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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Mike Pesca opines on the benching of Eli Manning and the subsequent firing of Giants Coach Ben McAdoo.
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Commentator Mike Pesca talks about the strategy behind some pro sports franchises that go through "rebuilding" seasons of frequent losing, and the pitfalls for fans.
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Commentator Mike Pesca talks about President Trump's attack on NFL players who kneel during the national anthem and his claim about the NFL rapidly losing viewers.
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is looking to his career after politics. Commentator Mike Pesca has his take on Christie's turn as a sports radio host.
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Commentator Mike Pesca has some advice about how to watch the Final Four of the NBA playoffs. Here's a hint: don't watch the ball.
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Mike Pesca, host of The Gist podcast, says James Harden of the Houston Rockets should get basketball's MVP trophy this year.
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The Seattle Seahawks have won their first Super Bowl. They beat the Denver Broncos 43-8 Sunday night at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
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Ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl XLVIII, NPR's Mike Pesca dams up the river of hype to create a cool lagoon of Super Bowl reason.
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Endorsement deals can offer retired players millions beyond their sports or TV contracts. In return for these millions, these former Hall of Famers plug the product they're endorsing. But some take the endorsements to an extreme, sprinkling brand names into conversations that have nothing to do with those products.
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This Sunday's Super Bowl features the team with the No. 1 defense — the Seattle Seahawks — against the team with the No. 1 offense, the Denver Broncos. That is surprisingly rare, and has happened just a few times in the 48 Super Bowls to date.