The Infinite Inning

We begin with a brief threnody on those who would say ballplayers are overpaid, spanning Babe Ruth to Juan Soto and the arbitrary nature of those ‘plaints. We then head into the darkness for the thwarted careers and prematurely-concluded marriages of two 1930s middle infielders and how they reacted to a very specific, cruel form of tragedy.

Trigger Warning: This episode contains a discussion of self-harm and attempted suicide. That doesn’t come up until the second act of the show. As always, hide the children! Love, the management.

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 manager fails to comfort a nervous rookie pitcher and an outfielder of ancient days ends his career when he overreacts to an unusual family-oriented insult.

Trigger Warning: This episode contains one unusual cussword from 1892. Hide the children.

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? 

Cloggers clogging in Lincoln, Nebraska by bmccoy2

On the road to grandmother’s house, we ask whether a 19th-century game purported to be the greatest of all time was any fun, stopping along the way to admire the marital problems of a star second baseman and various other acts of criminality. Plus Walter Johnson avoids comparisons with a young star. The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind.

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?

By listener request, the story of Casey Stengel and the sparrow, but first, a pitcher is mercilessly mocked for his pickoff move and a second baseman is disabled by a piece of chewing gum.

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 players are cursed with high expectations and both have their moments, but one becomes best known for sitting down and the other finds you can’t succeed if your best tool is a razor blade. Then we consider why Sam Rice finished just short of 3,000 hits and its implications for the near future.

TRIGGER WARNING: The second half of this episode contains a discussion of suicide and the loss of a child.

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?

After the week we’ve had, we’re all once again in the Infinite Inning, but is there a way out? Follow along the winding path as a Yankees ace puts his head through a windshield, toxic soup is eaten, a Negro Leagues catcher suffers an awful fate, a manager gets a duck, and a pitcher plays the William Tell Overture on the harmonica but fails to record a single strikeout, and somehow all of this tells us something about where to go from here.

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?

An election-eve episode that begins with two notable World Series gaffes and the players who weren’t blamed and those who were, and what that says about us as a society. We then turn to contingency and its effect in history—how much of what happens to us is the result of wisdom, and how much is luck?—as exemplified by one move that Connie Mack didn’t make, and one that he did.

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?

First, some brief thoughts on the passing of the great Fernando Valenzuela and Fernandomania as a contrast to the great upheavals of 1200 BC. Then join Steve at the Morristown Festival of Books for a conversation with author Kevin Baker about The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City.

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?

This week, stories of fathers, sons, and brothers playing baseball, one an ancestor of the current Yankees manager who witnessed a strange Phil Rizzuto baserunning blunder, and three brothers who ran a baseball school, but only two of them were major leaguers.

Join Steve October 19 at the Morristown, NJ Festival of Books for a baseball panel starring Kevin Baker and Andy Martino! This week’s Baseball Prospectus column, featuring Honest John Anderson: Spare the Goat.

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?

Luis Tiant’s passing provokes an exploration of both his and his father’s immigrant story and dovetails with a sequel to our discussion of Pete Rose’s passing in which four very early Negro Leagues greats—two in the Hall of Fame, two out—ask to be fairly measured against history.

Join Steve at the Morristown, NJ Festival of Books on October 19!

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?