This week on Skin in the Game, John and Tim sit down with sports journalist Joon Lee—whose bylines span The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and who previously covered baseball and features at ESPN and Bleacher Report—to explore how sports can build empathy on and off the field. They dig into the rising cost of fandom and how fan culture has shifted over time.
Lee tells the game’s most human stories—work that’s earned recognition from The Best American Sports Writing series and a nomination for the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting.
He also shares a first-person batting-cage test against MLB-caliber pitching—an experiment that turns what might sound like a gimmick into a humbling lesson in difficulty and respect. The result is a thoughtful, fun and unexpectedly moving conversation about using immersive experiences to close perspective gaps in sports and beyond.
