. She did that after a certain certain amount of time when I had shown an interest. And so it was uh my parents also enjoy baseball, but it really was my grandmother 'cause she had the time, frankly, to watch 162 or more games 'cause sh again, she'd watch Cubs during the day and Astros at night. But um yeah, she just really got me into it and and that's where it all started.
And Rice baseball, Rice University, I mean, that kind of right there in the backyard and was a powerhouse then, 'cause it's one thing to be a baseball fan, but you also had a little bit of college baseball influence too, right?
I did. I grew up in a in a rice family in some regards. I had two uncles, several cousins go to rice. I did did not have the grades for rice. Uh I knew that was not happening. But I yeah, I grew up in and much like you with Northwestern, like this was a time in rice athletics where there really wasn't a lot going on. Like football was awful. Uh men's and women's basketball at that point I don't think had made the NCAA tournament at all. Um, but baseball just kind of caught fire in the late nineties. Early 2000s, and I happened to be at the right age, those formative years, not long after those days with my grandmother, where I had uncles who were really into rice athletics, and that meant baseball at that time.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Joe Healy first become interested in baseball and what role did his grandmother play?
0:10–5:31
2
What challenges did Joe face after college and how did he pivot his major and early career?
5:31–9:45
3
How did Joe break into sports writing through Bleacher Report and other early gigs?
9:45–15:24
4
What was the turning point that led Joe to land a part‑time role at Baseball America?
15:24–21:11
5
How did Joe transition to a full‑time position and what did “being full‑time” feel like for him?
21:11–27:01
6
What advice does Joe give about finding a niche and “showing up” in college baseball coverage?
27:01–32:09
7
How does Joe describe the unique atmosphere of the College World Series and why should fans attend?
32:09–36:36
8
What key lessons does Joe share for aspiring sports journalists entering the industry today?
36:36–40:13
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Breaking In with Kevin Fishbain: A Sports Media Podcast
Mike Hall, Big Ten Network studio host
Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman, hosts of "Waddle and Silvy" on ESPN 1000 Chicago
Adam Schein, host of "Schein on Sports" on SiriusXM
Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist and author of "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports"
Brittany Ghiroli, senior MLB writer at The Athletic
Ross Dellenger, Yahoo senior college football reporter