This is a special edition of the podcast where we let you peer behind the curtain. Our guest, baseball writer and beer enthusiast Eno Sarris, is the subject of a profile you can read on Good Beer Hunting. As part of the reporting for that story, I recorded one of our interviews to share with you—it’s a way for you to hear from Eno more of what makes him the person he is today, as well as gain a better understanding for some of the ideas and themes you read about in the piece itself.
Eno is one of the leading journalists covering baseball today, currently for The Athletic. His skill set is unique in the way he uses statistical analysis to tell stories about players and the sport, and it’s the same kind of thinking that put him in a unique position with beer. During the 2010s, he was a lead writer for a website, BeerGraphs, a beer-focused spin-off of FanGraphs, a renowned baseball publication. But along with his bonafides and expertise in baseball and beer, he’s also a charming and interesting person. In this conversation you’ll hear about his upbringing in Jamaica, Germany, and the U.S., and how baseball was central to the way he connected with others. You’ll also get a sense of how and why beer became part of his passion and career.
We recorded this chat during the summer in the midst of the baseball season, so some of the references to All-Star players will be time-stamped to that moment. But the ideas and stories Eno shares are evergreen, and will help you appreciate him and his work even more.