Sportswriter Joan Niesen is revisiting the steroid era to untangle its truth from the many myths, examine the legacy of baseball’s farthest-reaching scandal, and explore what it tells us about sports culture in America. Launching on April 1, Opening Day 2021.

What happens when your love of a sport is built on a major-league lie? Sportswriter Joan Niesen was a kid in St. Louis in the summer of 1998, when the home run race made baseball magic. Mark McGwire was her favorite player, and she tracked his every move that season as he chased baseball immortality. But the spectacle of that summer was not what it seemed. McGwire and countless other players had been using anabolic steroids for years. Now, Joan is revisiting the steroid era to untangle the truth from its many myths and search for answers. What happens when our heroes let us down? What can those years tell us about sports culture in America? And what is the legacy of baseball’s farthest-reaching scandal?

When reporter Steve Wilstein started asking questions about a bottle of pills in Mark McGwire’s locker, it set off a chain reaction that would cast doubt on the home run record and the power that had come to define baseball.

At the height of the steroid era, players across baseball had to decide if they should use—and reap the benefits—or stay clean. We meet two such players and follow the ripple effects of their choices.

Baseball has always had a murky code of ethics, a rulebook that feels more like a suggestion. Did that culture pave the way for steroids? And, in baseball and in life, where do we draw the line between advancement and cheating?

In the years after Barry Bonds was crowned home run king, baseball's steroid problem became too big to ignore. Fans began to look for someone to blame, a villain—but truth and accountability remained elusive.

In 2005, Congress forced star athletes and baseball leadership to finally confront their steroid problem on national television and answer questions on Capitol Hill. There were a lot of things the government got right that day, but some very important things it got wrong.

Baseball still feels the aftershocks of the steroid era. Has it recovered, or has it just forgotten and moved on? And what happens when a sport that's built on nostalgia ignores its own history?

More than 100 years after banning pitchers from using foreign substances on balls, MLB is finally enforcing that rule in an effort to resurrect lagging offense. But is the league cracking down on the right culprit? In this bonus mini-episode, Joan explores the physics of ball doctoring and asks what baseball’s current scandal can tell us about the evolution of the game.

Joan Niesen talks with Tim Rohan, host of False Idol, the latest narrative podcast from Religion of Sports and PRX. The new series re-examines the story of Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic sprinter who killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day 2013. False Idol launches with two episodes in this feed on August 26th.

False Idol re-examines the rise and fall of Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic sprinter who murdered his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Journalist Tim Rohan traces Pistorius’ path to infamy, deconstructs his heroic image, and remembers the life of Steenkamp, as he tries to understand how a tragedy like her death could have happened. Launching August 26th, 2021.

In the early 2000s, the Paralympics were headlined by star sprinters Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, when suddenly a new challenger emerged –– a teenager from South Africa named Oscar Pistorius. He immediately began dominating the sport, winning medals, setting records, and signing endorsement deals. But Shirley and Frasure had questions about how this newcomer was winning all these races.

Pistorius was so dominant, he set his sights on a new goal: running against able-bodied athletes at the Olympic Games. Now he faced more questions, more scrutiny. Scientists wondered if the races would be fair, and Pistorius struggled to qualify. But he was buoyed by the support of his home country, South Africa, where he was considered a hero.

As Pistorius rose to fame, the media began learning more about him, and some of the details seemed … troubling. He drove at excessive speeds. He had an obsession with guns. He crashed a boat into a jetty. And the details of his private life were worse. In hindsight, it’s easier to see the warning signs we missed, or chose to overlook, along the way.

In this episode, we remember the life of Reeva Steenkamp. She was an activist, a mentor, an aspiring lawyer, and a model whose career was about to take off. Her future was looking bright, when she met Pistorius in the Fall of 2012. Then three months later, he shot her dead in his home.

Pistorius was arrested and charged with murder, and prosecutors Gerrie Nel and Andrea Johnson took the case. Nel and Johnson reviewed the crime scene, the evidence, the witness testimony, and were of the opinion that Pistorius killed Reeva on purpose. They viewed this as a case of gender-based violence, in a country where such crimes are sadly common.

During his murder trial, Pistorius claimed he’d mistaken Reeva for an intruder, when he shot her in his home. He listed instances where he’d been the victim of crime. But for many South Africans, there was a coded message in Pistorius’ words –– the fear of black people invading white people’s homes. They even have a term for this fear: Swart Gevaar.

Would Pistorius be convicted of murder? Finally, Judge Thokozile Masipa delivered her verdict, and it drew a visceral reaction from across South Africa. Afterward, how would the Steenkamp family, the prosecution team, and the Paralympic community move on?

Joan Niesen, the host of Crushed, is back with a bonus episode exploring baseball’s latest steroid controversy. Find the entire seven-part series in season one of this feed. Today, on the rare occasion that a pro baseball player tests positive for anabolic steroids, it’s widely assumed that he’s a cheater and few people ever pause to consider that there might be more to the story. But, is there? What if testing has gotten too good, and MLB policy has gotten too rigid? And what if innocent players are seeing their careers derailed as a result?

When the Yankees lost the ALCS to the Astros this week, Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez turned an old insult back on the Yankees and their fans. "I have one question for all of New York: New York, who’s your daddy now?" he said. The former Red Sox ace was calling back to the 2004 ALCS when Yankees fans mercilessly chanted that phrase at him. This week, we share an exclusive interview from In the Moment with David Greene. Martínez talks to Greene about that historic season and how he was able to draw fuel from the Yankees taunts. “Little did they know that chanting ‘Pedro, Pedro’ worked to my advantage,” he said. Martínez also reveals how he would pitch against current sluggers like Aaron Judge, and insists that his era of pitching was the toughest ever. Subscribe for free to In the Moment with David Greene to hear the full episode.