katiebakes
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katiebakes
@katiebakes.bsky.social
7.4K followers 1.3K following 900 posts
senior writer at The Ringer. no you hang up!
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In case you missed it I chatted with TASK creator Brad Ingelsby about the former-priest in his life and the influence of Richard Rohr on TASK and MARE OF EASTTOWN (and used it as an excuse to share the catechism I received)

www.theringer.com/2025/10/20/t...
Like Ingelsby, I was raised in a religious family and, for a time, attended Catholic school. (A core 1995 memory is our seventh-grade religion teacher, Sister Butler, telling us: “Persecution is Jesus. Prosecution is Marcia Clark.”) My dad, one of eight kids, grew up in a neighborhood in Yonkers where the Irish were so Catholic they practically turned into Italians, exclaiming “Madone!” in the manner of a Soprano to invoke the Virgin Mary. My great-aunt Gigi, on the other side of the family, was a nun in Wisconsin; when I got into college, she sent me a letter saying she had prayed for my admission. (I’ve always wondered how much more oomph her requests had with the man upstairs than, say, my mother’s did.) “I asked him: Why did you become a priest? What was that moment? What was the feeling?” he recalls. “And he mentioned that quote to me, like: ‘It wasn’t some bolt of lightning hitting me at some moment. There wasn’t some, you know, some image or epiphany. It was just this constant voice, this very, very quiet but constant voice inside me that was pushing me in that direction. And I wanted to get closer to the source.’ “And what I always imagined,” Ingelsby continues, “was that Tom heard the voice, but over time, it’s diminished. It’s diminished and diminished, and it’s almost inaudible now.” Indeed, in the midseason episode “All Roads,” Grasso asks Tom why he became a priest, and Tom answers: “Um, it was a feeling, I guess. That there was something beyond me, and I wanted to get closer to the source of it. But the longer I stayed, the further away I felt.”
October 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM
dang the new Taylor Swift lyrics about Travis Kelce are wild
October 4, 2025 at 9:43 PM
well THAT was CINEMA!!! #tahoecityvista
Tahoe Art Haus one-screen cinema, baby! LEO POSTER elite popcorn fixins suck it, imax
October 3, 2025 at 3:57 AM
we still have to trim and style the wig but I am already cracking up at my son’s “Happy’s Waterbury Caddy” costume - his idea, somehow!! can’t wait to performatively strangle this young man
September 21, 2025 at 1:23 AM
this sketchylookin FIFA ticket lotto link is bringing back fond memories of ESPNet dot SportsZone dot com
the FIFA ticket lotto URL: "https://fifa-fwc26-us.tickets.fifa.com/"
September 12, 2025 at 8:49 PM
💯
September 7, 2025 at 6:18 PM
wrote this about Sinner-Alcaraz in 2022. happy Tennisimo Day to all who celebrate!

www.theringer.com/2022/12/28/y...
Alcaraz (but Wins My Heart) Katie Baker: As a tween growing up in the mountainous reaches of northernmost Italy, Jannik Sinner, now 21, was a youth skiing champion. Years later, all that downhill influence is still apparent in his international tennis game. He is skilled in nailing angles and in slipping sideways, in knowing when to absorb a bounce and when to attack a fall line with chaotic grace. In his fourth season on tour, he made it to three of four Grand Slam quarterfinals-the most recent of which was a match against 19-year-old sensation Carlos Alcaraz that began at 9:30 p.m. local time in New York City and didn't end until nearly three in the morning. (The U.S. Open is a tennis event designed to be viewed by Californians.) Watching Sinner and Alcaraz on the same court was like observing two foosball figures sprung to life. (The next Gerwig-Baumbach film?) They twirled and parried; they played the acute and the obtuse in equal measure; they never seemed to tire. Four hours and change into the U.S. Open quarterfinals, in the fourth set, after endless topspin and slides and screamin' ground strokes, Sinner got ready to close out match point. An hour later, in the fifth set, Alcaraz won the match instead. Alcaraz would go on to win the U.S. Open, the first of what is projected to be many Grand Slam titles in the teen's future. Seeing these two young guns battle each other made me appreciate both of them more. (Between them, Frances Tiafoe, and Casper Ruud, men's tennis finally has vibrant potential.) And watching Sinner lose to Alcaraz the way he did (and to Novak Djokovic in similar fashion at Wimbledon!) made me utterly, hopelessly invested in the wish that one day I'll see him pull off a big win. Sinner the skier once thrived on flying down mountains. It will be a real treat to watch as Sinner the tennis player tries to climb them, all the way to the top.
September 7, 2025 at 4:53 PM
🌝
Carroll's influences famously range from tennis gurus to jam band frontmen. Kelly likes to tell a maybe apocryphal story about John Lennon. Smith occasionally contemplates Socrates. "I think about, you know, like his influence over Plato and all the other great philosophers of the Greek times," Smith says. "I mean, there's so many great philosophers in this world who've been here, but the thing that compelled me with [Socrates was that, you know, he never wrote down any of his ideologies. Instead, he pretty much told them to people and then let the people pass it along." To Smith, this is a good framework for how he wants to lead: He works on throwing the ball and lets everyone else spread the word.
September 5, 2025 at 12:04 AM
can’t remember if I posted this at the time it was crafted but just came across it again and 🥹🥹🥹 this is what it’s all about
August 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM
damn who hurt u, Google Docs thesaurus for "irritate" ??
rub up the wrong way, try someone's patience, ruffle, ruffle someone's feathers, make someone's hackles rise, raise someone's hackles, enrage, infuriate, madden, incense, make someone's blood boil, drive to distraction, goad, provoke, aggravate, peeve, hassle, miff, rile, nettle, needle, get, get to, bug, hack off, get under someone's skin, get in someone's hair, get someone's goat, rattle someone's cage, get someone's dander up, drive mad/crazy, drive around the bend, drive up the wall, drive bananas, make someone see red, wind up, nark, get across, get on someone's wick, drive round the twist, get up someone's nose, give someone the hump, tee off, tick off, burn up, rankle, ride, gravel, bum out, get on someone's tits, rark, give someone the pip, exacerbate, hump, rasp, annoyed, cross, angry, vexed, exasperated, irked, piqued, displeased, fed up, disgruntled, in a bad mood, in a temper, testy, in high dudgeon, huffy, in a huff, resentful, aggrieved, furious, irate, infuriated, incensed, enraged, wrathful, choleric, aggravated, peeved, nettled, miffed, miffy, mad, riled, hacked off, peed off, hot under the collar, foaming at the mouth, browned off, cheesed off, brassed off, not best pleased, narked, ratty, shirty, eggy, teed off, ticked off, sore, bent out of shape, snaky, crook, ireful, snuffy, wrath
August 28, 2025 at 4:42 PM
lol. lmao even
Alumna Leads Eco-Friendly TV Production Studio in Brooklyn Gina Argento ’94C, ’96G rooted for the Red Storm while earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at St. John’s University. Along the way, she helped improve the planet through “green” initiatives at her company, Broadway Stages, Ltd., one of the film industry’s few eco-friendly soundstages.
August 22, 2025 at 1:48 PM
shout out to the Residence Inn hotel chain for never doing me wrong. this trip I dined like lobby royalty by day and was only confronted by an unexpected late night jester the one time
Residence Inn lobby breakfast of kings (extremely Carly Simon voice) clown thru the window, clown thru the window,
August 21, 2025 at 3:17 AM
UPDATE: name a better light fixture. u can’t u won’t
let there be light (in the form of a basketball going swish)
August 11, 2025 at 9:11 PM
last day at the in-laws so I sure am remembering some guys with my kids + a lava lamp
August 10, 2025 at 8:32 PM
... sold a yooge, yooge bin of stuffed animals, figurines, tins, hundreds of cards (some in ~Japanese~, baby!) books, slap bracelets (hell yeah!) watches (?) (my brother and his wife are Con ppl and sent the boys a LOT of accoutrements) etc etc for the low low price of $50 all in (3/n) ...
August 7, 2025 at 11:47 AM
thinking of taking my beautiful sons to this place today. iykyk
zdeno chara living his best life in wholesome communion with a rooster
August 7, 2025 at 10:25 AM
righteous Vermont pedology
general store signage in Norwich, Vermont saying: “HATE DOES NOT GROW IN THE ROCKY SOIL OF NORWICH, VERMONT”
August 3, 2025 at 5:52 PM
legit one of the greats
August 1, 2025 at 3:02 AM
playing my guys all the hits
my guys at Rita’s my guy at Hoagie Haven
July 27, 2025 at 11:26 PM
at my parents house which means it’s time to post relics like this ca. 1999 pic of me, Lech Walesa, and a Diet Coke
me, Lech Walesa, and a Diet Coke
July 24, 2025 at 3:59 PM
excellence in band names
Roy Orbison and the Teen Kings
July 23, 2025 at 4:41 PM
found this photo of my grandma. king!
July 13, 2025 at 11:43 PM
one of us! one of us! www.theringer.com/2022/12/28/y...
July 13, 2025 at 8:32 PM
just cracked this fine work from @themikeayers.bsky.social and I already have to keep pausing to text snippets to friends back in THE Mercer County. so good! cc @tommarshall111.bsky.social
cover of SHARING IN THE GROOVE by Mike Ayers, available at a bookseller near you Trey high school lore PDS v PHS lore John Popper high school lore
July 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM
hey boatchat is this good
July 5, 2025 at 12:11 AM