February 2025

Celebrating Three Decades

We almost never do this. Or at least we haven’t in years. On the final day of May 2025, about 25 attendees helped us celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sport Literate at Chicago’s Midwest Coast Brewing in Chicago. With our home base now in the middle of Michigan, it was a bit of a homecoming for me, too.

Three new contributors, Lora Keller (left), Nancy Luana (in yellow), and Justin Staley turned out. That’s tall Nick Reading, SL editor, in back. Orange-clad Joellen Lewsader is married to me (the ruggedly balding man in the middle).

New friends, old friends, and seemingly all of us aging a bit, raised a few glasses for this small press’ long run while many kept an eye on the Indiana Pacers beating the New York Knicks in game six of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals.

It was wonderful to meet three of our newest contributors… Lora Keller, Nancy Luana, and Justin Staley, all of whom offer work that you can read in our new Table of Contents. Nancy, God bless her, traveled all the way from Georgia for the party. Her first visit to the Windy City even resulted in a travel story with all the planes, Ubers, and El trains. Read it here. Along with a love for baseball, she and I surely share a sense of direction.

Columbia Reunion: Michael Burke (left), William Meiners, and Mark Wukas talked some old-school story workshop.

It was also great to see Chicago friends Rus Bradburd, Michael Burke, and Mark Wukas. All of them SL vets in their own right and terrific writers. Kathleen Cook, my niece and a Chicago teacher now for more than 20 years, could have another career as a party planner. And Mick Meiners gave up good seats at the Pacers game for the Chicago trip.

Thanks to all who made it out and sent well wishes on the 30-year run.

Rus Bradburd (left), Mick Meiners, and Kathleen Guth share the gift of gab.

William Meiners
Sport Literate, Founding Editor

F Trump

Call it our own project 2025. Satire, by most any definition, holds up a mirror to society for the purpose of throwing eggs (overpriced, diseased, and otherwise) at those who deserve a good egging. Since our politics have become the new bloodsport, we at Sport Literate see nothing wrong with a little mockery of the clumsy oligarchy. Remember, it’s satire. Please don’t sue, shoot, or lose your shit over it.

“F Troop” was, according to Wikipedia, “an American television Western sitcom about U.S. soldiers and American Indians in the Wild West during the 1860s.” That whacky premise could have paved the way for a sitcom in a German P.O.W. camp, starring Bob Crane, a wisecracking sex addict. “F Trump,” for us, could mean many things, including the grade we’d give for the now two-time president.

Some of us have grown old in the Trump Era — now about a decade and counting. As exhausting as the news can be, we will not turn an Oath Keeper’s blind eye to the maniacal rule that threatens to send us back decades. When they’re citing President Andrew Jackson as the gold standard, we could all be effed.

It might be easier to poke fun at the absurdity reflecting back at us from a funhouse mirror. Certainly the late-night comedians often tell variations on the same joke. But we’re taking our own swing at it. If only for historical purposes and the possibilities of a child years down the road asking his mother, “What did Grandma and Grandpa do to resist Trump 2.0?”

In our first multimedia installment, we offer “Mourning in America,” a parody of the Ronald Reagan 1984 re-election commercial. Check it out here. Special thanks to Edward J. Dunn, from Dunn Productions, for his videomaking handiwork.

More Satire

• Check out Ben Giamo’s poem, “Greeting Card.”
• Mark Pearson ofers a takedown in script form with “White House Crackdown Round 1.”
• It need not be an anti-authoritarian rant. Check out this preview of Rus Bradburd’s book Big Time, which explores the increasing absurdity of college sports.
• And Robert Atwan, our first satirist, has two sardonic pieces here.