Mike Pesca
Mike Pesca first reached the airwaves as a 10-year-old caller to a New York Jets-themed radio show and has since been able to parlay his interests in sports coverage as a National Desk correspondent for NPR based in New York City.
Pesca enjoys training his microphone on anything that occurs at a track, arena, stadium, park, fronton, velodrome or air strip (i.e. the plane drag during the World's Strongest Man competition). He has reported from Los Angeles, Cleveland and Gary. He has also interviewed former Los Angeles Ram Cleveland Gary. Pesca is a panelist on the weekly Slate podcast "Hang up and Listen".
In 1997, Pesca began his work in radio as a producer at WNYC. He worked on the NPR and WNYC program On The Media. Later he became the New York correspondent for NPR's midday newsmagazine Day to Day, a job that has brought him to the campaign trail, political conventions, hurricane zones and the Manolo Blahnik shoe sale. Pesca was the first NPR reporter to have his own podcast, a weekly look at gambling cleverly titled "On Gambling with Mike Pesca."
Pesca, whose writing has appeared in Slate and The Washington Post, is the winner of two Edward R. Murrow awards for radio reporting and, in1993, was named Emory University Softball Official of the Year.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife Robin, sons Milo and Emmett and their dog Rumsfeld. A believer in full disclosure, Pesca rates his favorite teams as the Jets, Mets, St. Johns Red Storm and Knicks, teams he has covered fairly and without favor despite the fact that they have given him a combined one championship during his lifetime as a fully cognizant human.
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Melissa Block talks to Mike Pesca about the Daytona 500 and the Justice Department joining a whistleblower lawsuit against Lance Armstrong.
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Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling have been dropped from the 2020 Olympic games. The unexpected move by the International Olympic Committee Executive Board has angered many, who expected other less-popular sports to be cut. The IOC could reconsider its decision when it next meets in May, but few are hopeful.
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Robert Siegel talks to Mike Pesca about Sunday's Super Bowl, a game complete with a dramatic finish and a bizarre power outage. San Francisco 49ers players are questioning whether the referees missed a pass interference call that would have given them one more shot at going ahead in the final minutes of the game. And Super Dome officials are still investigating what caused the 34 minute outage that left half the Super Dome in the dark.
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Put down that chicken wing and put in your two cents. Fake your way at least well into the third quarter, when everyone else at your party Sunday is well into their Bud Lights. -
Jim Brown is a hall of fame running back who terrorized defenses. In fact, many consider him to be the best running back ever.
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The Baltimore Ravens hope to top off their run to the Super Bowl with a win in the big game Sunday. If they do, they'll continue a trend of unlikely champions — six of the past eight Super Bowl victors weren't the top seeds in their conferences.
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The gifted quarterback can run and pocket pass, skills that helped him lead the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl. But what will it take for the Baltimore Ravens to stop — or at least slow down — Kaepernick on Sunday? -
The NHL season is expected to start Saturday. A lockout cut in half the number of games to be played and many worried it would cause economic hardship. But that is not necessarily the case.
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Mike Pesca talks to Melissa Block about the Baseball Hall of Fame nominations. No inductees were named on Wednesday and ties to performance-enhancing drugs kept top players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out of the running.
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There was plenty to celebrate — think summer Olympics. And plenty to deplore — bicycling steroid rings and yet another NHL lockout.
