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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Eight races for the House of Representatives still remain unresolved, almost a week after the midterm elections. But why are the races are still too close to call, and what will it mean for the balance of power in the House of Representatives?
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Boxer Tommy Morrison fought Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 5 -- but the break in casting didn't automatically change his life for the better. He was sent to jail, and later diagnosed with HIV. But now, boxer Morrison vows to make his own Rocky-style comeback.
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Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth represents a solidly Republican district in Arizona -- he won his last re-election with a comfortable 60 percent of the vote. But this year's race against Democratic challenger Harry Mitchell is proving to be surprisingly tough for the incumbent. -
The buyer-rating organization Consumer Reports operates an auto-testing center in Connecticut where employees get to try out the latest cars. Sometimes they even get to take the vehicles home. The whole point is to give the new cars a real-world beating -- especially the fast ones...
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How does one man rack up $50 million in gambling loses? Pro golfer John Daly says he did, and became notorious for his fast living in the normally tame world of golf. He recounts his adventures in a new memoir, My Life In and Out of the Rough.
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Najah Ali was celebrated as an example of Iraq's bright future when he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. But now the boxer has been denied a student visa to the United States to earn a degree in computer science.
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Abortion rights advocates have announced a petition drive in South Dakota calling for a rejection of an abortion law recently signed by the governor. It would be the most restrictive such law in the nation.
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Jury selection begins in the trial of former Enron chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Mike Pesca uses audio clips from the documentary film The Smartest Guys in the Room to recap some key moments before the energy-trading company collapsed in the fall of 2001.
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Day to Day reporters go on the prowl for quintessential American street food. Karen Grigsby Bates finds taco bliss in Los Angeles, Mike Pesca raves about chili and BBQ in New York City, and Eric Weiner gravitates toward high-octane Cuban coffee. -
Hundreds of candlelight vigils are planned Wednesday evening across the United States in support of Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has become the focal point of the national debate over the war in Iraq. Many military families have mixed feelings toward Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq last year.
