The Infinite Inning is an ongoing podcast that exists at the intersection of baseball, history, politics, and culture. Steven Goldman uses stories set in the past to create analogies to today’s events, whether in sports or in our world at large. He also talks to an array of guests, among them a regular rotation of co-hosts.
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A Negro Leagues great with a odd nickname opts out of education and into baseball, and we revisit the day that Philadelphia fans booed not Santa Claus but the President of the United States.
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?
Two stories begin in different times and places, but both converge on the same great player and the same great lesson. Starring a plethora of Hall of Famers, among them some of the greatest Yankees of all time, a third baseman better remembered today than he was in his time, and a pitcher who had just one great, strange day, but who lived happily ever after in all the ways that count.
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?
Tiny Bonham and William Shakespeare revisited, Steve Trout, Don Mattingly, 20-run losses, and dealing with loss.
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?
A pitcher who only got one chance, an antisocial Hall of Famer who got many, and the one time he didn’t fight, the Max Kepler Ass-Ad (Lucky Larry) and Reggie for Panasonic, and the submarine pitcher killed by an aspect or two of the American Way.
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?
Due to a case of Covid, we have a mini-episode this week in which the pandemic is ruminated upon and a catcher of ancient days bungles the dismount.
A cluster of insanity among 19th century players with Louisville, starring a Gladiator and a Chicken, with resonance to the present day. Plus we visit a forgotten MVP-level season authored by Silent George Stone, pause for a what-if moment with Whitey Herzog as Rockies manager, and so much more.
Gibberish by Timbre, Metrostock99, JohnLaVine333, Vtrmrll, Djgriffin, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Casual Observer. Bell by Nlux.
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?
For very personal but with luck very premature reasons, we ask whether the great Giants manager John McGraw ever made peace with his father and explore the confused timeline of his passing before briefly discussing a badly failed prospect from the extremely early Yankees, with stops along the way.
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?
Christy Mathewson pitches one of his worst best games and John McGraw gets ejected, though probably not because of his umbrella; Gene Woodling smokes a pipe while playing for the Mets; and does complete conformity make for better ballplayers, with or without their choice of peanut butter?
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? NOW IN ITS SEVENTH YEAR!
A Yankees player’s marriage goes wrong faster than he could steal bases and Judge Landis makes a category error.
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?
A return engagement for Pepper Martin in which he loses his cool in a big way and we consider an obscure reliever… With a cameo from the late M*A*S*H star McLean Stevenson?
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?
Young Ruth Nollard meets the wrong baseball player in 1900, and we realize that in some ways very little has changed, plus a number of famous players come to the border and some try to turn them away.
Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussion of stalking, possible sexual assault, and murder.
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?
In which the hazards of playing baseball without first properly girding one’s loins is investigated through the person of Pepper Martin, with other plentiful stops along the trail.
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman, rotating cohosts Jesse Spector, Cliff Corcoran, and David Roth, and occasional guests discuss 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?
The host is sick, Dizzy Dean is overweight, and an umpire threatens to do the impossible to a rookie second baseman.
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman, rotating cohosts Jesse Spector, Cliff Corcoran, and David Roth, and occasional guests discuss 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?
A pitcher has a dominant game despite accusations that his balls are greasy, and then we go to the immediate postwar period to discuss the early days of the Cold War, its relationship to the current election, and what should be the fundamental goal of all governments: Keep Ted Williams on the field.
Sources for this Episode include: In the Time of the Americans (David Fromkin); The United States and the Origins of the Cold War (John Lewis Gaddis); Strategies of Containment (Gaddis); The Cold War: A New History (Gaddis); A Covenant with Power (Lloyd C. Gardner); The Wise Men (Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas); America, Russia, and the Cold War (Walter LaFeber); The Origins of the Cold War (Thomas G. Paterson and Robert J. McMahon, eds).
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman, rotating cohosts Jesse Spector, Cliff Corcoran, and David Roth, and occasional guests discuss 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?
This week, a lighthearted look at a Hall of Famer who spent four games demolishing one of Casey Stengel’s early teams and then an extended discussion of a catcher and a pitcher who both had off-the-field habits that rendered them (or should have) unfit to play.
Trigger Warning: There is an extended discussion of domestic violence and sexual assault, in sometimes graphic terms, in this episode. “Crazy Horse Intro” by Groan Aderic-Agi.
The Infinite Inning is not only about baseball but a state of mind. Steven Goldman, rotating cohosts Jesse Spector, Cliff Corcoran, and David Roth, and occasional guests discuss 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?