The Infinite Inning

Latest Episodes:

Infinite Inning 308: Here Comes a Sparrow Nov 23, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 307: The Tornado Yet to Come Nov 16, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 306: The Pitcher Who Refused to Go Home Nov 09, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 305: Herbs from Beneath the Gallows Nov 02, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 304: Bad, Ruthless Men LIVE Oct 26, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 303: The Chain of Baseball Oct 19, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 302: Be Someone for the United States Oct 12, 2024

Show notes

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 not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 301: Bad Baby - Last Thoughts on the Pete Rose Saga Oct 05, 2024

Show notes

There is no such thing as a bad baby, but there is such a thing as a bad man. The passing of Pete Rose brings on thoughts of Darryl Strawberry’s peak and rapid fall, ice cream sundaes served in batting helmets, and the responsibility of the audience to separate art, artist, and shrine. Then take a quick tour of the best third basemen not yet in the Hall of Fame and why they and Pete Rose stand as equals before the Cooperstown Gate.
Join Steve October 19 at the Morristown, NJ Festival of Books for a baseball panel starring Kevin Baker and Andy Martino!
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 300: I See My Light Come Shining Sep 28, 2024

Show notes

This anniversary episode brings a fresh look at some of the themes that have obsessed us since the show began back in 2017, specifically humanity, empathy, and the replacement level. We revisit Joe McCarthy and Slim Jones’ pain and the former’s Hall of Fame induction, Heinie Mueller’s basepath errors, Oscar Grimes’ fielding miscues, Theodore Roosevelt’s “Fear God and Take Your Own Part” and how it contrasts to the current demonization of a helpless minority, another Cuban great who never got to play in the US, and it all comes full circle at the end.
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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 299: The Mystery of the Lively Turtle Sep 21, 2024

Show notes

A list of New York-centric baseball nicknames in Kevin Baker’s The New York Game sends us down a rabbit hole a hundred years deep in which we consider dozens of players and stories before being stopped by a mystery: Who—and why—was “The Lively Turtle?”
Join Steve for a baseball panel at the Morristown Festival of Books, October 19!
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman discusses the game’s present, past, and future with forays outside the foul lines to the culture at large. Expect stats, anecdotes, digressions, explorations of writing and fandom, and more Casey Stengel quotations than you thought possible. Along the way, they’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?

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