The Infinite Inning

Hall of Fame Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog gets stuck in the Yankees system—and the Army—leading to a discussion of social responsibility when it comes to risking the lives of citizen-soldiers (whether Herzog or Ted Williams in the Korean War years or something closer to the present day). Then we visit the win-or-go-home American League playoff game between the Red Sox and the Indians, a contest famously mishandled by Joe McCarthy, another future Hall of Famer. What went into his thinking that day, and are the legends of pitchers ducking the job true? With stops along the way at an e...

Two instructive tales of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who, as Casey Stengel said, were at that time in Brooklyn. The 26-inning man places a clever comeback among his last words, but not before pilfering some stocks that didn’t belong to him, marrying the bosses daughter, and going broke, not necessarily in that order. Then a Deadball Era shortstop is spectacularly overrated compared to his betters, which included one of the best of all time, Honus Wagner. We also wing past one of the great forgotten offensive seasons in Cincinnati Reds history, revisit an oft-repeated Maya Angelou line, quote a key pa...

We ask of various figures past and present (as Mark Twain once did) “Is He Alive or Is He Dead?” finishing with the time Babe Ruth was reported to have fatally crashed his car. Then we try to compare players across eras and find too many irreconcilable differences for comfort, and conclude with an Expos semi-great, the writer who seemingly inspired his parents, and the decline of reading.

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...

A July 4th episode: Lou Gehrig’s farewell and slight return, Joe DiMaggio flashes back to the Iron Horse streak, the National League is founded in the Centennial year as things go very wrong for George Custer (couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy), one of Sitting Bull’s kids gets baseball fever, and a .400 hitter sickens and vanishes from history because of a sometimes-flexible “rule.”

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...

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 ou...

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...

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 i...

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: Ho...

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 f...

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 Pr...

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.
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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 1920...

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 te...

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...

We note the recent passing of some stalwart ballplayers, some of all too recent a vintage, then travel back to the 1950s and the breaking of the Braves color line by an outfielder who everyone liked to pick on.

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 q...

In which we track the posthumous career of one of baseball’s earliest players, who might simultaneously lie in three different places or maybe nowhere at all. Then we wish Parker Meadows a quick recovery by recalling an earlier outfield collision which injured two future Hall of Famers. And in between some wisdom from Cato the Elder, Robert Pirsig, and others.

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 ab...

Infinite Inning 369: An Odd Cardinals Walk-Off or a Typical Cubs Loss?
First we ask an evergreen question prompted by Konnor Griffin’s promotion: Were Casey Stengel’s expectations of Mickey Mantle unfair? Then we visit 1949 for one of the more unusual walk-off hits in Cardinals history and the popular player whose momentary lack of awareness allowed it to happen—and find ourselves questioning the way we live.

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 m...

Two players who might have made the Hall of Fame if not for time missed to national service during World War II stand in for all of those whose trajectories were deflected by the games played by those in high places, then we visit turn-of-the-20th century Philadelphia for a forgotten first baseman who won it all and lost something even greater at the same moment.

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...

In which we talk about some of our own broken relationships, the war of Billy Martin’s ear and what George Steinbrenner’s plan to bring him back for a sixth tour says about his own morality, the way the Washington Senators loved their own players so much they ended up in Minnesota, very small dinosaurs, and so 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 toda...

A pitcher named Bob becomes Sailor Bob all because his wife wanted him out of the house in a fatal way, then we revisit the 1880s and a truly ridiculous ballpark that led to a player having both an inflated home-run total and an inflated liver.

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...

How the King of France once had an illicit love life that bore both a great resemblance to that of some of our current villains, but was also kind of similar to one of Branch Rickey’s greatest innovations. Then we join a glowering Yankees owner who absolutely wrecked his team because he was Vince Coleman-dreaming before that was even a thing.

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 ou...

This week, a light-hearted tale of a pitcher who braved the injury nexus in a body that just refused to flinch when under hostile fire, preceded by the story of a favorite cartoonist who pontificated on the subject of children and divorce even as he proceeded to get divorced and abandon his children. And in between, unwelcome news of war.

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...

A player who is remembered as “Jumbo” even though that was neither his name or his shape is described in both complimentary and critical terms, oysters are considered, and one of the greatest shortstops of all time, John Henry Lloyd, Pop, teaches an important lesson about why the past matters, and why his past was especially important.

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 Stev...

A future Hall of Fame outfielder gets into a tiff with the first Hall of Fame umpire and the umpire says a rude word, but how rude was it? Then we briefly consider the worst 900-plus games careers before joining the 1935 season in progress for a fight at home plate that fizzled, but not before inspiring a New York Times writer to construct an especially inept metaphor involving the game and dire world events.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror...

A rare three-segment episode this week. First, in what is very much NOT a story, the host quotes Casey Stengel in a totally context-free way. Then a pitcher has to work hard to keep a team he doesn’t like IN the World Series or risk professional extinction. Finally, a personal reflection on the way we live now, based very much on a real-life example of lightning striking twice in a truly malicious way.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, ba...

An episode in which yesterday’s headlines are today’s. First, we find not William Bell the Negro Leagues great, but William Bell the victim of a false accusation in 1920s Chicago, the only murder of its kind. Then we travel south to the apprenticeship of one of the low-key center field greats and the epidemic that stopped his career in its tracks.

Trigger Warning: There are a couple of rude words at the very end of the episode because the hots became exercised. If you are, say, in the middle of a meeting of the execu...

A wide-ranging journey inspired by the impulse-control problems of a 1950s catcher that provked,  depending on Billy Martin’s mood, two, no three, no four on-field fights, with pints of blood flowing onto the infield dirt. Some of it is true, some of it is better. Also, said catcher gets up close and personal with parts of Whitey Ford’s anatomy you’ve never before considered, and the host provides a few thoughts on current events.  

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter...

In this week’s new discussion, the story of a Yankees prospect who might have made it if not for a certain United Nations police action overseas. Then we return to 2017 for a look back at one of the show’s earliest episodes and what was happening in the game on the days the United States went to war. Gee, I wonder what brough that one to 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...

In our second and last holiday mini-episode of the season, we wonder how a sore-armed Yankees pitcher went on a crash diet, then turn to Kid Gleason, manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, for a little lesson resilience. Featuring a baserunning tale that isn’t true, but it ought to be.

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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 wo...

Infinite Inning 357 Angels Up the Where? and Baseball True Love In a holiday mini-episode we talk about secular vs. religious holidays in America, the films of Powell and Pressburger, and the faith-based baseball comedy (in which it’s the nuns who object most strongly to seeing a manifestation of the divine) “Angels in the Outfield” (1951).

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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 storie...

Infinite Inning 356 Did a Hall of Fame Manager Break Three Prospects? A long-promised Casey Stengel episode asks why the press reacted badly when the Ol’ Perfesser was named Yankees manager in the fall of 1948, and what it had to do with three busted Braves prospects. And with Venezuela on our minds we recall a recent outfielder who viewed the wall and a dog who feared the hand, perhaps for similar reasons.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball re...

In this week’s new commentary, we wonder how major league strikeout leader James Wood can reduce his strikeouts by 600 percent in 2026. Then we return to early 2008 for a look at some deleterious, franchise-damaging or -destroying decisions, including a regrettable early mistake in free agency and Connie Mack’s decision to run his team like it was the 1910s even though almost 40 years had passed.

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...

Pete Alonso’s exit from New York triggers an exploration of an earlier first baseman who was not only dispensable, but mocked for the very fact of his aging. Expect more John McGraw shouting, Deadball Era statistics, and four separate tragic endings for people named McGann, three of them in the same family. As for the one non-baseball McGann who chose a dark path, his isn’t a baseball story, but an American one.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains extensive discussions of self-harm.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to u...

Infinite Inning Reissue 025 (077) The Death of Addie Joss Explained and Old-Time Cheating Too In this week’s new segment, we talk about some fringe major leaguers named Truck and Hunky who were big in the minors and ask what degree of bitterness and resentment is acceptable when your dream is squelched by a gatekeeper. Then we go back eight years to episode 77 and the final illness of Hall of Fame pitcher Addie Joss. Finally, we go to Philadelphia for a little old-school, pre-Astros electronic cheating.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to th...

We return from the IL with Casey Stengel’s endorsement of the designated hitter, and of astronauts too, then springboard from the recent Red Sox-Pirates trade into a discussion fo the latter’s inability to turn prospects into consistent major leaguers, a long ago pitcher who turned outfielder and got a second chance and, finally, a pitcher named Bumpus, who has something to say to RFK Jr.

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 stor...

A pitcher throws a great game in the World Series and is congratulated by a backstop unknown to him, but once he was known to the game. Then we travel back to 1917 when gamblers tried to fix a White Sox-Red Sox game by throwing their bodies in front of it—and the one player who struck back.

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 St...

In this week’s new material, we compare a team signing a low-OBP player to the girl you were crushing on choosing the only suitor you would have had her avoid (not that it was up to you, but also not that the universe isn’t cruel that way), all of which may turn out to be a tortured political metaphor. Then we return to 2016 for the Dodgers at third base, the tragic and not-at-all funny tale of Giants pitcher Bugs Raymond, and a lot of talk about Yoenis Cespedes falling off a horse.

The Infinite Inning i...