Napping Cheat Codes 9

Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio

If you ask me, baseball is boring. While our own

Evan Schultz

doesn’t necessarily agree, he does find that it serves as a great napping cheat code,¹ and the good people at GQ note that many agree. At the intersection of these perspectives lies the creative Mr. King (a.k.a. Wally McCarthy), creator of Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio, which we’ve mentioned before and will explore further this week.

The first episode of NBSR was released in January 2022, and within six months, it had seeped into the national consciousness, as evidenced by a profile in The New Yorker.² Mr. King and his cohorts have released another fifteen episodes since then, and in a series of DMs, he informed me that each episode takes around 40 hours and a veritable village of people to produce.³

This, kids, is a radio.

Each episode begins with the WSLP AM radio call sign over static and goes on to include an old timey broadcast of an entirely fictional baseball game. When I say “entirely fictional,” I mean just that: the teams,⁴ players,⁵ and even ads and advertisers⁶ are entirely made up.

Mr. King developed NBSR when he realized that professional broadcasts, with the ads and the occasional shouting, made them suboptimal napping cheat codes. I find it wholly relaxing and a great way to ease into slumber, whether of the napping or sleeping variety.

So who is this mysterious “Mr. King,” and what are his thoughts on napping? More on that to follow…

1. Perhaps less so with the introduction of the pitch clock.

2. The TND team is still waiting for a call from Conde Nast…

3. If you’re looking for a place to dive in — almost anywhere will do, in my book — Mr. King and co. suggest they began to hit their stride around episode 3.

4. Such as the Big Rapids Timbers and Baraboo Bombers.

5. Such as “Beans” Sorenson, a colorful local character, and Miya Yoshida, the first female player in league history.

6. Such as Ted’s Fishing World and Big Tom’s Shoe Repair.