Tags
baseball, Damian Gorman, Derry Girls, Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney, States of Play, USA politics
A month or two ago, I received an email from a stranger. A former journalist with The Financial Times who splits his time between Belfast and Baltimore, Steve McGookin, had landed on an old column I’d written for the Irish Times about my love affair with the Boston Red Sox and wondered if I might be interested in taking part in his States of Play, a project that uses baseball as a window into discussions – a series of nine Q&As – innings – with interesting folks about politics, society, and cultural connections.
Of course I said ‘yes.’ Without hesitation. After all, one of the best things about journalism as Steve points out on his website is just reaching out to random people and hoping they’ll talk to you.”
In retrospect, my only wish is that we could have had the entire conversation in the cheap seats at Fenway all the way into extra innings.
If you’re a baseball fan or if you’re just interested in the state of the nation from the perspective of an immigrant from Northern Ireland, you’ll maybe take a look, with this in mind:
At a ball game, you almost always see something you’ve never seen before. In today’s America, honestly, God only knows what we might see next.
Thanks again, Steve. Hope to see you back on the oul’ sod one day soon.
Here’s the link to my nine innings, conducted over email in the Spring of 2023 shortly before – and after – I returned to Northern Ireland to celebrate my 60th birthday which coincided with the 25th anniversary of The Good Friday Agreement.
