Tennis Legend James Blake Joined Jon Wertheim on This Week's 'Beyond the Baseline' Podcast

SI's Jon Wertheim gives the breakdown of what he and James Blake spoke about on this week's 'Beyond the Baseline'

SI's Jon Wertheim shares notes on the conversation he had with tennis legend James Blake about his experiences with police and racial profiling for this week's 'Beyond the Baseline' podcast. 

Video Transcript: 

Robin Lundberg: I'm joined now by SI senior writer Jon Wertheim. Jon, you've got your podcast coming up. What are we looking forward to in this week's edition?

Jon Wertheim: Yeah, we tried to have this discussion be a little bit tied to the news; that we speak with James Blake former top-five player, one of the good guys in the sport is still active as a commentator and as the tournament director. A few years ago, the U.S. Open. James was tackled in broad daylight by the NYPD and what was a case of mistaken racial identity. And we talk about James' experience with that. He did not sue the NYPD. What he did was he established the fund for greater understanding for some change in policing tactics. So we talk a bit about the legacy of that unfortunate incident with James, who, again, is one of tennis's all-time good guys, but also someone who knows a bit about the intolerance and some of the social issues that we've been talking about in society at-large these past few days. James has had firsthand experience with that. 

Robin Lundberg: Yeah, I remember when that that happened. It particularly resonated because you have to take somebody like you mentioned, James Blake, a good guy, obviously a famous athlete, and yet it could still happen to him.

Jon Wertheim: Exactly. And there's video that people have seen. I mean, again, you could not name anyone less likely to be involved in anything untoward. But you look at the way he was approached, and I think it's worth asking again, if that were either of us, Robin, would we have been would we be approached in the same way by the NYPD?