Infinite Inning 144: Pitching to Contact in a Pandemic

Cliff Corcoran returns and makes a game attempt to stick to sports and hates on The Sandlot, plus tales of ballpark fighting words of 1910 and bigotry and bacteria in early baseball. TABLE OF CONTENTS Ballpark Fighting Words 1910-Style With the Giants*Blue Stockings, Bigotry, and Bacteria*Cliff Corcoran: The Puppy is Not Ill*I Want a Pony/A Toddler with Sharp Teeth*Are Cats In It For Themselves?*Pandemics Above Replacement Level*Sticking to Sports: The Best Major League Player Performances of 2020: Trout vs. Scherzer*Didi Gregorius Heckler at the Crowd-Mic*Baseball Fans Failing at Averages/Getting the Game Back*Baseball at the Movies: Is Any Baseball Film as Good as the Best Films in General?*The first Rocky Movie*The Joe E. Brown Baseball Trilogy and Other Cliché Baseball Films (Cliff Hates The Sandlot)*Imagining a Robert Altman Baseball Film*The Disappointment of 42*Goodbyes. 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?