Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
Speaker 1: our one and only super producer, the Man, the myth,
Speaker 1: the legend. You know him, you know him, super producer
Speaker 1: Max Williams. They called me, Yeah, well, yeah, you're an
Speaker 1: old and I love Max too. You know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get more in touch with my feelings, right, uh so,
Speaker 1: nol um, You and I are fans of many, many things.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, man, but were you
Speaker 1: lucky enough to go to the Olympics when they were
Speaker 1: held in Atlanta back in nineties six or so? I
Speaker 1: did not, but I remember the weird little mascot that
Speaker 1: probably cost a gazillion dollars. What is it is? He?
Speaker 1: He was just sort of a thing, like it was
Speaker 1: a non what was it? This is that thing on
Speaker 1: Mr Show Pit Pat. He's like a non gendered kind
Speaker 1: of pan sexual spokes thing. I think that is kind
Speaker 1: of what izz he was was supposed to be, Like
Speaker 1: what is it? What is it? Okay? Cool? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to know what it was. It was supposed
Speaker 1: to be like draw you in to it, and then
Speaker 1: you were spy trying to figure out what it was. Well,
Speaker 1: and and there, and the collectible pins proliferate our thrift
Speaker 1: shops here in the Atlanta area to this day. So yeah, man,
Speaker 1: history is weird. That's kind of the point of our show.
Speaker 1: So we were thinking about the Olympics for a while,
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. We had them on our minds, and
Speaker 1: not just randomly for good reason. You see, we are
Speaker 1: diving into a little owned story about the Olympics all
Speaker 1: the way back in nineteen eighty and we're not doing
Speaker 1: it alone, that's correct. We are joined with the creators
Speaker 1: and the host and the producer of Eclipse, which is
Speaker 1: a weekly narrative history podcast from our good friends at
Speaker 1: camp Side Media. Please welcome to the show, Stephen and
Speaker 1: Lane gerbick Oh, thank you for having us. Great to
Speaker 1: be here. This is exciting. Yeah, we definitely have done
Speaker 1: plenty of Olympic episodes. There's, of course, the Olympics that
Speaker 1: were famously in Berlin under the Nazi regime and Emily
Speaker 1: Jesse Owens one to Hitler's chagrin in the triathlon, and
Speaker 1: that's the one that always sticks in my mind. But this,
Speaker 1: you know, so the Olympics have always served as kind
Speaker 1: of like a political bargaining chip in some respect, and
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna jump into another story with that
Speaker 1: same kind of flavor today. Yeah, for sure. So when
Speaker 1: we talk about the Olympics in nineteen eighty, there are
Speaker 1: some folks in the audience who may remember them, may
Speaker 1: have firsthand experience of reading, you know, the contemporaneous press
Speaker 1: and so and so forth. But I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people in two just know off the top
Speaker 1: of their heads that the US actually boycott at the
Speaker 1: Olympic Games. I didn't know until we started chatting together.
Speaker 1: Could you tell us a little bit about how that
Speaker 1: came to be? Yeah, of course, But no, that's a
Speaker 1: great question. I think. Um, it has to do with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, which you know,
Speaker 1: you might recognize those names. Jimmy Carter is the president
Speaker 1: of the US in and in nineteen seventy nine, I
Speaker 1: believe the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and installed a new dictator,
Speaker 1: so they like did a coup, Mr Carter. You know,
Speaker 1: there's the highly Cold War. He wasn't very happy that
Speaker 1: the Soviets had done that, and the Olympics is coming
Speaker 1: up in nineteen eighties, so he was like and it
Speaker 1: was set to be Moscow, so he was just like, well,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna go because unless you fix this, unless
Speaker 1: you leave Afghanistan. And Sounian was like no. So Carter
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, everybody who's aligned with the US, don't
Speaker 1: go to the Olympics. And it ended up being sixty
Speaker 1: five countries that were just like, nah, we're not going.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing something similar right now with Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and a lot of like you know, national
Speaker 1: kind of sports organizations not allowing Russian participants and also
Speaker 1: obviously not sending anyone to any sort of things that
Speaker 1: are based in Russia. Yeah, it's like it's unfortunately timely
Speaker 1: because you know, so I think I feel like we
Speaker 1: like I please correct me if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 1: feel like we we do stories that like are overlooked
Speaker 1: for a reason, like not for a reason, but they're
Speaker 1: overlooked because like they're not always that resonant in history,
Speaker 1: Like it's not they don't feel current all the time.
Speaker 1: And this is it's distressing that this one feels extremely current. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think we were in Puerto Rico on the
Speaker 1: ground doing reporting and there was like this big Russian
Speaker 1: flag and it just was it just hit us in
Speaker 1: that moment. We were like time, time is circular, like
Speaker 1: history definitely repeats itself, doesn't repeat itself, but it does. Rhyme.
Speaker 1: I think somebody somebody said that somebody smart to Nighted Lucas.
Speaker 1: I know that's something else, but it's probably but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean like the the Winner Games, Um, I
Speaker 1: guess I was last year, right, they did the makeup
Speaker 1: winner Olympic anyway, but um, Russia couldn't compete because they
Speaker 1: invaded Ukraine and it was like r OC was what
Speaker 1: they were competing under. Actually it was because they were
Speaker 1: aggressing at Ukra. I don't think they invaded quite then,
Speaker 1: but it was. Yeah, so jump in real quickly. The
Speaker 1: reason why Russia was competing under r OC was they
Speaker 1: had been caught breaking into drug testing facilities at at
Speaker 1: the IOC and changing out the samples. But Putin purposely
Speaker 1: waited for the Olympics to end, like it was like
Speaker 1: the week afterwards to invade you cranks. He knew he
Speaker 1: would get probably like either get Hina in trouble or
Speaker 1: something of that, and he actually did the same thing
Speaker 1: when he invade Chromeia. That's interesting because he was that
Speaker 1: they were definitely like making aggressive overtures at Ukraine beforehand.
Speaker 1: But all right, well that's history. Well I don't think
Speaker 1: we're too early in the show for it. Max hit
Speaker 1: us with that sounds cute enough just for you right
Speaker 1: now there it is. I guarantee like this will sound
Speaker 1: this will make sense in the edit. But one thing
Speaker 1: that really stands out to me, just before we dive
Speaker 1: into this story, because there is a twist, we've set
Speaker 1: up the context, but before we get to the twist,
Speaker 1: I want to zoom out just a little bit and
Speaker 1: hear more about eclipsed because Eclipse is taking an approach
Speaker 1: that I personally quite enjoy, which is saying, let's look
Speaker 1: at history. Let's look at not just historical events that
Speaker 1: maybe could bear further examination, but let's look at them
Speaker 1: in a new perspective, right from a fresh informed I
Speaker 1: and could you tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 1: inspiration that led you to create Eclipse and then lead
Speaker 1: you to do your other work as well. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: of course, I'm right now. I'm particularly thinking of the
Speaker 1: Charming Killer episode from May three, which was true crime
Speaker 1: author Sarah Wineman. Yeah, well I can tell you about
Speaker 1: the genesis of Eclipse, and I think line can give
Speaker 1: you more insight on why we choose the things we do. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the gene it was funny because, like I
Speaker 1: they I case, I was like, hey, do you want
Speaker 1: to host the show? And I was like, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: What's it about? And they told me like a concept
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, this makes sense, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to change it with the other executive producer, Michael
Speaker 1: Kenyon Meyer, who is not here today because he writes
Speaker 1: the show trust to Mike. But basically we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we want to do something that's that's going to be
Speaker 1: interesting that we're actually interested in making, and so we
Speaker 1: sort of scrapped the original concept. The thing we kept
Speaker 1: was this is a show about stories you never knew
Speaker 1: you never knew, so we sort of went from there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think like history has such uh just there's so
Speaker 1: much to dig into. If we're talking I p there's
Speaker 1: tons of it, right, Like, there's tons of content to
Speaker 1: pull from, and we picked stories that we want to
Speaker 1: know more about, and normally we're searching the web, we're
Speaker 1: we're seeing what strikes our fancy and the story about
Speaker 1: this particular Olympics, and the stories that we choose tend
Speaker 1: to hook us. So you brought up the this charming
Speaker 1: killer story with Sarah Wineman. She was just an author
Speaker 1: that I admired and we reached out to her and
Speaker 1: we saw that she had a book coming up, and
Speaker 1: I was like, true crime is popular for a reason
Speaker 1: because it's it's it's you know, fascinating. So we're very
Speaker 1: lucky in that we get to just follow our noses
Speaker 1: and make stories out of the stuff that we find.
Speaker 1: And that's just the benefit of having a weekly show.
Speaker 1: As you guys probably understand, a few lots of episodes,
Speaker 1: you can talk about lots of stuff. Well, I think
Speaker 1: de Ben's point do that unique perspective tends to be
Speaker 1: more of an individualized perspective of you know, people on
Speaker 1: the ground and stories that kind of get interwoven with
Speaker 1: much larger political events that are beyond the control of
Speaker 1: an individual. But when you see it through the perspective
Speaker 1: of that person, I think it makes it a little
Speaker 1: more easy to kind of identify with the larger historical context. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're very much journalists in that sense, Like we we
Speaker 1: go and find subjects people who live through this stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I think one of my favorites, UM was are
Speaker 1: we did a story about a lake that disappeared in
Speaker 1: Louisiana and we talked to a guy who like watched
Speaker 1: it happen, and you know, there was a happy ending
Speaker 1: and whatnot and uh, which maybe that's a spoiler. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It happened like two years ago. But we
Speaker 1: talked to like the guy who has who saw it happened,
Speaker 1: and then the author who like in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 1: like flew down there and wrote about it for a
Speaker 1: magazine and that piece, you know, like only exists basically
Speaker 1: the print copies that were made, like it's not nowhere
Speaker 1: on one OPEC. Really fascinating to talk to these people
Speaker 1: who lived through this event kind of in two different timelines.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's so that's that's I guess that's
Speaker 1: sort of our approach. And I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: like we do get to follow our nos as we um.
Speaker 1: I went to a museum like last Thanksgiving, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's an exhibit about these two dogs,
Speaker 1: why are they in there? And that's an episode that's
Speaker 1: coming out soon, the two most famous dogs in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I got to do a whole story about hand farts
Speaker 1: and the history of hand farts. We did a Hot
Speaker 1: BEV series because we were like Hot Beverages. We kept
Speaker 1: coming back to it because we like we were like, okay,
Speaker 1: clearly we gotta have something better, but like we kept
Speaker 1: we just kept coming back. But it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is actually kind of good, like maybe we can
Speaker 1: do this. And now it's you can listen to it
Speaker 1: on your podcast. It's three episodes on your favorite hops.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I feel like Hot Beverages are sort of
Speaker 1: like falling out of fashion a little bit. Or maybe
Speaker 1: I don't. I gotta hear the episode. But it seems
Speaker 1: like everything's ice to these days, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know true gotta have boba, you know. I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's fascinating point because it tells us that there
Speaker 1: is so much history behind everything, even if you think
Speaker 1: of it as something as innocuous as that little you know,
Speaker 1: that little plastic, three pronged thing that goes in the
Speaker 1: center of pizza like that. I'm sure that yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: pizza table, thank you. I'm sure that thing has like
Speaker 1: some story. And there's some inventors somewhere who is kind
Speaker 1: of low key famous in the field of pizza delivery.
Speaker 1: I could have sworn I saw a life hack of
Speaker 1: what that thing is. Actually, it keeps the pizza from
Speaker 1: getting crushed, right, like that's GE's gotta It keeps the box,
Speaker 1: gives the box something to do with. But but surely
Speaker 1: it has a secondary use, right, And it's a little yeah,
Speaker 1: you're tiny figurines. You can put a football on it maybe? Yeah. See.
Speaker 1: I like where I like the way we're all thinking. Right,
Speaker 1: this is almost like one of those weird tech startup
Speaker 1: interview questions what could you do with the little pizza day?
Speaker 1: But the reason um at least I personally wanted to
Speaker 1: ask about process is primarily because I see the explorations
Speaker 1: go deep every time and go in so many different directions.
Speaker 1: So the nineteen eighty Olympics, I I'm gonna be honest,
Speaker 1: I'll be absolutely candid. I vaguely thought I think Carter
Speaker 1: was president then, but I didn't know. I wasn't around,
Speaker 1: And then to hear that the US boycotted those Olympics,
Speaker 1: And as you said, like, um, what sixty five countries?
Speaker 1: That that seems like a story that would have already
Speaker 1: been bigger news than than I had assumed in two.
Speaker 1: But that's not the twist because our stute listeners are
Speaker 1: gonna are gonna notice that you had earlier said, Lane,
Speaker 1: we were in Puerto Rico getting taped. So one of
Speaker 1: the first questions they would have, right, I hope apologies
Speaker 1: listeners if I'm assuming too much, but I would hope
Speaker 1: one of the questions would be like, why are we
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico? Right? The sound there it is, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's going on on the ground? Well, Benn and Nolf
Speaker 1: and Max producer, Max, have I got a story for you? Um,
Speaker 1: the big So what if I told you, you know
Speaker 1: that there was a boycott, you know, sixty five countries
Speaker 1: boycotted the nine Olympics held in Moscow, and you know
Speaker 1: the US was in charge of the boycott. What if
Speaker 1: I told you American citizen went to that Olympics and competed, right,
Speaker 1: blow you in mind? Yeah, that's another I don't know
Speaker 1: if we do the law and order drop or if
Speaker 1: we do the Scooby Doo, sound like we gotta do
Speaker 1: the like recreated law and order. Drop. We don't have
Speaker 1: the right. Yeah, we can't get we don't have the
Speaker 1: rights to it. I trust your test I trust it's
Speaker 1: going to come through the edit. Um. But no, this
Speaker 1: is true story. This is a true story, um. And
Speaker 1: it's basically it's the The athletes were three boxers from
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico. They're a boxing team and they went to
Speaker 1: the Olympics because they qualified, and they were like it
Speaker 1: was interesting because they didn't think they were doing anything political,
Speaker 1: Like they saw themselves as not political and just athletes.
Speaker 1: And there was a whole thing about this. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Lane and I went down to Puerto Rico with our
Speaker 1: translator Alan, and we got the story. So this like
Speaker 1: when you're we should mention, I believe you were you
Speaker 1: all making this during the pandemic, like during the height
Speaker 1: of it, as an and we went at pandemic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we went, um in March recently, back when the pandemic
Speaker 1: had its fresh car smell, right and everybody, So what
Speaker 1: was when you were traveling? How did you how did
Speaker 1: you find these boxers the internet? Um? I think originally
Speaker 1: I like contact find or find the story. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm interested, not to be too Jodie Foster about it,
Speaker 1: but I'm interested in the contact aspect. I think, uh, Basion,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. I think our producer Joe
Speaker 1: just like went really far into the Internet because, like
Speaker 1: I mean, these gentlemen don't really have huge social media presences.
Speaker 1: So we have like a document with a bunch of
Speaker 1: links that are like this could be his nephew, or
Speaker 1: I think this is a different like Luise, but maybe
Speaker 1: we should check it out. And I think it just
Speaker 1: proved really fruitful, and we got our translator slash stringer
Speaker 1: Alan to reach out and he became one of the
Speaker 1: boys by the end of the trip because he was
Speaker 1: just like cracking a beer with with our with our
Speaker 1: subjects and yeah, shooting the ship. The beer that in
Speaker 1: fact was was named for their their like athletic exploits.
Speaker 1: So the beer is called Media if you've heard of it, um,
Speaker 1: And it was for these three boxers because they like
Speaker 1: they were incredible boxers and they meddled at the Pan
Speaker 1: American Games in which qualified them for the Olympics. So
Speaker 1: the beer is called Media and it's still around and
Speaker 1: you can drink it. It's actually delicious, pretty nice, lightly
Speaker 1: drink so much of it. Yeah, it's fantastic. I found
Speaker 1: a place in Brooklyn then has it just like a
Speaker 1: random bar. It's pretty good, man. The story is actually
Speaker 1: is it's very interesting. It's not just that there were
Speaker 1: like US citizens going to the Olympics or that they
Speaker 1: were breaking the boycott, because obviously it's both of those things,
Speaker 1: but it's we realized in the course of telling the story,
Speaker 1: it's like it's actually more of a story about international
Speaker 1: politics and Puerto Rican sovereignty and like what it means
Speaker 1: to be, like what it means to compete as a
Speaker 1: nation kind of because Puerto Rico wasn't even an American
Speaker 1: you know, territory or whatever it is until nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: I want to say, yeah, something like that. I think
Speaker 1: I believe it had to do with some there was
Speaker 1: a war and it was a spoil of war if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. But yeah, despite that history, and you
Speaker 1: know it was it was you know, colony the US
Speaker 1: for a while, or it was there was a more
Speaker 1: colonial relationship, I should say. In any case, Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: has also been competing as itself on the international stage
Speaker 1: since night, like since the Olympics, which happened immediately after
Speaker 1: World War Two, but like it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where it's kind of a quirk of history because
Speaker 1: the reason port even gets to do that is because
Speaker 1: of one like intrepid guy at the International Olympics Committee
Speaker 1: who was like, hey, it'll be told The US government
Speaker 1: was like, hey, it'll be seen as a really like
Speaker 1: gracious thing for you to do. You just fought against imperialism.
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this at home? You should let
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico compete is itself, because they really wanted to,
Speaker 1: and that's like how that started. So Puerto Rico has
Speaker 1: its own Olympic committee and it's own Olympic team, and
Speaker 1: it's an Olympic funding which is you know, part of
Speaker 1: the reason why them deciding to defind the boycott was
Speaker 1: so dramatic. So it wasn't like they didn't get the memo.
Speaker 1: It was an active choice based on presidences. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing was like the governor of the island of
Speaker 1: the time. Uh, this guy named Carlos Fromier Barcelo was
Speaker 1: not happy. He was he because like the the other
Speaker 1: thing is like this is all I'm sorry this is
Speaker 1: this is I hope this is interesting, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: infod up first. Perfect. But the whole thing was like
Speaker 1: they're they're like three schools, three main schools. I thought
Speaker 1: there are any more, obviously, but three main schools of
Speaker 1: political thought in Puerto Rico. And it's basically has to
Speaker 1: do with a relationship with the US. So there are
Speaker 1: people who wanted to be a state. There are people
Speaker 1: who wanted to remain a territory. There are people who
Speaker 1: wanted to be its own nation, like its own island nation.
Speaker 1: And obviously, like the stuff gets sort of worked out
Speaker 1: in political referendums here and there. But at the time,
Speaker 1: the guy Barcelo was a pro US statehood guy. So
Speaker 1: these boxers were like, Okay, we we want to go
Speaker 1: to our Olympics because we're boxers, which means we don't
Speaker 1: we only get one shot because otherwise because you want
Speaker 1: to go pro and make money. Hey, but be your
Speaker 1: career isn't that long, you know, even the best boxers,
Speaker 1: it's you just don't last long because you're getting hit
Speaker 1: in the head all the time. And so they were like,
Speaker 1: we want to go to our Olympics. And this was
Speaker 1: a big deal um and so they like sort of
Speaker 1: scrounged up the money to do it, like they it's
Speaker 1: like they did like bootleg kickstarter, just asking people for cash,
Speaker 1: I think. And the basketball team didn't get to go,
Speaker 1: but they were they also qualified for the Olympics. But
Speaker 1: anyway they go and it's just like okay, now we're
Speaker 1: now we're athletes were competing there, but it's it's like
Speaker 1: a really really interesting story about statehood and about nationalism.
Speaker 1: And then there's the aftermath, which we also talked about,
Speaker 1: but I'll leave that to Lane. And it's not like
Speaker 1: America has always done super right by Puerto Rico. That's
Speaker 1: an understanding. Yeah, I mean, I know, I'm sorry I'm
Speaker 1: being diplomatic here because we're talking about diplomacy, but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't see this necessarily as an outright
Speaker 1: act of protest because it was based on precedent. But
Speaker 1: do you think there was an element of protest in
Speaker 1: this as well that even flew in the face of
Speaker 1: some of the people in power within Puerto Rico, as
Speaker 1: you say, who had a political end of their own.
Speaker 1: I think it's for sure, and act, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think our boxers would argue that it wasn't. But when
Speaker 1: we talked to them, they were mad at the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government and they still are in some ways because this
Speaker 1: was their shot, this was their chance, and they were
Speaker 1: met the U. S. Government and these political relations were
Speaker 1: meddling so much that it's impacting their personal lives and
Speaker 1: their dreams and their hopes. So I think, yeah, the
Speaker 1: mere act of going it has to be a political act,
Speaker 1: even if you say it's not. Yeah, I agree with that, um,
Speaker 1: And I think it's I think notably, you can say, like,
Speaker 1: even if they don't believe it, you can say that
Speaker 1: it was because a lot of people in the island
Speaker 1: still remember them and like remember like what they did, uh,
Speaker 1: And they mostly remember the Pan American Games where they
Speaker 1: did really well, but like people still remember the nineteen Olympics,
Speaker 1: like older people like this one guy we spoke to
Speaker 1: a namation. I almost like, hell, yeah, we're so proud
Speaker 1: of this guy. You know. Can we introduce our our
Speaker 1: heroes here? Um, just a little bit of background and
Speaker 1: names at the very least, and who these guys were. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we three boxers. First, we got Alberto de Mercado,
Speaker 1: who is our team captain in some ways. He's leading
Speaker 1: the charge. He's the most bold and brash of the three.
Speaker 1: And he has a museum that we visited, his home museum.
Speaker 1: He lives above it below It is this like it's
Speaker 1: this super packed museum with like newspaper clippings and awards
Speaker 1: and like just memorabilia from his you know what is
Speaker 1: it beon like forty forty years ago the Olympics happened,
Speaker 1: but also professional career too. It's kind of a shrine.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's I mean college a museum or is trining,
Speaker 1: But that's sort of in some ways, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a dream job, right, I live above my museum. It's
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's kind of It's definitely interesting
Speaker 1: because the museum him was a gift from the Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican government, which is complicated because that only happened like
Speaker 1: two years ago, oh yeah before. Yeah, so there's like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of feelings. They have a lot of
Speaker 1: feelings about their own government too. But our second boxer
Speaker 1: is Jose Molina, who was like he was a light heavyweight.
Speaker 1: I think Mercado was like a flyweight something like that,
Speaker 1: and Mollina was the heaviest light heavyweight great boxer. But
Speaker 1: he he you know, he lives like with his family. Like,
Speaker 1: so one thing to understand is like they half of
Speaker 1: the stories about how they had to like live afterward,
Speaker 1: after like going to the Olympics and making this big
Speaker 1: name for themselves. And the third boxer is Luis Pizzaro,
Speaker 1: who was the youngest. He was like he was he
Speaker 1: must have been like eighteen or something. He was like
Speaker 1: sixteen at the time. He was super he was a teenager.
Speaker 1: He like, yeah, I was worried about going to prom
Speaker 1: at that age, he's worrying about competing in the Olympics
Speaker 1: kind of thing. A real phenomen I mean, like like
Speaker 1: the high hopes hi hopes for this kid. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and the geopolitical ramifications of being of being in the Olympics.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's a trip for sure. I love
Speaker 1: you point out that a great deal of the story
Speaker 1: is about the aftermath, which we've alluded to just just
Speaker 1: a bit here. The question then becomes, like, as you said,
Speaker 1: I would agree that on some level, all acts are
Speaker 1: inherently political acts, depending on the perspective when wants the
Speaker 1: place them in. But with this, what I'm hearing is
Speaker 1: these three guys who are scrappy, right, and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're not We're not giving up our chants because we're
Speaker 1: well aware of how short of boxing career can be.
Speaker 1: They say, okay, we hear you one of the world's
Speaker 1: most dangerous superpowers, but we're going and then we're coming back.
Speaker 1: Were there like attempts at consequences or was know Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter's got that stereotype of being kind of a milk dose,
Speaker 1: but did he was going to ask? A boycott isn't
Speaker 1: inherently litigious. I mean it's more of like a symbolic act, right,
Speaker 1: like is there is they're built in are they're built
Speaker 1: in consequences for defying a quote unquote boycott. It's not
Speaker 1: the same as like an embargo. I mean it's more
Speaker 1: of like a an agreement that you can make verbally
Speaker 1: and everyone just like we're patriotic, so obviously we're not
Speaker 1: gonna do it, sort of like crossing a picket line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was like it was a soft power move,
Speaker 1: like there's no they're not getting arrested when they get
Speaker 1: off the plane when they come back, but like their countrymen,
Speaker 1: like a lot was at stake for them to go
Speaker 1: to Russia because of the relationship with the US just
Speaker 1: like you know, like you said, like unwritten these like
Speaker 1: these unwritten laws that you're breaking because the US government
Speaker 1: is providing them federal resources like Medicare, Medicaid. Like if
Speaker 1: they go and they harm this relationship, then their neighbors
Speaker 1: and their families might not have access to the the
Speaker 1: resources that they need. So that was kind of the
Speaker 1: pushback that they were getting when they were deciding to go,
Speaker 1: and then when they came back. Um, I think there
Speaker 1: were different camps about whether or not it was worth it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that there was like a real, real implicit threat
Speaker 1: they were getting. They were getting threats to like their
Speaker 1: um the government perto Rican government was like pressuring Mercado's
Speaker 1: parents for example, and his parents were like, you can
Speaker 1: go again in four years. Just wait. Um there was
Speaker 1: at least one bomb threat. I think we we heard
Speaker 1: from them. Um Marcado lost his job and I think
Speaker 1: Molina's job was threatened to because they're not professional boxers
Speaker 1: at this time. They're amateurs, right, because the Olympics is
Speaker 1: an amateur It's like the Olympics is an amateur competition specifically,
Speaker 1: and so if you go pro, you can't compete the Olympics.
Speaker 1: But it's this was also like I think, I think
Speaker 1: the few years, the four years before I want to
Speaker 1: say seventy six was um like I think it was
Speaker 1: one of the It was televised, and like, these boxers
Speaker 1: were boxing in front of a huge international audience, and
Speaker 1: so when they went pro after the Olympics, they got
Speaker 1: huge big are much bigger paid it. So there's like
Speaker 1: a real financial incentive to compete in the Olympics as
Speaker 1: a boxer because you can demand bigger purses and better fights.
Speaker 1: So like and I mean, like maybe unlike other sports
Speaker 1: like football for example, I mean that really is the
Speaker 1: door opener for a professional career, is being a on
Speaker 1: the on the Olympic team. But like film festivals for example,
Speaker 1: they are qualifying events, Like in order to be considered
Speaker 1: for the oscar as, you have to win or compete
Speaker 1: within like some other accepted you know, film festival. That's
Speaker 1: the case here as well. Can you talk about the
Speaker 1: games that led to their qualification for the Olympics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the main ones were probably the Pan American Games in
Speaker 1: seventy nine, which happens on a four year cycle. It's
Speaker 1: a it follows the Olympic charter. It's the same sort
Speaker 1: of event. And I believe I think two of them
Speaker 1: won goal. They got a bunch of medals. They came
Speaker 1: back with a couple of goals, seven medals total, couple golds,
Speaker 1: some silver's and appreciate something like that better than I've done,
Speaker 1: right and name uh and it's it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a big deal. It's the same, it's the same
Speaker 1: sort of but it's like it's it's region it's a
Speaker 1: more regional games. Um, the US does actually compete in
Speaker 1: the Pan American Games, so these I think one of
Speaker 1: the subtexts is that these boxers were competing against like
Speaker 1: other American citizens in the games for like a spot
Speaker 1: on the podium, and all of those people who competed
Speaker 1: for the US, like the basketball team and the boxing
Speaker 1: team or whatever, they didn't get to go to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a there's a really poign in
Speaker 1: ESPN article about it from like the early two thousands
Speaker 1: that like talks to those people, those boxers, and then
Speaker 1: they're really like upset that they didn't get to go
Speaker 1: because like it derailed their careers in a in a sense,
Speaker 1: I mean because you still you know, you go pro
Speaker 1: and things sometimes work out. So there's something that really
Speaker 1: catches me about this story, even just cursory looking into
Speaker 1: it before talking to the experts here on this show.
Speaker 1: And it is exactly what you described, John, the larger
Speaker 1: context for anyone who maybe is listening and is not
Speaker 1: familiar with US Puerto Rican relationships intentions for a very
Speaker 1: very long time, longer than any of the five of
Speaker 1: us in the show today have been alive. There have
Speaker 1: been those three camps, right, and sometimes they fluctuate and strength,
Speaker 1: pushing for statehood, pushing for remaining a territory, or pushing
Speaker 1: for independence. But I've been lucky enough to go to
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico in the in the past, and when people
Speaker 1: are in there, I think, I think folks forget that
Speaker 1: being a territory brings its own kind of inherent baked
Speaker 1: in inequalities. Right. I'm multiple multiple levels, you know. And
Speaker 1: when we hear these boxers say, Okay, I am an athlete,
Speaker 1: I am not a politician. Don't put that on me.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that they held to that that forty
Speaker 1: years on or did you feel that they they had
Speaker 1: a particular position in this regard as they look back
Speaker 1: on the events of I mean, I think I asked
Speaker 1: uh Alberto if he ever considered running for office because
Speaker 1: he was such a public facing figure. He did make
Speaker 1: these big, the big moves um on the international level,
Speaker 1: and he didn't have any interest in that. I think
Speaker 1: they all really wanted to be boxers because this was
Speaker 1: their their things, is their their dream. And the other two,
Speaker 1: I mean, Louise moved to Massachusetts, so he's not in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico anymore. And Molina is perfectly content to you know,
Speaker 1: he worked a job at a shipyard and retired, and
Speaker 1: he helped his brother become a world champion. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say he's political, but I don't think he
Speaker 1: you know, that's not what he wants to be known for.
Speaker 1: I think he wants to be known for being a
Speaker 1: a prideful like a person who did his country proud.
Speaker 1: And his country is not the US, it's Puerto Rico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I believe in the the PanAm Games, the governor
Speaker 1: kind of got a bad rap because he wanted to
Speaker 1: fly the American flag and not the Puerto Rican So
Speaker 1: that's that is a legal thing, like legally you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to fly the Puerto Rican flag by itself. You
Speaker 1: have to fly beside or underneath the American flag. Okay,
Speaker 1: but but still, but if it flew in the yeah,
Speaker 1: he got bood for like twelve minutes, like he couldn't
Speaker 1: give a speech. But this this also flew in the
Speaker 1: face of like, you know, all of that precedent, since
Speaker 1: he tried to pull the stunt, you know, because Puertico
Speaker 1: again computed under its own flag for so long. I
Speaker 1: was just like, why is this guy doing this? Like,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was a pro statehood guy. He
Speaker 1: really wanted he wanted everyone to fall in line. There's
Speaker 1: a phrase that you use, soil o limbico no politico. Um,
Speaker 1: can you kind of explain what that means literally and
Speaker 1: also just how that kind of translates into the trajectory
Speaker 1: of the story. Yeah, it means I'm an olympian, not
Speaker 1: a politician. And that was a sign we saw at
Speaker 1: Alberta Mercado's museum. It was kind of talked away in
Speaker 1: a corner um when we asked him about it. And
Speaker 1: there's this this really interesting story about when they were
Speaker 1: boarding the plane to flee Puerto Rico because they needed
Speaker 1: to train in Mexico before the Olympics because they were
Speaker 1: afraid that if they stayed in Puerto Rico, they weren't
Speaker 1: going to be able to go, like they would be
Speaker 1: not allowed to leave. So they're boarding this plane to
Speaker 1: Mexico and a stranger walks up to Mercado and he
Speaker 1: hands them this sign and it's like the sign itself
Speaker 1: is like kind of like scrawled. It's not like great penmanship,
Speaker 1: and it's just this just random dude just made a
Speaker 1: sign and handed it to him. And then Mercado was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep the sign, and he like would
Speaker 1: flash it to the press and it kind of became
Speaker 1: his motto. We don't know who the guy is. So
Speaker 1: if you're listening and you remember doing that, feel free
Speaker 1: to hit us up. We'd love to talk to you. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and I know we're talking extensively about this, but when
Speaker 1: you check out the way that Eclipse approaches all these stories,
Speaker 1: trust us, you're only here. You're only scratching the surface
Speaker 1: right now, fellow ridiculous historians, and you need to check
Speaker 1: out the show as soon as you can. I mean,
Speaker 1: please do us a favor and listen to the end
Speaker 1: of this episode. You know, but but but do make
Speaker 1: sure that the next podcast you listen to after this
Speaker 1: episode is eclipsed UM. There is one note I wanted
Speaker 1: to add that I wanted to ask you all about
Speaker 1: Jean and Lane, and it's something that stood out to
Speaker 1: me in some of the notes that you all had
Speaker 1: sent us, UM, where you say, you know, looking at
Speaker 1: the way the US had treated Puerto Rico over decades
Speaker 1: and decades, it kind of could make sense to understand
Speaker 1: the perspective of why Boxers would quote unquote defy the president. Right.
Speaker 1: The line that's throughout was I'll say he wasn't going
Speaker 1: to do for Puerto Rico either way, Right, What is
Speaker 1: that perspective? Was there the idea that they would somehow
Speaker 1: be awarded for falling in line or it would be
Speaker 1: Geo politically favorable, or were they just like these people
Speaker 1: don't care about is to begin that's a great question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think it's the latter. I
Speaker 1: think it's just like, yeah, you know, we we can
Speaker 1: do this, but like they don't care anyway, Why would
Speaker 1: they care now kind of thing. I think that was
Speaker 1: sort of the impression. There was the quesion that I
Speaker 1: got at least of how they felt, but it was
Speaker 1: it was very much like, you know these people who
Speaker 1: who are like, like, are these imperialists don't really do
Speaker 1: anything for Puerto Rico except things that are punitive, So
Speaker 1: why should we Why should we listen to them? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Mercado had this quote that we didn't get to work in,
Speaker 1: but I really liked it. Where he was he was saying, Um,
Speaker 1: the government wants the cage but not the animals, So
Speaker 1: they want the land, they want the island, they don't
Speaker 1: want the people on the island. And like being there,
Speaker 1: I could feel that like Hurricane Maria like destroyed the
Speaker 1: island and you can still tell, like the infrastructure is crumbling,
Speaker 1: like their houses still boarded up, like it's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful island, and everyone was so kind to us and
Speaker 1: like welcoming, and I just like, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was really glad we got to talk to people who
Speaker 1: lived there for the story, because I think if not,
Speaker 1: it would have felt wrong. Yeah, wasn't that when Trump
Speaker 1: did the photo of it to where we was just
Speaker 1: like tossing rolls of toilet paper like a chump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was bad optics on so many levels. But then
Speaker 1: when you look at the history of the imperialism and
Speaker 1: all of that and and what you're saying, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it really hits harder, especially if it's there. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine optics from a bad person, I'll say it, I'll
Speaker 1: be the one. But it exemplifies like the relationship to the
Speaker 1: the US has with the It's just that was just
Speaker 1: a literalization of it. It's like we'll throw you some
Speaker 1: ship and then leave and it's like not enough, and
Speaker 1: you need more and you need like sustained help and
Speaker 1: you know you're never going to get it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was again, this is this is part
Speaker 1: of the reason the story is so interesting was because
Speaker 1: that that's to start opening up to us as we
Speaker 1: were down there reporting and as we were putting a
Speaker 1: story together when we got back, just like right, this
Speaker 1: is we thought this was a sports story. This is
Speaker 1: actually a story about like what it means to like
Speaker 1: be a colonial subject. Almost. Yeah, just so, and this
Speaker 1: is this is one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: you all do so well. You finding, as you said
Speaker 1: at the top of this episode, the story kind of
Speaker 1: within the story, the facts that get kind of swept
Speaker 1: away amid headlines and news cycles. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want a fanboy too much, Bejan. But for people
Speaker 1: who don't know, you are a pretty prolific writer, and
Speaker 1: we've been widely published in let's see, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: it awkward to name some things in front of you.
Speaker 1: The believer verge g Q. I think as well, and
Speaker 1: I do want I'm sure a lot of people want
Speaker 1: to ask you specifically, what do you see as some
Speaker 1: of the key differences from telling his story to print
Speaker 1: medium in comparison to telling his story in a podcasting
Speaker 1: audio medium like clips. That's a great question, UM, I
Speaker 1: will say so like, yeah, I help write the show.
Speaker 1: I've written some episodes, um, but the majority are written
Speaker 1: by UM, or at least the structure and dress written
Speaker 1: by Mike Meyer, who is a fantastic writer. He's also
Speaker 1: another like a former journalist. But I will say from
Speaker 1: my experience, you know, writing for print magazines and blogs
Speaker 1: and stuff over the last decade or so. UM, the
Speaker 1: differences you can't like you have to both fit in
Speaker 1: very like you have to simplify very complex ideas, and
Speaker 1: you can't use language to like layer in many points
Speaker 1: in a sentence. You have to like you have to
Speaker 1: like break things down to their sort of barest essence
Speaker 1: and then say that, um. And we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time figuring out the simplest way to say things
Speaker 1: that still makes sense and it's still accurate and still
Speaker 1: you know, but like it's it's difficult. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that I've learned is I have a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for people who write podcasts. Uh. And it's well,
Speaker 1: it's not to say you can't like skim an article,
Speaker 1: but you certainly can. But like listening, sometimes people will
Speaker 1: listen a little passively or while doing other stuff, so
Speaker 1: you have to like things have to be pretty dense, uh,
Speaker 1: in terms of like grabbing you and making you pay
Speaker 1: attention and giving you the information you need relatively quickly
Speaker 1: in case you drift off. And you also kind of
Speaker 1: sometimes have to real people back in and remind people
Speaker 1: exactly it's it's it's I think it's exemplified by like
Speaker 1: This American Life, because they that that's a radio show, right.
Speaker 1: They have all these hooks for people to get into
Speaker 1: the episodes, and I've always admired how they they layer
Speaker 1: those in. Luckily, you know, I think podcasting is obviously
Speaker 1: people drift off or whatever. But our episodes are like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes long, so it's not like you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you miss something, it's you can go back
Speaker 1: and get it or you're not. We have recaps, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're and we're uh we I know we've been
Speaker 1: going a little bit long, but we were so excited
Speaker 1: who explored this story with you all today? You've been
Speaker 1: so generous with your time. Uh, and we if we
Speaker 1: want to first thank you for classing up our little podcast.
Speaker 1: Uh so can you tell us? Can you tell us
Speaker 1: each Lane and Bijade a little bit more about where
Speaker 1: people can find your work and find you online if
Speaker 1: they'd like to learn more about your process? Great question.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Yeah you can find me online, um
Speaker 1: at Bijean Stephen most places B I, J, A N
Speaker 1: S T pH N. It's like Twitter or Twitch or whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm online and know my work. Usually
Speaker 1: I collected on my website, which is in my Twitter buyer.
Speaker 1: If you google me, you find it. It's like it's
Speaker 1: not that hard to find. And I'm at Lane Gerbig
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um, and that's I mean, you can google it.
Speaker 1: But I used to have website. I didn't pay for it,
Speaker 1: so good luck. Well, it's a website. Lately people call
Speaker 1: them like micro site I have, I have a tumbler.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's fine, It's just like but you know,
Speaker 1: like we said, I mean, listening to the episodes, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot more perspective outside of what we
Speaker 1: talked about here today. We're not giving you kind of
Speaker 1: the big final conclusion here. We just wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of tee it up and talk about some of the
Speaker 1: ways that you guys find your stories and you tell
Speaker 1: your stories and you know, introduced us to your characters.
Speaker 1: But please go check out this episode and the show immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having us. Yeah, of course. And uh, folks,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be tuning into Eclipse just like you. We
Speaker 1: Uh we didn't try to negotiate for spoilers on future
Speaker 1: seasons or episodes. We'll be listening along right there with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Mr Max Williams,
Speaker 1: Jean Lane, Thank you so much. Thanks of course. Uh no,
Speaker 1: should we rattle off the list, Oh you know what
Speaker 1: we should have done. We should have had Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: on a tuister. We don't want to know. It's fine.
Speaker 1: It's it's fine that we didn't do that, but thanks
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams have composed our theme. Max Williams of
Speaker 1: the Williams tribe, who is our super producer. We've already thanked.
Speaker 1: Christophrostiot is here in spirit, Eve's Jeff Coat who else
Speaker 1: all the hits um But you can also find Ben
Speaker 1: and E's individuals on the Internet. I am on Instagram
Speaker 1: exclusively at how now Noel Brown Ben Where can folks
Speaker 1: find you? If you want a preview of the strange
Speaker 1: things I'm getting into both on this another shows as
Speaker 1: well as my adventures as long as I can legally
Speaker 1: post them. You can find me on Instagram wearing a
Speaker 1: burst of creativity. I'm calling myself at Ben Bulling b
Speaker 1: A W L I N. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter where I'm at Ben Bulling h s W because
Speaker 1: there was another been bowling. I know you man, I'll
Speaker 1: find you. It's got a doppelganger lurking Max. Max, You're
Speaker 1: on Twitter as well. That's that's the main, the main
Speaker 1: reason people go to Twitter nowadays. You can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at et l Underscore Max Williams, where I
Speaker 1: will mostly just read tweet stuff about sports and troll
Speaker 1: Ben Bulling because, to be honest, he fully meets it. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna troll Lane and John after this, I
Speaker 1: would absolutely not the lovely people. I followed both of
Speaker 1: them on Twitter, but no, no, I would not troll them. Alright, everybody,
Speaker 1: stay tuned for our next episode, where we're diving into
Speaker 1: the story of Nancy. Wait, we'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.