Episodes

  • Infinite Inning 351: The World Series and the Surplus of Piggies

    Infinite Inning 351: The World Series and the Surplus of Piggies
    Nov 1 2025
    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 time and ours, when we are (as we speak) fighting about some of the same issues.

    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?
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Infinite Inning Reissue 22 (047): Home Run Hitting in Major League is Becoming Farce

    Infinite Inning Reissue 22 (047): Home Run Hitting in Major League is Becoming Farce
    Oct 31 2025
    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 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? “Bear Angry Growl” by celldroid
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    57 mins
  • Infinite Inning 350: Overlooked Baseball - The Greater Bullet and the Lesser Babe

    Infinite Inning 350: Overlooked Baseball - The Greater Bullet and the Lesser Babe
    Oct 25 2025
    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 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?
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    57 mins
  • Infinite Inning Reissue 21 (093): Baseball and the Unlimited National Emergency

    Infinite Inning Reissue 21 (093): Baseball and the Unlimited National Emergency
    Oct 23 2025
    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 to a segment about a manager getting too much credit for helping, which seems timely in a postseason in which managers are taking a good deal of deserved credit for inflicting harm.

    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?
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    57 mins
  • Infinite Inning 349: The Very Complicated Bat Factory

    Infinite Inning 349: The Very Complicated Bat Factory
    Oct 18 2025
    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 worst urban riots by making a new kind of bat.

    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?
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    54 mins
  • Infinite Inning Reissue 20 (072): An Injured Pitcher, an Injured Country, and a Hurricane

    Infinite Inning Reissue 20 (072): An Injured Pitcher, an Injured Country, and a Hurricane
    Oct 16 2025
    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 great, and drop by Casey Stengel sailing uneasily through the great hurricane of 1938.

    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?
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    48 mins
  • Infinite Inning 348: The 1925 World Series Without Tears

    Infinite Inning 348: The 1925 World Series Without Tears
    Oct 11 2025
    We note the passing of Mike Greenwell and an odd time to be an injured player with the Red Sox, and observe the cruel turns fate can take. Continuing on that theme, we go back to the 1925 World Series and ask if Roger Peckinpaugh was truly a goat, just wet, or perhaps some wet-goat combination?

    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?
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    1 hr
  • Infinite Inning Reissue 18 (067): Ballplayers and Pastries Above Replacement-Level

    Infinite Inning Reissue 18 (067): Ballplayers and Pastries Above Replacement-Level
    Oct 8 2025
    In both this week’s new remarks and in the reissue segment we revisit our obligation to think critically and how the concept of WAR can help us frame the abstract concepts of “better” and “worse,” and that comes to baseball players, politics, and, yes, chain and independent-bakery coffee rolls—that is, WADD (Wins Above Dunkin Donuts). How many more apples is Aaron Judge than the number of apples you need or want? We even find Luke Skywalker utilizing the replacement-level concept in “Star Wars.” We also find time for some tales of Josh Gibson! Mostly, though, we’re here for the donuts and the wins—or the lack thereof.

    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?
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    47 mins