A young Yogi Berra battles his own pitching staff just as Dalton Rushing struggles to call pitches for Shohei Ohtani, Casey Stengel drags Yogi into the Joe McCarthy mess in Washington, Lefty Grove throws at a catcher and Dorothy Thompson tries to help war refugees. And John McGraw thought tennis-playing pitchers were effeminate? All that and more in this week’s episode!

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out? Ambient battle noise: swords and shouting by pfranzen; Epic Cinematic Music: Let's Go to Zanzibar by lena_orsa

The San Francisco Giants’ botched attempt at Pride Night prompts a look at Billy Sunday, the Cubs outfielder who had a religious awakening and became one of the most popular traveling evangelists of the early 20th century. Plus pitchers named Head, an ERA of 6.66, a no-hitter pitched with the wrong arm, and a young woman whose name baseball shouldn’t have forgotten.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

Trigger Warning: Discussions of self-harm.

A Reds pitcher confuses the end of his arm for the end of his life, several other players take the easy way out, a bizarre trade is deconstructed, the Marlins compared to the Browns and a certain IPO, and much more. 

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out? (Neighing horse.wav by soundslikewillem, snorting horse.wav by soundslikewillem, pistol_riccochet.ogg by Diboz)

A shorter episode about bad timing as exemplified by the time that Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel was run over by a car. 

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

A shorter episode that takes a quick look at the Homestead Grays and the attenuated career of the late Bob Horner.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

A grab-bag episode in which the title says it all: The 40th anniversary of the 1986 Mets, how failed Yankees shortstop Bobby Meacham would have performed if Baseball-Reference had his name correctly, the possibility of women playing major league baseball, Thurman Munson’s Hall of Fame twin discussed, and a certain overweight catcher suffers a breakdown of impulse control.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

Infinite Inning 375: The A's, Murder in Camden, and the Spiders from Cleveland Several attempts at finding empathy through self-denial this week: We ask if it’s right to laugh at the players trapped by vile ownership into performing like abused seals for the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, if restraining ourselves from saying everything we’re allowed to say is the at all similar to protecting a pitcher’s arm, observe several long losing streaks, and note a 1943 murder carried out in the delusional name of love, a crisis of perspective and morality to which Connie Mack inadvertently provided an answer.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

We go back to the early days of the Angels (California, Los Angels, Anaheim, or anywhere in-between) for the untimely death of a pitcher, then look forward to next year, when one of the most famous and consequential baseball teams of all time will mark its 100th anniversary. What will Major League Baseball or the Yankees do about it? Why is it the first such team to merit such an occasion? And how do you mark the occasion when members started dying off right after the championship was won? Also: A big day for Ty Cobb and a less salubrious 1920s “achievement” is observed.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

Two managers dropped this week, but four teams haven’t fired a manager in-season since the last century. Which were they, and is there even a point? Then we travel back to 1887, the ill-fated marriage between a Hall of Famer and an actress, her personal gift to baseball, and the birth of a character type whose time has come again (no matter what anyone says).

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?

A major metropolitan newspaper contends a pitcher “blows,” while he insists he is in “the best shape of his life.” Which would prove to be closer to the truth? Then we revisit the birth of the atomic bomb, the Yankees’ decision to start a farm system in spite of their wealth, and the mysterious woman whose very existence might have hinted at undisclosed cash-flow problems on the part of a very wealthy man.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can’t get anybody out?