Featured Conversation: Jen Ramos Eisen

Published on Jan 19, 2025

I was walking past someone, and I overheard them talking about Bruce Springsteen, and I mentioned, oh, I got to see Bruce Springsteen at Asbury Park this past year. And they’re like, no way you got to go to that show - which apparently is now like a legendary Springsteen show - and I felt like I gained so much sports writing credit.

Today we are talking with Jen Ramos Eisen, a minor league baseball reporter and record collector.

You told me that you had to move records here from the Philippines. What was that like, tell me a bit about that.

Okay, so my parents are from the Philippines, and they immigrated to the states in the early 1980s and my mom left all her records behind at her parents in the Philippines, she never explained to me why, but it made sense, there was just a lot of stuff that got left in the Philippines. So when I visited with my family when I was 17, I was already deep into record collecting then, and I looked through my mom’s records, and it’s like the Beatles, Dionne Warwick, the Supremes. I was like, can I bring this back to the States? And my mom said, okay, sure, just, you know, we just have to make sure that we have room for it. And in the Philippines, there’s this thing called a Balikbayan box, which is basically, say, like, a three foot by three foot box. And a lot of people use that to ship between the states and the Philippines, and we had brought stuff over for family there, so we still had the box, and we had to pack things in it, stuff that we couldn’t get otherwise in the States. So I put as many records as I could in there among things like garlic chips or like different snacks that we could only get in the Philippines. I wrapped the records in there, and we added it as a checked bag and everything, I still have it in my collection here in the States. 

Were there a lot of records in there that you wanted to listen to?

Yeah, I really wanted my mom’s Motown Records. That was the big one. I was raised on a lot of Motown and disco from my parents. So I just wanted all of the Diana Ross, all of the Dionne Warwick,I just wanted to listen to all of that. 

So you still have the whole collection?

 I do, yeah. I play it occasionally, It was my mom’s when she was a teenager, and then I got to have it when I was teenager. So I just really appreciate that.

So many people hand down things that you don’t really want. To get a stack of records is pretty great.

Yeah. All my family in the Philippines are neighbors. So my mom would always hang out with her cousins. She had written her name on the record, so they knew it was hers and everything. So that comes with a record collection and everything. My mom was a teenager, probably late 60s, early 70s. I don’t think she expected then to have a kid who’s huge into record collecting.

So, you’re a sportswriter.

Yeah.

I wanted to talk for a minute about the intersection of sports writers and music. It seems like from being on social media, sports writers are very much as a group music heads and they like fairly much the same kind of music, too. It’s really an interesting phenomenon to see. So do you fit into that groove with other sportswriters?

It’s funny to me, actually, because for me, growing up, music was more of a thing than sports ever was. My brother played soccer on the playground, at school ,and everything. But my mom also put me in piano lessons starting at age five, and like I did classical piano up until I was 13, and then from there, I learned how to play the guitar. I learned how to play the bass guitar, and then an assortment of other different instruments that I can pick up and  know how to play, but not something I’m super proficient in. The focus in my family was more music than sports ever was. My mom played the piano. I just ended up getting caught up into music very young, and I got super hyper fixated on classic rock when I was 14, when I stole my dad’s Bruce Springsteen records. And so I originally had a thought that I wanted to be a punk music historian when I was 14. And I really wanted to chronicle the 1970s New York punk scene, like MC5, Patty Smith, Television, all of that. I was just so transfixed by that era of punk, specifically, and then I fell into sports writing by accident. I got into college wanting to do a little bit more music writing, and I wanted to be a comedy writer. I wanted to write on SNL. And then I joined the school paper, and then I fell into sports writing by accident. Grant Brisbee actually gave me my start in sports writing. He gave me my start at McCovey Chronicles when I was like 18.  So I got into sports writing. And I think the majority of the friends I have who are sports writers are people who are also listening to the same kind of music as me. At Winter Meetings, I had a lot of good conversations about the Hold Steady. We’re talking Wilco, Jason Isbell, all the usual suspects.  So the funny thing that I did was I was walking past someone, and I overheard them talking about Bruce Springsteen, and I mentioned, oh, I got to see Bruce Springsteen at Asbury Park this past year. And they’re like, no way you got to go to that show - which apparently is now like a legendary Springsteen show - and I felt like I gained so much sports writing credit. Just the cred from being able to say I was there.

That’s awesome. So let’s talk about collecting records. What was your most memorable vinyl buying experience?

I went into a random used shop here in rural California, and I’m just thumbing through all the records, and then suddenly I find an entire stack of Southside Johnny records. And I’m like, who in rural California has Southside Johnny, right? And because my family’s from Jersey, and I know the entire Jersey Shore music history, I said to my husband, I don’t care. I’m getting all of these. So I bought the entire stack of Southside Johnny records. I think it only came up to less than $20 so I was like, yep, good deal.

What is the most treasured record in your collection?

Okay, I think my most treasured - I searched for this very hard - is a first pressing of the Gaslight Anthem’s, The 59 Sound, which is my favorite album. 

Having a first pressing of your favorite album is pretty great.

Do you have a favorite record to listen to on headphones? 

Yes, I have a couple. I really like listening to Springsteen’s Nebraska, I feel like that one’s definitely a headphone album. I really like Julien Baker’s Sprained Ankle, which feels like a headphones record for me. I really think Pool kids’ self titled album and the Killer’s Pressure Machine is a headphones album for me.

What is the weirdest record you own?

Oh boy. It’s a broken record. Like, literally, pieces are broken, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of it. And it was something that was found in a garage. It is a Star Wars disco record. 

Incredible.

There’s some tracks that still work. It’s just chipped on the outside, so sometimes I’ll still play it because it’s so weird. It’s the Star Wars theme, but disco.

I believe I had that. It was a 12 inch, and it was just that one song.

Yes.

Just a non stop disco version of the Star Wars theme.

 I found that in a garage, and I was like, I don’t care if this is broken, I’m taking it. It was just so silly that I needed it.

What record in your collection would you be most eager to share with new friends? 

I actually have my collection behind me right now., I would probably say Jeff Rosenstock, No Dream. I feel like I have a lot of friends who are really open to listening to Jeff, or they’re already Jeff fans, and No Dream is just a really great album.

It’s a wonderful album. I love it. Do you like the Ska Dream?

Oh, yeah, who doesn’t? Huge ska person, so I was like, let’s go, I love this.

Do you have a favorite record store?

Yes, there is one that I would go to all the time. But I have a few. I like 11th Street Records in Las Vegas. Very good, just good vibes, good selection. A lot of stuff there. I went to college in the Bay Area, and I went to school in Oakland, so I would go to Berkeley and just stop into Amoeba all the time. And I feel like I was just really lucky to spend so many formative years going to Amoeba. Yeah. So Amoeba, 1234 Go, Rasputin. Those are my, go-tos whenever I’m in the Bay Area.

So do you only go shop record shopping when you’re in the Bay Area?

 I usually try to go out of my way to make sure I can go to a shop. Whenever I have friends who are in town who’ve never been to San Francisco before, my thing is, we’re going to Amoeba. You need to see Amoeba.

Yeah, that was the first place my ex took my first visit to the Bay Area. Then we went to LA and was like, you have to go to Amoeba. 

I​​’ve never been the one in Hollywood, but I’ve been to the San Francisco and Berkeley ones. And, yeah, I had friends who came to San Francisco for the first time last year, and they’re big music fans, so I was like, we’re all going to Amoeba. So my town doesn’t have a record store where they sell new records. It’s all used, which is great, and I stop by frequently just to see what’s there, but I have to drive at least an hour to a shop that’s got new records. So usually, if I have the time in Fresno, I will try and stop into a record store if I can, but usually I have a little bit more time if I’m visiting the Bay Area. I’m gonna look for records there. 

What’s the last record you played?

Probably the Killer’s Sam’s Town. It’s something that I loved since I was a teenager, and just play as a comfort album.

Jen Ramos Eisen is a Central CA and Las Vegas based sports journalist who writes a lot about Minor League Baseball and labor. Their writing has been found at places like Defector, Baseball Prospectus, and the San Jose Mercury News. They are often found at concerts or record stores when they’re not writing about sports or being terminally online. Find them on Bluesky at @jenramose.online