On Baseball and Critiquing Things You Love—Katherine Walden, Notre Dame
We started out as the show that invited scholars, makers, and professionals to brunch for informal conversations about their work—but last season, we needed to record remotely. This year we’re excited to be able to bring back in-person interviews while still taking advantage of the flexibility afforded by our remote setup.
But whether we’re literally sitting down with a guest or talking with them virtually from that trusty old walk-in closet, we hope you’ll find that you’re glad you stopped by.
To start season 5, host Ted Fox grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to the courtyard outside Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library, right beneath the famous “Word of Life” mural on the building’s south side. More popularly known as Touchdown Jesus, the mural is a fitting backdrop for a conversation about sports, which is what Katherine Walden and Ted met to talk about—albeit baseball rather than football.
Katherine is an assistant teaching professor of American studies at Notre Dame and an affiliated faculty member of the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center. Her research employs data analysis, visualization, and interactive digital mapping to illustrate the scale and scope of Minor League Baseball labor, as well as the historical forces and labor structures that shape Minor League players’ working conditions.
Why Minor League Baseball? After all, the vast majority of baseball fans’ attention gets devoted to the likes of the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, and the other 27 clubs that make up Major League Baseball.
But as Katherine points out, 90 percent of professional baseball players are actually Minor Leaguers, who for the most part grind out their days in relative anonymity. Her work has grown out of asking: What happens if we put that 90 percent at the center?
The answers give all of us who love our national pastime a lot to think about.
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