Morgan Campbell: A Writer on Sports and More

If you’re a follower of this blog you were probably here in the spring of 2011 when I connected with my good friends Duane Watson and Will Strickland to form All Balls Don’t Bounce, a sports media content collective that worked to explore stories not often told in this market.

We screened movies — Dave Zirin’s More Than a Game saw its Canadian premiere under the ABDB banner, as did Out: The Glenn Burke Story.

And spoke to students — we all aged years in a matter of weeks trying to put this together, but when we managed to get Zirin and John Carlos to Toronto lectures at York University and University of Toronto-Scarborough.

But most of all we built a community around our weekly podcast, and if you were there back then you’re familiar with what it cost to subscribe (my favourite price — Free.99) and will know the meaning behind catchphrases that became hashtags like:

#ThePStandsfor

#RampantRedneckery

And #ConflationCorrelationCausation.

And if you were there back then, you’ll remember that in early 2012 I stepped away from ABDB. Nothing personal. I just had other priorities that just couldn’t wait, like the series of proposals that led eventually to my opus on Venezuelan baseball, and the other series of discussions that culminated in the Sportonomics project.

Duane and Will kept podcasting, and even hustled a weekly gig talking basketball at TSN Radio here in Toronto. And next week the three of us will reunite behind the mic one more time.

One last time.

Sad to report it, but Will and Duane have decided the next episode 75 ABDB (Episode Orlando Pace) will be the last one.

We’re still working out the details but right now the plan is to record live on Spreecast, Tuesday night, Jan. 21. The first 45 minutes will be business as usual, setting up hot sports topics and taking them apart the way the Weapons of Media Deconstruction always do.

The final 45?

That’s for reminiscing on stuff like Glen Johnson’s Jamaican accent, and Charlie Wilson dropping bombs on Oklahoma, and Willie D’s admonition to Andre “Son of God” Ward.

“You just can’t be out here losin’ and sh t!”

And then we’ll wrap it up for good.

After 75 episodes All Balls Don’t Bounce will retire as a first-ballot podcast hall-of-famer, and the only way to celebrate the end of the show is to bring together everyone was there at the beginning.

That means me, but it also means all of you.

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