3: Leveling the Minor League Playing Field with Dr. Katie Walden

Imagine going to one of the country's biggest baseball colleges and not realizing it until months into your time there? That's exactly what happened to Katie Walden during her first few months at Vanderbilt University. It started with the crack of the bat, the most iconic of sounds and eventually led to Katie becoming one of Minor League Baseball's biggest advocates and researchers a few short years later. Since that moment, Katie has seemingly done it all, interned at Cooperstown, become a college professor, get recruited by organizations that assist minor league players to assist these often underpaid athletes, and so much more. We touched on all of this in our conversation, but focused mostly on the minor leagues.. what baseball needs to do better, the importance of unions and just how messed up the industry is. 

Find Katie's work here: 

https://kwaldenphd.com/

https://twitter.com/kwaldenphd?lang=en

 

Follow Bat'HER Up on Instagram: @batherruppod

 

Links to the organizations we spoke about:

More than Baseball: https://www.morethanbaseball.org/

Advocates for Minor Leaguers: https://www.advocatesforminorleaguers.com/

Adopt a Minor Leaguer: https://adoptaminorleaguer.com/

 

 

 

Sound attributions: 

Glitter Sound: Magic Wand Glitter http://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/211624 by Iwan ‘qubodup’ Gabovitch http://freesound.org/people/qubodup under CC-BY 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode