Mike Pesca

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Around the Nation
4:39 am
Mon November 12, 2012

Superstorm Sandy Didn't Sack High School Football Team

Originally published on Mon November 12, 2012 5:43 am

The city of Long Beach, on Long Island's Nassau County was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, with entire neighborhoods ravaged by floods and wind. It seemed unlikely that the high school's football team would get to finish its season. But the Long Beach Marines saw action over the weekend.

Remembrances
3:46 pm
Wed October 10, 2012

Football Player-Turned-Actor Alex Karras Dies

Originally published on Wed October 10, 2012 5:57 pm

Alex Karras played defense for the Detroit Lions in the 1960s. He turned to acting when he retired his cleats, landing a number of character roles in television and film. He was 77.

Sports
3:45 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

NFL Starts Regular Season Without Its Regular Refs

Originally published on Wed September 5, 2012 4:56 pm

The NFL starts its regular season tonight with replacement referees. A labor dispute has sidelined the regular refs. Some players and fans say the game is suffering.

Law
3:41 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Judge Rules Poker Is A Game Of Luck, Not Skill

Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 6:59 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Is poker a game of luck or skill? As a legal matter, courts have largely tried to avoid answering that question. That is, until now. A federal judge in Brooklyn has overturned the conviction of a man who operated a back room poker game.

And, as NPR's Mike Pesca reports, the ruling could have far-reaching consequences.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Poker is a game of skill. Poker is a game of skill. That's what professional poker player Sammy Farha must have been saying in this hand against Chris Moneymaker.

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Sports
3:29 pm
Sun August 12, 2012

Hard Lessons At the Olympics, Like The Metric System

Credit Anja Niedringhaus / AP
Turkey's Nevin Yanit (from left) United States' Kellie Wells and Russia's Tatyana Dektyareva compete in a women's 100-meter hurdles semifinal. Exactly how many yards is that?

Originally published on Sun August 12, 2012 3:59 pm

Olympic winners like gold medalist Claressa Shields have said the games were a learning experience, but what were they learning? Hard work? Sure. Sportsmanship? Maybe. The metric system? Certainly not.

U.S. judo competitor Kyle Vashkulat competes at 100 kg, which he knows means he weighs 220 lbs. But does he know height?

"We were in a sauna, and the guy's telling us the height of the boxers, and he's like, 'Yeah, this guy's like, 1.7 meters' — and we're like, 'How tall is that?'" Vashkulat says, laughing.

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Credit David Banks

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.