introducing eyeblack

Hi, my name is Bradford. I’m a chronic ice cream eater, I buy more video games than I finish, and I’ll pay my AMC Stubs account before my rent. As a DFW newbie with deep roots in New York City, I am rich in Skymiles and poor in spirit (also money). I’m also a columnist for McClatchy and a member of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s editorial board.

But if you’re reading this, it’s likely because I was named a 2025-26 winner of the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship, where I’ll be studying the relationship of sports, transportation, and climate towards a project exploring the interwovenness of how we move and the planet we share on the games we love.

The full project is scheduled to drop in 2026, and I have a lot of work to do. But, as someone who always learns best in community, I want you to partner with me in my pursuits. So, I started a free newsletter to share quick dispatches from my research and travels, giving you an inside my notebook and camera reel, and a regular opportunity to help me create something that makes a meaningful difference.

Welcome to eyeblack.

You know those little strips you’ll see wide receivers and baseball sluggers wear under their eyes to block out distractions and keep them focused on what matters? That’s what I do with my journalism, evaluating the place of sports in society through deeply-reported projects and incisive commentary. Solely scrutinizing what’s happening on the field or court can become its own distraction. (It’s why sticking to sports never actually happens or works on its own merits.) But go beyond the box score and you’ll see how a game played by children is not just a reflection of the outside world, but an engine for manifesting, reinforcing, and disrupting cultural and societal trends. 

In other words, I’m here to help you keep your eye on the ball. Also, it’s a pun, but I’ll let you put that one together.

There was an afternoon in June of 2023 when the air tasted like charcoal and the sky seemed smeared in its shards. I had never experienced that kind of forest fire fallout. As a New Yorker, I grew up more worried about nor’easters than checking the AQI, but the Canada fires — pause, Canada fires?? — were so widespread, they were affecting everyday life across the United States. Armed with a MetroCard and an MLB media credential, I raced over to Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx, a neighborhood that’s no stranger to the impact of poisonous air from the highways circling the neighborhood. There was stiil a game to be played, lung capacity be damned, so I asked players and the league what circling the bases in Hell might mean for their health and future.

Flash forward to January 2025. California is accustomed to smoke filling the air. Less so fires consuming the city. 

Entire communities like the middle-class Black enclave of Altadena burnt to a crisp. Despite being in the relative safety of Downtown Los Angeles, Lakers and Kings games were banged from the disarray, and head coach JJ Redick’s house lost his home to the flames. For me, the most enduring images of these devastating fires were the pictures of cars in the famously auto-centric (and transit-sparse) region abandoned on roads and freeways.

It’s as if nature is warning us that if we don’t stop driving, nature will force us to move our feet.

Again, if you’re reading this newsletter, you know my deal. I love sports, but have rarely been able to experience them as a complete oasis. Watching our changing earth imperil the court and the field is maybe the most tangible reminder of sports’ limits as a distraction.

So I started thinking more intently about these common threads between how we get to the game and the sustainability of the game itself:

After chatting with my editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and brilliant minds like Madeline Orr, who were way ahead of the curve on these connective tissues, I developed a proposal on how to study the problem and maybe provide some education around the issue that could make it make sense to people who aren’t into the science but love the sport.

I submitted my ideas, one of which included an interactive map where users can tweak a transit system around a real sports stadium and simulate the impact on air quality. I shared it with two places: the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Foundation. And to my immense joy and surprise, both wanted to invest in my work, and gave me an incredibly generous amount of money and support towards that end.

Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing more about:

I have plenty more to say, hence the newsletter. Expect brief posts (not columns! that’s my job!) with notes, links, book recs, status updates, photos and videos, and calls for reader feedback. And together, let’s keep our eye on the ball.

BWD