194 - West Texas Baseball: The Alpine Cowboys and the Pecos League w/ Kristin Cavness

194 - West Texas Baseball: The Alpine Cowboys and the Pecos League w/ Kristin Cavness

Author: A podcast about baseball, music and culture. April 5, 2024 Duration: 43:42
Kristin Cavness is the general manager of the Alpine Cowboys, the only truly independent team in the independent Pecos League (the other 15 teams are owned and operated by league). The Cowboys are owned and operated by a locally-controlled non-profit that keeps Alpine's strong baseball history alive. The team plays their home games at historic Kokernot Field, dubbed by Sports Illustrated's Nicholas Dawidoff in 2016 as the "Yankee Stadium of Texas." Cavness gives us a fun behind the scenes loo...

You might find yourself wondering how a perfect double play and a classic guitar riff are connected, or what a stadium anthem says about the year it topped the charts. That’s the kind of territory explored on Hooks & Runs. This isn't just a series of interviews, though you’ll hear conversations with fascinating figures from the sports and music industries. It’s also a place for thoughtful commentary, where the co-hosts draw lines between the crack of a bat and a cultural moment, between a legendary concert and a legendary season. They dig into both current headlines and forgotten history, finding the stories where pop culture and the national pastime intersect. Each episode feels like a relaxed, insightful conversation that could start with a baseball statistic and end with a music theory debate. New installments of this podcast arrive roughly every Thursday, offering a consistent dose of their unique blend. If you’ve ever felt that the narratives of baseball and the rhythms of music speak a similar language, this podcast provides the commentary to translate.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Hooks & Runs
Podcast Episodes
245 - Disco Was Fun! Baseball, Music & Culture in 1978 w/ David Krell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:18
David Krell is author of "1978: Baseball and America in the Disco Era," (University of Nebraska Press, 2025). His book explores the wild 1978 major league season with features on the American League East race that went t…
244 - Power Outage! The 1979 Houston Astros [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:25
This week, Craig and Rex take a deep dive into the 1979 Houston Astros, the only team since 1947 to hit fewer than 50 home runs while posting a winning record and also the last team to hit more triples than home runs in…
239 - Willie McCovey: Remembering a Forgotten Superstar w/ Chris Haft [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:36
Author Chris Haft's new book, Willie McCovey: A Giant Among Giants (University of Nebraska Press, 2025) adds to the baseball literature by examining the life and baseball times of perhaps the most forgotten member of the…