My first non-family member guest is Will Leitch, a well-known writer who contributes to multiple outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, and MLB.com.  Author of 4 books with a 5th book on the way, he writes about politics, culture, sports, and whatever else is on his mind.

We discuss the recent insurrection and impeachment trial #2 in Washington D.C. the impact of COVID on daily life and on parenting, a discussion of fatherhood and baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals (our favorite team), and lastly his Kevin Costner sports movie rankings.

You can watch the video on YouTube, use the embedded player below to listen from this page, watch on YouTube from this page, or go to your favorite podcast sites to download this one and any others in the future at Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn+Alexa, and iHeartRadio.  Click here to go direct to an RSS feed with the episodes (advanced users only). If you scroll down you can also find the full transcript of the interview.

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Below is a transcript of Podcast #2 — Fireside Chat with Will Leitch

Note — this podcast was transcribed using free software and then lightly edited for clarity.  Please excuse any typos. For the full experience, please listen to the audio or watch the video.

Rogue Dad MD:

Welcome everybody to the Rogue Dad MD podcast. I am your host, Rogue Dad MD. This is actually my second ever podcast, but my first ever podcast with a guest who is not related to me and actually the first podcast I’ve recorded since mid 2019 and which was not published till early 2020. Today’s date is January 14th, 2021. Quite a bit has been going on as always. This podcast is brought to you by no one, because I do not have any sponsors. However, this space and parts of my soul are for sale. So if you are interested in either one of those, please email me RogueDadMD@gmail.com. And please be sure to check me out online on social media @RogueDadMD. And of course at my website, www.RogueDadMD.com Without further ado, here we go.

Rogue Dad MD:

Welcome everyone to the first ever Rogue Dad MD Fireside Chat podcast. I am Rogue Dad MD. As you can see, I’m here with my fire in the background, trying to give a little bit of coziness for our first guest ever. Mr. Will Leitch. Will Is a writer and the founding editor of the sports blog, Deadspin, he’s a corresponding writer for mlb.com and editor or contributing editor at New York, has written for the New York Times, GQ, Washington Post NBC news, has written four novels and has a fifth one coming or four books as a fifth novel coming out later this year.

Will Leitch:

It’s my pleasure. I have to say, just to warn you for your future guests, your fires a little hot. Okay. So I’m just saying, it’s making me a little nervous that you’ve got it under control back there.

Rogue Dad MD:

I’m not going to lie. You’re going to feel even hotter.

Will Leitch:

It’s going to get a little uncomfortable. I’ll be prepared.

Rogue Dad MD:

I’ve mentioned, I’ve read you for awhile and I was really excited to have an opportunity to talk to you. And I was doing some more research for this and I realized you really need a little bit of exposure. I read a little bit more about your background. And I found that you’re only the fourth most famous Leitch in history. Did you know that?

Will Leitch:

I didn’t know. There was like a ranking of such thing.

Rogue Dad MD:

I looked this up and interestingly, I found this a week, two weeks ago, as I first proposed this interview. You’re the fourth, most highest ranked Leitch in history. I’m going to share my screen. So though, interestingly, the website has gotten taken down in the past week and I didn’t record it, but I did keep track of who the number one

Will Leitch:

Were underrating me. That would be my guess

Rogue Dad MD:

I think they were significantly overrating you I’m not going to lie. So here, if you can see my screen, can you see this Wikipedia page? Okay. So you can see you down here. This is not the page I found. The number one person is on here. Who do you think is number one?

Will Leitch:

I would say Donovan Leitch, Scottish musician.

Rogue Dad MD:

No, it is Archibald Leitch. The Scottish architect. Interesting. This gentlemen right here a writer on the time that Lincoln was killed.

Will Leitch:

I have a theory as to why that Is. Because you know, Archibald leach spelled differently is Cary.Grant’s real name.

Rogue Dad MD:

That is very well not the case at all, but I …

Will Leitch:

Go type in Cary grant right there. Okay.

Rogue Dad MD:

Okay. Carrie, Grant’s real name. Oh, boom. That’s spelled differently.

Will Leitch:

No, but I’m saying, I’m guessing that people are trying to like, find like that. That’s my theory, because I’ve never heard of this man. And I don’t even know if I’m Scottish, but

Rogue Dad MD:

Not aiming high enough is really what the key is. I think we have to try and get you higher, you know? So I wonder if Leitch is kind of like the last name, Robinson and baseball, you know, you’ve got Jackie Robinson and Brooks, Robinson, Frank Robinson, like you’re never going to get to number one, two or three, but if we can cement you at number four and push you up to Brooks Robinson level, that would be pretty good. I would say,

Will Leitch:

Well, one of the problems is, you know, there’s that dude that directs movies now David Leitch, because I was the most famous, I was pretty confident. I was the most famous alive one, but I think he’s catching up with me if had not have already passed me.

Rogue Dad MD:

Well, that’s, we’ll see if we can do something about that with that podcast. I think depending on how this goes, they may get you up. I appreciate all the help I can get. Yeah. So jumping into recent events there was a big news out of DC last week. It’s been dominating headlines. I don’t know if you noticed, but Kyle, Schwarber moved over from the Cubs to the nationals and, and now is with the Washington nationals. I’m curious how you think that’s going to impact the NL central race.

Will Leitch:

That is the big news coming out of DC this week. There’s no question about that. I would say you know, it’s funny, Schwarber and the weird thing about Schwarber. He actually is like starting to play defense a little better. Like he’s actually not terrible on defense last year, which is weird. Cause it just seems like impossible that a guy like that would improve at defense. So I think the thing I kind of like about the nationals is that they feel like, like you’re building around Juan Soto in the first place. So I feel like anyone that can help out at all, I think the weird part about that deal. I thought not to get too baseball, nerdy on you, but they paid him more than they would’ve had to pay him if they had just claimed him in the first place when the Cubs released him, which I thought was very strange. But I think a lot of strange things are going to happen in this baseball season. But so I’m trying not to be too disoriented by it. Yeah.

Rogue Dad MD:

The format of the baseball season is obviously still to be determined and when spring training will happen and when the season will start, I guess still be figured out. I know they’re trying,

Will Leitch:

It’s going to start on time. I think it’s actually going to start on time. I think they may have to figure out something with spring training, but I do think it’s going to start on time. I think it’s actually going to start on time if, just because frankly, I don’t think that I think the players quite reasonably can say, well we just did it. We just made it through it. You can’t say that we could make it through a 60 game season. They’re not going to want to take less money unless the owners to give them, if owners say we’ll play 140 games, but we’ll pay you for 162. They might agree to that, but I don’t know why any player would agree to that. So I think they’re going to play a full season. I actually, yeah.

Rogue Dad MD:

Okay. Well, fingers crossed. We’ll see how that goes. We’ll talk a little more about baseball in a second, but talking about the real events in DC, I know on your mind, everyone else’s mind, there’s a whole lot going on in the Capitol with the reason insurrection and the attack on Congress, the impeachment proceedings, the trial moving to happen relatively soon to the Senate. I don’t know the day. And I’m curious, just sort of spitballing. I know you’ve probably already thought about it and have been, do you think the Senate is going to vote to convict?

Will Leitch:

I think it, you know, it’s funny, this situation is so fluid and dynamic that I think it was it’s, it’s strange. Cause you know, we don’t know how what’s going to happen to the temperature, the temperature of the country after Wednesday. Right? Like a lot of this is considering that once McConnell said that he’s not gonna have to sit and come back in time to have him actually be kicked out of office early, that changes this whole situation. Like with one of the whole reasons that they brought in papers in the first place I would argue quite correctly is that it feels like the house is on fire. We need to get the flame out of the house before it burns down. That’s not happening. They’re not gonna be able to get him out in time for that. So how does that change the vote?

Will Leitch:

I would argue there’s two ways that we’ll look at it. One is it gives Republicans cover cause every Democrat is gonna vote. I’m gonna get vote to get them out. But he gives the Democrat, the gifts Republicans cover. If he’s not in office to be able to say, okay, we’re not actually kicking him out of office. We’re just, this is our way of centering him somehow on the other hand by definition the vote will happen after we’ve survived. Like if, if we made like the whole point of getting him out of there is making sure that we don’t all die before, before he gets out, if this vote actually happens, which will happen when he’s out of office. One of the major reasons of doing it, which is getting out of here before we all die, we’ve made it. So I, I think that,

Rogue Dad MD:

Sorry about this though. I mean, and, and, you know, given the small time and remaining in his term before this, you know, when this insurrection happened and when the attacks happened, you know, while I think everyone who probably has shared political leanings thinks that Trump is pretty insane and could blow up North Korea at any moment. The likelihood of that happening is probably really, you know, relatively speaking low that you never know with this man and what could actually happen. So how much of this do you think is really a symbolic gesture to try and say, Hey, you literally tried to overthrow the government. It doesn’t matter whether you’re physically still an office or not. We need to do this for the sake of precedent setting. .

Will Leitch:

I think th I think they recognize a certain level that history is going to be like, you guys did everything like this guy just had sent in a bunch of people to ransack the capital and trying to kidnap congresspeople. I think that I think there’s a historical aspect to it. I also, I don’t think it’s an inconsequential thing that he would not be able to run for office. Again, I think that is part of the goal to make sure that this guy doesn’t get back in a situation where he can run run again. But at a certain level, I don’t know, like, I don’t think this was a very political calculation. I think it may be in fact, a poor political calculation. I just think at a certain level, and I totally understand is this stay in this and this what I would do as well.

Will Leitch:

I mean, the guy sent thousands of people to try to storm, the Capitol, the first time that’s happened in 150 years, you kind of just don’t really have any choice at that point. And so I think that was the calculation as much as it was. But you know, the, the parameters, these things will change after after he’s out again, if he, if he doesn’t blow up the world by the time that he gets out. And, and I think that on one hand, yes, the odds of that are low. I would also argue the odds of that are not zero. And I think that that is that is the consideration there. So, you know, the fact that the vote’s not going to happen until he’s out to me, if it makes it partly more symbolic, I think that’s true. And partly more for the idea of history and probably hurts the Democrats politically. Because then, you know, it’s the same. I always remember, I don’t know how old you are, but I was, I remember I was 24 years old when the Y2K thing happened and now

Rogue Dad MD:

40. So I was 20. I was born in 1980. I know I look like 17…

Will Leitch:

Yeah you look young! But we remember that time now it’s easy to look back and be like, boy, look how dumb we were about Y2K. What a bunch of idiots we were, but like, it was really freaking scary. And the reason the problem did not end up being,udid not end up being the explosion we feared is because we actually sent people to tackle the problem and fix it. Uthe example I always just use this personally is I went to cover the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. And now no one remembers that like, everyone was terrified to go to Sochi that year, but they were really terrified. Like literally someone from the department of defense said, I wouldn’t send my kids on, like meet the press like three days before I was supposed to go, which made my pregnant wife feel wonderful at the time.

Will Leitch:

But now no one really talks about that because nothing happened. And so it just kind of goes away. I wonder if they’re able to make it through this, if there is,uhow much that changes the vote dynamic, whether like, well, obviously it’s not that urgent now. He didn’t blow up the world. Now that also might change if attacks continue after he is out. I wonder if that changes the equation. Ucause I mean, I think there’s a lot of people that believe,ueven if he leaves office, this is not going to be the end of,uof this sort of violence. And I think that that’s a factor in it too.

Rogue Dad MD:

Yeah. So I think that’s the great follow-up question. So, you know, as you said, the vote’s going to be, the earliest would be a week from now and McConnell is going to be no longer the Senate majority leader. And so there’ll be a majority of votes probably to convict, even if it doesn’t get to the 67 needed to impeach, do you think the vote will be meaningful in even a symbolic way, 10 days from now, if the world didn’t blow up at that point, is there a meaning to a positive or negative for conviction?

Will Leitch:

I think if I, I think I actually may actually come down to McConnell, not so much whether it convicts or whether he doesn’t, but if he votes to convict, even if he doesn’t get enough senators to go along with him, a that says its own thing that McConnell, can’t just direct people to go do things anymore. But also it like this is like, I mean, McConnell is the definitive Republican figure of the last 25, 30 years. If he on the way out votes to convict that says something, even if he’s unable to get along people that go along with him. So I think it matters. I think there’s there’s value in even if the board does not blow up before then I think there is value in getting people on the record for the historical note to say, when this guy sent people to attack the Capitol, here are the people that said this guy should be out of public life and should be impeached. And here are the people who didn’t and I think there’s value. Yeah.

Rogue Dad MD:

So, you know, talking about whether the movement might end, you know, so I’m Pakistani Muslim by background. My parents are from Pakistan. I was born and raised here. I have a lot of friends that are Muslim. We’ve grown up in an environment in the United States talking about our culture, our religion as essentially terrorists and my friends and I have joked around, you know, it’s not just what, you know, if black lives matter, people, you know, we’ve had the very clear contrast of what happened with them being tear gassed, et cetera, and my friends and I joke what would happen if it was us storming the Capitol, a bunch of Muslim guys from the Midwest, right. To, you know, people like me. And they found all these people with all the white supremacists that had Molotov cocktails and guns and things like that nearby.

Rogue Dad MD:

And none of my friends own guns. Like I think I have one Muslim friend that owns a gun. We’re the least violent people I know, frankly, compared to most of the white people, any question about that. So I don’t know if it would be like storming the Capitol with a bunch of like spicy samosas and like throwing those and then people want water and we’re like, no, you gotta drink chai. This is how we’re going to bring down Nancy Pelosi and McConnell is by just over spicing you to death and or something like that. Ubut I can only imagine, you know, the backlash from the Muslim community, like, you know, people have been bugging mosques for years in New York looking for terrorists, but now they don’t want to censor Parlor because it’s free speech. And so, you know, it’s, it’s obviously a very hypocritical approach.

Rogue Dad MD:

The government has taken society has taken it’s not lost on you. It’s not lost on me or really a lot of minorities let alone non-minorities those who were in power. But isn’t interesting that did not make it. I don’t want to dwell forever on this cause I think a lot is to happen just in the next week, but it’s a very curious thing to see what’s going to happen when Trump is out of power physically in terms of the white house, what’s going to happen with his branding and walk to wait and see, it will be very interesting because you know, that’s transitioned to my next top. I go on to talk about which we’ve had unfortunate, not been able to talk about much in the last couple weeks is COVID you know, we’re now having 4,000 people a day die from COVID.

Rogue Dad MD:

In the 15 minutes been talking, give or take that’s, you know, there’s been three people per minute, so that’s 40 to 50 people have died just in the time that we’ve been talking. So I’m a practicing physician. I work in a pediatric ed. I’ve actually got a lot of doctors in my family. A lot of doctors in my friends circle because of how I grew up. Umy dad’s a physician and he’s actually quite sick. And in the hospital right now for a non COVID related reason. T He’s, he’s hopefully going to be okay. It’s a separate story that we won’t delve into today, but my COVID is impacting my family’s ability to see him, my ability to go visit. And I personally, when it came to COVID, I beat the rush I had COVID in March of last year, right. When the world shut down the weekend, the NBA got shut down.

Rogue Dad MD:

I was on a flight to give a talk at a conference. And the NBA shut down and then that weekend, while I was at the conference, I got exposed somehow. And I came back to St. Louis and got COVID, developed my symptoms the day after I returned. And in that weekend I was there, the sports world shut down. So it was that weekend. So you know, it was interesting. It was scary, but my perspective as a physician, surrounded by physicians, working in the hospital having friends and healthcare is very different than anyone else because of that kind of background. But I’m kind of curious, how has, COVID sort of impacted your perspective on things? I know, obviously it’s impacting everything. It’s hard to narrow it down. But I see everything almost now through a COVID lens, non COVID lens, and it’s hard for me to differentiate. Has it gotten to that level for you?

Will Leitch:

It it’s, it for me, one of my biggest struggles with is figuring out what, how we get back, the things that we’ve learned about people in our lives. You know, I, I mean, I wrote a, I wrote a column for medium a while back called there’s this info in the carpool lane. And and it really is that kind of idea, you know, it’s hard to, you know, depending on w it’s hard to find any sort of calamity that, you know, every semester to this, every calamity up until this one has given at least some people, I would argue a well-to-do white people, specifically, some cover, like, it’s something that can happen. Like it’s something that happened in New York or it’s something that happened because of of people that are different than me, or I believe that they’re there for me, or it’s something that happened out in a big city and it wouldn’t affect me here. And this is the one thing that like, everyone has been affected in every way. I remember in the early days of this, there was a story right after Georgia kind of reopened. And the Washington post sent a reporter to like a mall in Atlanta and just interviewed all these people, just shopping. Like it was nothing. And and they interviewed these two shit heads, uh poop heads,

Will Leitch:

Like frat bros in there. And, and they actually said on the record with their names to the Washington post, they actually said well, you know, if look at the communities that are getting this, you know, it’s not something that we’re too worried about. And at the time that was infuriating. Now, I bet they don’t feel that way anymore. Like, like it’s, it’s everywhere. Right. You know, and, and to me that has affected, and it was everywhere then. But like, I think that, like now you can’t the, like, to me, the strangest thing about it, about seeing it, I know there are still COVID deniers. It feels like there are fewer, just because, like I remember in the early days of this, where it was just like, like, I, I live in Athens, Georgia. I did not know anyone in my life there.

Will Leitch:

I knew people back in New York who had had it, but I did not know anyone that had had COVID probably until may. And now I know a lot of people who have had COVID. And so, and you’ve seen you, you’ve seen how people react to it. What you’ve learned about, you know, you like people that you say hi to in the morning when you walk your kids to school, or you, or you I’ll play basketball with, or you people saw at their place of worship, you know, that they didn’t have, they’d never had to have it in political discussions, or they never had to have. And all of a sudden now, you know, something, you know, that like, Oh, well the bike that, that mom of my kid’s best friend scowled at me for wearing a mask in the Kroger, that’s something I know now, how do I go back? Like, how do we go back? Right. Like, how do we go back when

Rogue Dad MD:

Yeah, I was going to say, I don’t think there is a going back, you know, there, you know, we talk about normal, the new normal, the new normal is going to be different than the old normal. So I don’t think we go back,

Will Leitch:

There’s still going to be, my kids are still gonna be at the same school with them. Like, I understand that like the, the going back to 2019 is not going to happen, but eventually, hopefully my children’s still homeschooling will eventually get to go to school again. And her, and she will be there with her children and they will eventually be there too. And I would now, when I waved to her in that carpool line, regardless of how, however else, the world is different at that point. Now it’s just information that like, in the general kind of vague, hazy patina that we have over our society. It never gets so deep where you learn that like, Oh, well, that person is a science denialist and that person you know it’s a, it’s a hard thing to learn. And I think it’s, it becomes even more emotional, the closer that COVID gets to you. And I think that like, and so, and there was a long time where shaming was the thing of one was shaming, and then there was kind of a backlash to shaming and we’re like, okay, let’s not shame. Let’s all try to figure out how are we going to live together after this? But it’s funny as more and more people like, as COVID gets closer to them. And as they see, like their loved ones start to get sick, I feel like it’s radicalizing people,

Rogue Dad MD:

You know, just so having had COVID back in March last year, it was absolutely stigmatizing. So as a practicing physician in our city here it was very stigmatizing. I think I was probably one of the few first known cases in our region,ubecause I traveled and brought it back and had access to testing. And, you know, the health department, I guess, told the police, the local police department was doing drive-bys of my house to make sure I was in quarantine and my entire neighborhood found out about it because of that. And, you know, I’m in an area that’s a mixed politically, some liberal, some,usome conservative. And when I had some black lives matters, Biden signs up in October, November, I had someone send me some anonymous hate mail,ureally talking to me for being a Biden and BLM supporter and for having COVID.

Will Leitch:

Oh, that was part of it. They added that part too.

Rogue Dad MD:

No. Yeah. So actually they wrote a note saying they actually copied an editorial that was attacking black lives matter from a local suburban newspaper, and then gave me a Trump for women 2020 bumper sticker, and then wrote,ucause I had also had a sign in there that said STD stop the Donald that was on my front lawn. And they wrote a note in there saying STDs are for doctorwho expose their patients and community to COVID . This was right before the election. I mean, I responded by putting literally 15 more signs up in my yard where people were like, what the hell is going on,…. But so I want to transition to going onto, as you kind of alluded to with kids. So do you plan to get your kids vaccinated when or if or when it becomes available?

Will Leitch:

Oh yeah, but listen, my eye for of course, I mean, they’re last in the line, but but yeah, of course my, my mother actually got her first vaccine shot yesterday

Rogue Dad MD:

As a matter of, and your mother’s a nurse, correct? She is,

Will Leitch:

She’s a retired nurse, so she’s not involved with like a, like like she had to get it, like the rest of us had to get it. She’s not like involved with with like Piedmont or anything like that anymore. So but so she, she, she actually, it’s not going well. The vaccine rollout in Georgia, she had to drive three hours armed, literally with just an email address that she has said that she had she’d secured her time with an email address. Like it could have been like fart knocker 63 at Hotmail. And it wasn’t, she showed up with the actual appointment, but like, she could have been 13, like, like who knows she could have been some dorking around and taking spots and it’s a total mess, but, but she got it. And, and, and my dad’s getting his on Saturday and my mother-in-law got hers yesterday as well.

Will Leitch:

And it is it is, you know, everyone has their things that they worry about personally on is I’m worried about the world. I’m worried about everything in that, but I think everything is most urgent, close to home. And, you know, I, my parents moved here to Georgia from Illinois about two years ago largely. So they could retire, hanging out with the grandchildren and travel and then COVID happened and they got to do hardly any of those things. And I’ve been worried about them being ill. I don’t want that, you know, I, this is like, I, I know that some people, like when I think of COVID, I don’t want to get COVID like, I’m, I don’t know what your experience was, but I know people have had some have been, okay. Some people have had very experiences. I’d rather just not push it. You know, I smoked for 10 years. Like, I’m just going to try to just

Rogue Dad MD:

Embrace your risky behavior.

Will Leitch:

I think I’m generally healthy, but you know, this is not roll the dice here. But certainly the that’s not my primary concern. My primary concern is giving it to my parents or to give me and like, and so, so for me, the, the weight when they get that second shot that the weight off my back will be considerable. And I know I know that like, I wish that our major battle right now was getting people to get the vaccine like, cause I know that that’s like a thing, right? Some people like don’t want to get it.

Rogue Dad MD:

So just speaking up from the healthcare perspective, I will say while the vaccine rollout is a giant cluster, pretty much everywhere. I think it’s also overshadowing the fact that I can tell you that in major healthcare systems still anywhere from 40 to 70% of doctors and nurses are not getting vaccinated right now, there’s plenty of places that have vaccine appointments available in big healthcare systems where people are just unsure. So I’ve talked to many people, fewer doctors, more other types of healthcare personnel, but still physicians as well, who don’t want to get the vaccine right now. Now there’s less, there’s fewer people saying I’m never going to get it. I don’t need it, but there’s a lot of vaccine hesitancy even in the healthcare community. I think partly because it’s been politicized during the development and the rollout. And so I know a lot of people who say they want to wait two or three, six months look for a longer-term side effects who don’t listen to the messaging, trying to be put out there regarding safety, the development process. And that’s just what I know from the healthcare system. So my guess, you know, I don’t know different subsets, but this is not just isolated to my system. This is across the country, this is happening. And so while we have to do a much better job rolling out, I think there’s a lot of messaging that hasn’t happened and a lot of skepticism. Unfortunately, that’s going to make this even harder than we think

Will Leitch:

It’s discouraging. I have to say, I did think that you know, doctors wouldn’t be dumb about it and listen, I, we all understand that it was rushed. It’s was a little nerve wracking when you hear warp speed. Like that is not like the most that doesn’t feel like the most, you know, medical term.

Rogue Dad MD:

So it’s not, I mean, I’m a star Trek fan and that is not a medical term. You know, I will say interestingly and I, I, this is purely anecdotally, so I don’t want to speak on for larger groups behalf. I hear less hesitancy among doctors than I do among nurses and other healthcare workers. I can’t, I don’t want to delve into a long discussion about why that is, because I think that’s beyond even my own ability to explain that. Ubut I think that’s something I’ve certainly observed personally. Now my own units where I work, I think it’s almost universal, almost everyone’s getting vaccinated and the uptake has been extremely high. Ubut I also, at least where I work, there’s a lot of people from underserved communities, people in the black population have had a lot of stuff perpetuated against them, but even then even those, in healthcare with that background are then more skeptical. Now I will say just from a science standpoint for anyone who does, I don’t know if anyone’s, by the way ever gonna end up listening to this besides me and like my three, you know, three or four friends, by the way. But for those who do listen to this, that don’t know either of us having had a chance to discuss this with infectious disease specialists, discuss it with people who know the science while having read the science. Well, it was done faster than any vaccine development in history. And while Trump did politicize it, I actually think the science was done quite well. And I don’t actually don’t think it was rushed. I actually think it was done exceptionally well. Ubut because of the way it was done in such lightning speed, warp speed, it made it harder to get the messaging out and communicate that. And then it got politicized on top of it. But this is a problem we’re gonna be tackling for months and then years. So it’s not going away anytime soon.

Will Leitch:

It is what happens when you, when you literally elect the worst person in the world to becoming president, right. Like in all seriousness there’s nothing he could have done. This is what happens when you lose people, lose faith and lose trust and, and are lied to and believe like, it’s just like, we can’t even get like the base. Like we, like, it is remarkable whether it’s rushed or whether it wasn’t, it is remarkable that this thing exists now. Right? Like I listened to the daily in the early days the infectious disease specialist and reporter there was like, Oh, it’s 18 to 24. And that would be like a land speed record. Yeah. So like, it is, it is a very us in this current situation moment to have this unbelievable medical breakthrough to be able to get here and be like, yeah, I’m not sure.

Rogue Dad MD:

So I’m curious. I wanna transition to, as we go from talking about another topic, transition COVID and talking about Parenthood a little bit, so I’m a father of three boys, 11, 7, and 4. I know reading your stuff. You’ve got two boys. Yours are 9 and 6. So similar ages. And so, you know, the conversations I’ve had with my boys about COVID and about political climate, I tend to be pretty upfront and open. I have a family that talks politics. I grew up listening to politics. We, I grew up watching headline news, so I was always exposed to it. So we talk about, we’ve talked about Trump since my kids were little we talked about quarantining and COVID. And so actually my four year old just got out of quarantine today after an exposure from his preschool. And his brothers just got of the quarantine three days before that, because of a separate exposure.

Rogue Dad MD:

And my four year old’s been asking me for nine months, you know, daddy, when is, COVID gonna be over daddy when it’s, COVID gonna be over. And he can actually say the word quarantine exceptionally well, he, he doesn’t pronounce the letter R but he can say the word quarantine really well. It’s part of his vernacular now. And so I’m curious, what has your conversation been around COVID and politicizing it or not politicizing it with your kids and what’s, what’s your discussion been? But we talked about the carpool thing. How have you approached that with your kids?

Will Leitch:

Well, you know, so much of it. I mean, you know, we talked earlier about how something that affects everybody’s lives. I mean, they’re not going to school. I mean, like, to me, like, I, there’s nothing more disruptive to a kid that like, you know, we split the first eight years of William’s life and five years of Wynn’s life saying, don’t look at screens. We’re not the family that looks at screens. We read books, we go outside and then a, and any other, obviously, parents get tired. You want some bugs bunny, if you need to. But like, generally speaking, we are, we are the not cool family parents among all of all the family. Like we are the ones that are very, very kind of,ure regimented about that. And now it’s like, Oh yeah. Also, please stare at the screen all day for your education.

Will Leitch:

And you don’t get to see your friends anymore. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s impossible. I mean, you know, that’s so it’s so disruptive like we’re very lucky as parents, my wife and I both work at a home, we’ve been able to to have childcare just with us, but that’s not the case for most people. And it, you know, to me, the thing with the kids school have, I know everybody has their own viewpoints on this, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to tell anybody that, that this is a complicated issue

Rogue Dad MD:

You gotta go Back to the carpool lane at some point so you gotta be careful what you say.

Will Leitch:

Well, I would just say like, this more complicated than whether you should wear masks or not. Like wear a mask, get a vaccination. Like those things are not complicated. Some schools being open is more complicated now.

Rogue Dad MD:

And having discussions with your kids about what it means to be around someone who’s not wearing a mask. You know, when you go to the grocery store and you make your kids wear a mask, or why you don’t let them go when they hear that someone else might be, I mean, are you talking to them about interactions with their peers or the parents or things along that line in terms of, you know, the way we’re talking about adults and maybe it’s coloring us, you know, we see some of the grocery store and they refuse to put their mask on properly or things like that. Are you having discussions about your kids and say, yeah, I know you saw a kid, people they’re doing this. How are you bringing that conversation up with them to avoid having them take that bias? Or are you wanting to get into that bias?

Will Leitch:

You consider it more like in the same way that like it, you know, before this, if a kid got in trouble or misbehaved in one of their classes back when they had classes in school where they all gathered in rooms and studied and had actual school the, we, we always tried to make it clear that if someone got in trouble they might’ve been doing the wrong thing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong or they’re a bad person. And that was an important lesson for us, kind of from the get go. So that is easily transferable to the mask thing. There was a girl in my first graders cause they went, they were back in school for three weeks. They were actually back in person for three weeks .We actually had no problems at our school at all, but cases started to increase over Christmas and now they postponed coming out.

Will Leitch:

And but there was a girl at school that just kept like not wearing a mask and the teachers would remind her and then she would put it on and then they would leave and she would take it off. And and our son, I was just like, what should I do? You know, I keep telling her to put it on. And we just said, just keep telling her, like, don’t be rude about it. But like, anytime that you want to remind her that she’s supposed to put her mask on, you have the right to do that. It doesn’t mean that she’s a bad person. It doesn’t mean that she’s, it just means that she’s wrong and she’s doing the wrong thing. And and it’s okay because listen, they don’t need to be reminded. They do the wrong thing a lot too — they are kids.

Will Leitch:

I’m an adult and I do the wrong thing all the time too. So we tried to make a value judge about it, but, you know, the, the, I really, it’s just the fact that they’re not in school is it’s. I really think I know people here who like we, when, way to thinking about being here in Athens is we are surrounded by counties, wherever everyone is in school. Like, is there more rural? And they’re just saying, go for it, we’re doing it. Some people don’t even mandate masks, mhich strikes me as insane, but our school did. Uhut everyone else’s back to school and we aren’t, and it’s hard, obviously when you’re surrounded by counties that aren’t that, but, you know, we know, like there are people that have all the things in this pandemic, not having their children in school every day has been the hardest thing for them. And, and I, and it’s hard for me, like, man, it’s January mid January, like first grade is almost over and it’s kind of an important grade. So, hnd I feel like he’s missed it, you know?

Rogue Dad MD:

My middle kid had to leave kindergarten in March last year. And he’s first grader now, and it’s been, he’s gone back part-time or they’re sort of hybrid, but he was missing a lot being entirely virtual.

Will Leitch:

Yeah. It’s it’s, I mean, it’s terrible. It’s terrible. And I’ve heard this about this before, but in like 10 years generation COVID is going to be like a whole thing with these kids. It’s just like how far behind they fell like one year and listen, again, we’re lucky we have reliable wireless access. They have parents that are in the home with them, most of these kids don’t. And so th this is where I, I understand this is a complicated issue, but I do think you can make a pretty, I think this is where things got politicized, right? I think when, when Trump started to pound his fist and say, these kids need to be back in school, a bunch of people who I think otherwise would tend to see the complications and the complexities of this, I said, Oh, understandably said, wait, that’s what he’s saying. Okay. He’s always wrong. So I’m going to go the other way. And I think it turned it into something that unfortunately kids who have nothing to do with it are, are the ones suffering.

Rogue Dad MD:

So I want to transition before time runs out to a couple of other topics here. So I’ve been reading this book. I think this may be shown a backwards from you from about 10 years ago, called “Are we winning?”And it’s called the subtitle of fathers and sons and the new golden age of baseball. So I mentioned, my parents are from Pakistan. They don’t have any interest in sports. They didn’t even like cricket. My dad’s one of those South Asians who apparently didn’t like cricket. And so when we, you know, I was born in St. Louis, they moved here right before I was born. My brothers and I are all baseball, obsessed, and they mostly just indulge us tolerated it. They did take us to games. Like we were all very baseball obsessed and still are for the most part. Uyou know, and I wonder, as I was reading this book, you wrote this book from the perspective of before you had kids as sort of, sort of the connection to your father, te sort of how that passes down, the connection that maybe you and your father are very different, but you always have that bond.

Rogue Dad MD:

And that’s part of what baseball is. And you wrote this sort of a future son and what that you might envision that bond would be in the future. You know, I’m curious, looking at my, sort of my kids and having sort of a similar obsession. I wanted my kids to be obsessed with baseball because I was obsessed no matter what else was different. I, even though I didn’t connect with my father on baseball you know, when I was in St. Louis in 2011, when the Cardinals, won the world series, I was in training, I had one kid who was two, and I didn’t have a ton of money. And I bought tickets to game seven in advance and paid like $900 to get two tickets and had to work a ton of extra ER shifts. And,umy spouse was not happy.

Rogue Dad MD:

But we went and I took my two year old cause he was free at that time. And I wanted to go, even though it didn’t make a lot of financial sense because baseball was such an important part of my life. I basically told her that, like, I, you know, if I die tomorrow, I want him to know how important baseball was to me. And that I want him to know he was at game seven, whether we in or lose and then to see us win. That’s a once in a lifetime thing. And we’ll talk about the Cardinals, hopefully in a minute. Like, it really might be a once in a lifetime thing. Like, I don’t know when we’re going to go back to the world series. Ubut you know, now my kids are older and I think I’ve done a much more negligent job in terms of making them insane about baseball, the way I still am, even though I’m less crazy, I put up a Yadier Molina growth poster and my seven-year-olds room earlier this week that I had had laying around and he knows who Yadier Molina is, he should, but he asked me who is that?

Rogue Dad MD:

And I was like, Oh, Jesus Christ how do you not know who Molina is. What am I doing as a father that you don’t know who this is. So I’m curious how this has evolved for you.

Will Leitch:

You know, a lot of it is gauging interests when I wrote that book, I, I mean the idea of, of me potentially having a son who didn’t like baseball was very worrisome to me because I, that was the main reason, the way that I talk to my dad, you know, that was one of the main things we were able to communicate about. So I was worried about it. Now I have two sons, my oldest son is very obsessed with baseball and all sports. And and we have, and he is he indulged, well, he’s as deep into this as, as, as I was probably more than I. It’s very frustrating now to be, he certainly loves to point out that, that his dad who is a professional sports writer, doesn’t know some of the things that he knows now. Cause he’s, he’s obsessed, you know, he’s these nine, you know, this is like his whole world.

Will Leitch:

And my other son doesn’t really care. Which is I think, which is, I think he’s actually probably great. And I, I hopefully means we’re doing something right. But yeah, it’s great to be able to have that, that, you know, I tried it back when you could go to games. I went to St. Louis with him once a year, the same way I always went to Busch Stadium with my dad once a year, even when he was back in Illinois and I was in New York. And then out here, you know, it’s a, it’s a different experience. UI feel like I actually, in retrospect now that I’m, now that I see my son doing it, I, that a lot of the, I always thought that my dad was saying, you’re a Cardinals fan that you’re going to be a Cardinals fan because that’s the most important thing here.

Will Leitch:

Now that I’m going through it with my son, I realized actually probably I was the one providing the energy to it. And he was just really, really excited to have something to do with his son. And not that he didn’t love the Cardinals. I love the Cardinals and I have the same experience with, with him. But certainly I realized now that, you know, it’s even more vividly that it’s something that he wants to do with me. And and it’s great because something I want to do with him too. And also I really like talking about the Cardinals, so I don’t have to be asked twice about it. But it’s, it’s great. It’s so different though. I, you know, I, haven’t gone back and read, are we winning in a while. I wonder how differently it reads now that I am an actual father always loved Chuck Klosterman close to him. It has the blurb on that book saying it’s the, it’s the best book about fatherhood written by a child was the best book about Midwestern fatherhood written by a childless man from Brooklyn, which I thought was amusing. But now I am an actual parent an it’s richer than I realized it was in that book, which is really exciting.

Rogue Dad MD:

Well, I agree with all that. I mean, my oldest who knows a lot about baseball compared to his younger brothers is obsessed with comics and Zelda. And he’s been telling me all about all these random monsters he’s been killing on his NinTendo and whatever. And you know, it’s the same thing. Like I’d never played that as a kid. I played lots of games, but I never played that. And he just wants to talk about it all the time. And so I’m getting interested because of him and we don’t talk baseball cause that’s not his interest. I talk about it with my friends. I talk about it with family that are interested. Ubut we don’t talk much baseball. I put it on the radio, I put it on the television and they see the paraphernalia. You can’t see it around me, but I’ve got Cardinals and other sports stuff in this room all around me. And they actually don’t know this,uthis weekend, they’re each going to get a signed Cardinals thing to ut in their room one from Molina, one from Ozzie Smith and one from Stan Musial, I’m going to put one on each kid’s room. They’re going to get to pick, get to pick where to put it. And it’s gonna be more to me than it probably does to them, but that’s okay.

Will Leitch:

But that will make it mean more to them. To me, that’s what I’ve kind of learned from this is, is that like that bond I have with my dad, it was more from me than I realized. I thought it was just something that we did together, but now I think I was driving him more than he was driving.

Rogue Dad MD:

Yeah. And I think for my parents that I think that was the same thing. My, I didn’t realize that my parents didn’t think that much about baseball, but I connected with them. We have very different backgrounds. They grew up overseas speaking a different language, very different culture. And even though they still don’t care about baseball, they still know that my brothers and I do. And so they’ll still back when McGwire was here in St. Louis, they would talk about him and things like that. And you know, my dad really doesn’t care at all about baseball, but he still will ask those kinds of questions. And so it’s a connection that we have. And so I appreciate that as a father going out of your own comfort zone for your kids is something you have to learn to do. So let’s wrap up talking about sports, specifically, the Cardinals, what’s your outlook for 2021. Should we care?

Will Leitch:

I think we should care. And frankly, the fact that the rest of the division is not very, it doesn’t seem to care any more than the Cardinals do is that’s good, right? Like, you know, I mean, the Cubs may be tearing down completely. We’ll I mean, I think the Cardinals can still win the division next year, even if they win 85 games. And I think 85 games is very much on the table. I think that this looks like an 85 or 86 win team which may be enough to win that division who knows how the playoffs are going to be. Maybe that will be enough to get into the playoffs again, that’s uninspiring. I think I can deal with it for 2021 because it’s such a weird year, not just from the macro sense that we don’t know when there’s going to be fans in the stands or and that’s something that I think, I think while I am not sympathetic, when the Cardinals cry poor, it’s considering how much money everyone’s made for so long.

Will Leitch:

I do appreciate that probably affects the Cardinals more than it affects a lot of other teams with the cable contracts. But to me, the larger thing that the more specific thing for the Cardinals, they have a bunch of money coming off the books after this year. And to me if there were ever a year to just kind of, there’s a lot of logic. I don’t know if I, as a fan, I love it. But there is a logic to the idea that like, listen, this is a weird year. We don’t even know if there’s a DH. We don’t know how many games we’re gonna play. We don’t know how, when fans are going to be in the stands, everyone else in the division is doing nothing push them to do anything. If not, some are even tearing down entirely.

Will Leitch:

And we’ve got a bunch of money coming off the books from Fowler and carpenter and, and so on. It makes, and there’s not like a ton of great, huge players on the market right now that will be out. Trevor story would be a great example of this, of someone who already gets it could be a really perfect fit for St. Louis next year. I don’t think the Cardinals are punting. If they’re punting on this year, then I would be angry, but I’m so annoyed, but I do kind of get it. It’s I don’t like this year. I, Hey, yes. For crying out loud, the Cardinal’s gonna be playing baseball in the middle of a pandemic when everything is falling apart. Yeah. I don’t know what the hell is going to be going on. I will watch a cardinals game. Like I shocked myself actually, how much I loved watching the Cardinals and the 60 game season.

Will Leitch:

And I found myself even not as wrapped up as I usually am. We didn’t do, I did the podcast with Bernie Miklasz. Of course up until this last year, I missed it. But like on that podcast, it was always like, why aren’t they trying to win? This is frustrating. We need to be the Cardinals and so on. And I found myself more, just appreciating the game at like a micro level. This last year I found myself, I listened to a lot of games on the radio and it felt like just like a little different place to go. Then I felt like I just wasn’t as upset about how the Cardinals were doing as I was just like appreciative of the fact that they were playing at all. Now that’s not a long-term condition.

Rogue Dad MD:

In 2020 I actually probably watched less Cardinals baseball on a per inning basis than I did any other year of my life. I followed them I talked about them. I didn’t watch the game just because it was hard. It was hard for me to be captivated with other things going on in the world and life. And it was hard to really feel like it was a real season. So it felt a little fake to me. And, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to 2021 just to have that daily rhythm back in my life. I definitely am one of those people that love to have it on the radio, in the background and the TV in the background, even if I’m not paying attention inning by inning.

Will Leitch:

That’s the thing about having a full season, right? Like the whole like last year was weird because baseball games are not supposed to be 60 games. They’re just not, I mean, nevermind the no fans never buying all the weirdness of it and the, and the pauses and the positive cases. There’s just not supposed to be only 60 games in a year. And it felt weird. And like the whole point of baseball is it happens every day. And some days you watch and some days you don’t and sometimes you find out what happens the next morning. And some days you’re obsessing over every pitch and some things you have a beer just chill out and some days you, you watch every pitch, like it’s the biggest thing in the world. That to me is a great thing about baseball and a 60 game season felt almost like more of an aberration than the no fans thing. Yeah.

Rogue Dad MD:

So I’m going to wrap up with the very last thing. I know you are a movie obsessed. I want to do our Kevin Costner sports movie rankings here. So I took this list off of a website and some of these are not traditional sports movies, and you can see they put Robin hood in there because of archery. And so I loved Robin hood. So I decided this is my top five. I have not actually seen all these I’m guessing you probably have, or at least more than I have. Where would you put your number one out of these movies?

Will Leitch:

Bull Durham is definitely number one. Bull Durham is probably my favorite baseball movie, if not my, even my favorite sports movie of all time. Okay. So two here are we talking sports movie or like actual quality of the movie

Rogue Dad MD:

The title is specifically, we’re going to say Kevin Costner sports movies.

Will Leitch:

I’ll just kinda go with the quality of the movie.

Will Leitch:

The second best movie that I would say is probably Upside of Anger is pretty good. I would say I put it er 2 ,ugo ahead put Field of Dreams 2 and Upside of Anger 3. Okay. And then, u,n Cup comes 4. I liked Tin Cup. Um,lly’s Game 5. I kind of liked him and I was American Flyer 6, MFarland USA 7, Chasing Dreams 8. Play It To The Bone 9. For the love of the game10. Robin Hood Prince of thieves 11, and Draft Day 12.

Rogue Dad MD:

Fantastic. Okay. So there’s the official Will Leitch, Kevin Costner sports movie rankings. Fantastic. Okay. So that pretty much wraps up the interview. Thank you again for devoting this time to come talk to me. I had a great time with this. I will hopefully get this online soon.

Will Leitch:

It’s my pleasure, of course. And, and then let me know when, and now, now that we’ve done this, you, you, you have a moral obligation to make at least a second podcast that I wrote a, I wrote a piece of reviewing Joe Biden’s podcast in the early days for New York magazine. And the lead of the piece was on the, on Tuesday, Joe Biden did something to most podcasters don’t. He made a second podcast.

Rogue Dad MD:

So I’ve already emailed Joe Sheehan, because I subscribe to his newsletter. And he agreed to be on my podcast And he said, okay, let me know how that one goes.

Will Leitch:

I’m going to send them a note being like, I don’t know. I don’t know about that. Careful of the rogue dad.

Rogue Dad MD:

You know, you come for the fire. You’re going to get burned, man.

Will Leitch:

Well, thanks for having me. It was, it was really fun. Then holler once baseball season gets going, I’d be happy to chat.

Rogue Dad MD:

Fantastic. Thank you. So that concludes our first ever Rogue Dad MD fireside chat with our very special guest Will Leitch. Thank him again for joining us. That was a lot of fun. And hopefully we do get to do that again in the future. I have in fact already reached out to Joe Sheehan and am talking about meeting him in March for a podcast, but in between I have another special guest. So hopefully we can get recorded and on air Dr. Lindsay Clukies a pediatric emergency medicine doctor with a special interest in injury prevention and also a diehard hockey fan, as well as dog collector. So a very interesting person that you may not know, but you should definitely tune in when it’s time to meet her. Until next time. This is Rogue Dad MD signing off.