The Infinite Inning

Infinite Inning 332: Women at the Park and Dictators in the Dugout The Chicago Cubs push hard on Ladies Day promotions, but a few object claiming that women don’t know the game of baseball Then baseball managers as autocrats compared to the real thing, and why confusing one for the other is a very dangerous idea, featuring Ossie Vitt and the Crybaby Cleveland team, Stengel vs. Spahn, McGraw vs. Gr...

Before we revisit episode 13 and it’s discussion of the O’Connell-Dolan scandal, starring a player and a coach lately sprung off the banned list by Rob Manfred, we have a new introduction discussing Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Derek Jeter’s refusal to move off of shortstop, and we give one more encore to the most perceptive thing Grantland Rice every wrote. The I...

The secret to managers’ success is revealed and dispensed with, in a hypothetical version of 1976, George Steinbrenner gifts Reggie Jackson with a plane, Hal Chase isn’t off the list because he was never on the list, a pre-Orioles pitcher becomes ill indeed, and baserunners are obstructed in 1928 and 2025, with differing outcomes suggesting the ways baseball can be like a sloppily-written document...

In this return to one of this baseball podcast’s earliest episodes, we discover two utility infielders, the Yankees’ Wayne Tolleson and, well, nobody’s Snooks Dowd (he was a Tigers, A’s, and Dodgers reject) who weren’t where they were supposed to be—or maybe they were exactly where they were supposed to be, but those in authority had a different opinion. This episode features a new introduction re...

A pope who supposedly wanted baseball but caved to the Nazis instead, an amateur pitcher who cost a team a pennant, the Perdicaris incident, a Pirates manager is fired and the way his predecessor resigned, and the 2025 Colorado Rockies versus the 1932 Boston Red Sox and both in the hands of the President of the United States.   The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present...

For the show’s first reissue, we return to an episode from almost precisely five years ago which compares players who wouldn’t follow rules and inspired their clubs not to follow rules back, a subject framed by our once and possibly future public health crisis. We then turn to one of the great baseball stories, the misbegotten career of Don Padgett, who Branch Rickey tried to squeeze into a catche...

We consider the legacy of the great Venezuelan players who have graced the game going back to Alex Carrasquel in 1939, constructing an all-star team of players from that beleaguered nation. What can any one of them tell us about Venezuelans as a whole? Hint: it’s the same thing that a highway serial killer can tell us about your best friend’s gramma. Then we return to the strange, inebriated world...

We begin with two players who would have been crowded off of modern rosters, and also couldn’t have made the 1970s Oakland A’s due to the owner’s insistence on carrying two pinch-runners at once. Then we travel to Philadelphia and visit two pitchers seemingly on parallel tracks, one who might pitch forever as the other confronts a life-threatening illness. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the p...

We visit the high-flying world of Florida real estate speculation 100 years ago with the volatile manager of the New York Giants John J. McGraw. When the bubble burst, would it be a case of murder? 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 o...

We examine the Los Angeles Angels’ hot start in light of the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers’ hot start and what happened afterwards, and stumble across a writer saying inappropriate things about Spike Owen and Teddy Higuera. Then we talk about the tragic loss of Octavio Dotel, “The Pitt,” and Philadelphia’s 1903 “Black Saturday.” Trigger Warning: There’s nothing graphic about any of the above, but we do t...

Infinite Inning 324: The Way We Live Now (Again) In a largely improvised episode we reexperience current events through the lens of Joe DiMaggio’s 1941 hitting streak, counting the days while the war stays away, while once again a government effort requires us to rally ‘round Jackie Robinson—and Abraham Lincoln too, and we do so while checking in on the better brand of shortstops offered by the Ne...

We debate whether a victim of the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic was the heretofore unidentifiable Greatest Lost Prospect, we make a quick stop to compare takes on the 1915 World Series to Social Darwinism, and rediscover a dirty owners’ trick after a pitcher gathers up all his many girlfriends and drives into a wall. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the...

A pitcher reaching a breaking point with his creator sends us scurrying back to the Old Testament for guidance, and then we unpack the stories behind Steve’s Baseball Prospectus column this week, a reaction to the Department of Defense labeling Jackie Robinson as “deisports.” Should you wish to read the column, it’s available free (no paywall) at BP . Trigger Warning: There are extensive discussio...

Casey Stengel (our mascot, hero, and deity) steals a couple of uniforms and feels bad about it, and then a successful manager of the Red Sox is fired under dubious circumstances, and then virtually everyone in the story catches tuberculosis. Trigger Warning: There are a couple of fleeting mentions of self-harm in the second act of the show. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understan...

A sportswriter faces his own irrelevance on the morning after Pearl Harbor and finds a way back to baseball, and then a pitcher loses it and reignites a brawl that had already ended—featuring more future Hall of Famers than wound up in the Hall of Fame. Yes, it all makes sense in the end. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. Ame...

The way we live today prompts a tale of two future Hall of Famers inflicting pain on one another, yet another Hall of Famer, Phil Rizzuto, suffers pain and the host does too, and finally a story of a catcher who decided to engage with a world of corruption and paid a high price. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's bri...

A minor leaguer gets involved with the wrong woman, but who does she get involved with in the aftermath? And why did the pitcher throw the inkstand? Tigger Warning: There is one mild cussword early on, but one supposes there are a few adult matters related to sexuality that come up in passing. You might want to say “La la la” over that if the kids are around. The Infinite Inning is a journey to th...

Infinite Inning 317: You Can’t Be There If You’re Already Here The show must go on, and so we begin with Dodgers Hall of Fame manager Walt Alston, the overreach of the man he replaced, Chuck Dressen (and Mrs. Dressen too) and what Walt did to make ends meet, then pause for some ruminations on The Way We Live Now, then visit Opening Day at Yankee Stadium in 1957 for home-run heroics by a forgotten...

We begin once more with nice guys who finish last, but we confront the possibility that the qualifier was overstated, segue into the “Window Breakers” Giants of the late 1940s, Octavius Catto and Tommy Henrich, two pitchers who had more than their share of freak injuries, and so much more. Plus some more thoughts on the future of the show. The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand...

An embarrassing moment for Johnny Evers as he makes the reacquaintance of a pitcher he dismissed, and a certain town in Pennsylvania suffers a man-made disaster—but which Hall of Famers family lived there? And some questions about the show's next direction. Trigger Warning:  This episode contains one solitary cussword at the end of the episode. Save your dog from having his vocabulary corrupted. T...

Four quick tales: Leo Durocher excoriates a baserunner and gives us some quality advice, a college player dies on the field, a player is signed by the Yankees under false pretenses, and a minor league Baltimore Oriole goes into the stands. 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, anticip...

We begin the new year with two tales of pitchers who could have used a break, one an ancient Cubbie into self-deprecation, another a war-era Cardinal in need of appreciation—from Branch Rickey. pistol_riccochet.ogg by Diboz 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...

A half-length Casey Stengel-centric episode as we all get ready for the big holiday with all its joy and peppermint bark. Includes way too much about pinch-hitting during the Truman administration, if that’s your kind of 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 ev...

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 se...

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...