What sports fans read, watch, and listen to at home often isn’t the real story coming out of the locker room or the front office. George Castle should know: he’s covered baseball in Chicago for decades and witnessed the widening gulf between the media and the teams they’re supposed to cover—and the resulting widespread misinformation about the inner workings of the game. In this book, Castle chronicles from the inside the decline of baseball reporting and shows in clear and practical terms how ill-served today’s sports followers are by those they trust for the straight story.

Charting the path of a veteran sports reporter’s career, Baseball and the Media traces the changes in baseball coverage from the days of the old-time players and scribes to the no-holds-barred (and no facts checked) sports-talk radio of our time. Along the way, Castle introduces readers to the politics of baseball media (does sports journalism actually have its red and blue states?), documents the transformation of athletes from role models to sports-media celebrities, including emblematic characters such as LaTroy Hawkins and Carl Everett, and illuminates the profound changes in the way sports in general—and baseball in particular—are conveyed to its avid consumers, who are the losers in the end.

A native Chicagoan, George Castle covers the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox for the Times of Northwest Indiana, the Chicago area’s fourth largest newspaper. His weekly radio program, Diamond Gems, is broadcast on forty stations. He is the author of seven other books, including Where Have All Our Cubs Gone?, The Million To One Team: Why The Chicago Cubs Haven’t Won the Pennant Since 1945, and I Remember Harry Caray.

“George Castle, the veteran Chicago sportswriter and host of the syndicated ‘Diamond Gems,’ has written a hard-hitting and insightful expose of the decline of serious reporting about baseball. . . . [A]n insider’s view of Chicago’s press boxes and a harsh indictment of sports/talk radio. It’s Castle’s eighth book—and his best yet.” —Robert Feder, Chicago Sun-Times

“This is not a scholarly treatise. [Castle] quotes from other sportswriters, team media directors, and athletes, rather than academic statistics, which helps the average reader relate. . . . His most interesting analysis comes when he compares the media coverage from the New York/Los Angeles media hotbeds with those of smaller markets. . . . There’s something to be said for the nostalgic simplicity of an organ at the ballpark, rather than the constant blare of the deafening rock music most teams assault their patrons with. Castle speaks for the purist fans who yearn for those days.”—ForeWord

“Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in sports reporting, especially the Monday-morning media quarterbacks in the blogosphere—both as ammunition and as cause to pause for thoughts.”—Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)