The Infinite Inning

The Infinite Inning

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?

Episodes

Infinite Inning 360: Ballgame Called for Yellow Jack

January 24, 2026 • 62 mins
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 becau...
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Infinite Inning 359: Famous Yankees Knee You in the Crotch

January 10, 2026 • 54 mins
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. ...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 27 (017): The Yankees Shortstop Who Went to War

January 7, 2026 • 41 mins
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 ...
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Infinite Inning 358: Ring Lardner Sent Flowers

January 2, 2026 • 27 mins
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.

(Drum Roll Please.wav by Scheffler)

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. Americ...
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Infinite Inning 357: Angels Up the Where and Baseball True Love

December 26, 2025 • 32 mins
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).

(Drum Roll Please.wav by Scheffler)

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understa...
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Infinite Inning 356: Did a Hall of Fame Manager Break Three Prospects?

December 20, 2025 • 53 mins
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 ...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 26 (039): Trumpian Baseball Math

December 18, 2025 • 37 mins
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...
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Infinite Inning 355: Several Tragic People Named McGann, Some In Baseball, Some Not

December 13, 2025 • 51 mins
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: Th...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 25 (077): The Death of Addie Joss Explained and Old-Time Cheating Too

December 10, 2025 • 54 mins
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...
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Infinite Inning 354: A Pitcher Named Bumpus And Other Upbeat Tales Of Baseball

December 6, 2025 • 52 mins
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 pas...
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Infinite Inning 353: The Catcher Who Loved Me

November 15, 2025 • 44 mins
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 ...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 24 (106): Got Those Girl Don’t Want You Team Signed Charlie Hayes Blues

November 13, 2025 • 62 mins
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 lo...
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Infinite Inning 352: Why Are There Bad People When There is Also Good Baseball

November 8, 2025 • 55 mins
We look at an ordinary day of baseball, May 8, 1949, and some extraordinary—and tragic—things that happened. First, a couple of good pitchers get shelled, then we witness some typically disposable regular season games before noticing a young woman who was treated as if she too were disposable, though she very much was not.

Trigger Warning: The second half of this episode contains discussion of a violent crime and some images may be ...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 23 (021): Live! Home Run! Baseball!

November 6, 2025 • 41 mins
In the new commentary segment of this week’s reissue episode, we talk about childhood fears of the end times, the degraded state of Times Square in the 1970s and 1980s, the slugging 1964 Twins, and one way the Colorado Rockies might go out in a blaze of fire, weird new GM hire or no. Then we go back to episode 21 for two tales of Hall of Fame catchers under extreme duress.

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand ...
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Infinite Inning 351: The World Series and the Surplus of Piggies

November 1, 2025 • 73 mins
We spend the episode in 1933. First, Will Rogers comments on the broadcasts in a way which suggests that not much has changed between the start of on-air baseball commentary and its current state. Then we turn to the World Series and the government anti-hunger programs that arose at the precise moment that the Washington Senators were about to make their last bellyflop off the championship high-dive, and what each says about their ...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 22 (047): Home Run Hitting in Major League is Becoming Farce

October 30, 2025 • 56 mins
A slightly discursive rainy-day episode in which we question the unlikely players who have hit three home runs in a game and ask if the Rockies-Pirates season series was really necessary before examining two players who were called “Fat”—Fothergill and Fitzsimmons. 

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...
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Infinite Inning 350: Overlooked Baseball - The Greater Bullet and the Lesser Babe

October 25, 2025 • 57 mins
First we make amends to a great of the game who was not only left out of last week’s Shohei Ohtani-Babe Ruth approbation, but was poorly served by baseball (and Baseball). Then we jump from the bizarre Muncy double play of NLCS Game 1 to the most famous baserunning mishap of the Dodgers’ Brooklyn years.  

The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mi...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 21 (093): Baseball and the Unlimited National Emergency

October 23, 2025 • 57 mins
In both this week’s new remarks and our reissue, we go back to pre-Pearl Harbor 1941 and the days when Joe DiMaggio was, day by day, counting up hits and the president, without the medium of television available to him, spoke on a nationwide radio broadcast—an event so new that it caused a major league game to be put on pause. Meet the old boss, different than the new boss, because the world was demonstrably on fire. Then we return...
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Infinite Inning 349: The Very Complicated Bat Factory

October 18, 2025 • 53 mins
We observe the passing of the Milwaukee Brewers out of the championship picture via Casey Stengel (who once managed the minor league Brewers to a championship) mourning a day Whitey Ford was outdueled by a journeyman. Then we go back to 1965 to note the difference between a protest and a riot, theorize about what the latter implies about its participants, and finish with a sincere attempt to alleviate the pain of one of America’s w...
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Infinite Inning Reissue 20 (072): An Injured Pitcher, an Injured Country, and a Hurricane

October 16, 2025 • 48 mins
In this week’s new remarks, we observe how quaint the racial dialogue of 2018 was (or at least your host’s was) in light of what was coming down the line for the nation. After a brief discussion of protest and backlash, we proceed to flash back to episode 72’s discussion of how the same message can be heard differently in the context of race (that’s the quaint part), revisit an oft-injured left-hander who was a low-key Red Sox grea...
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