Infinite Inning 142: Field the Tough Hops

Craig Calcaterra (Hardball Talk) returns to talk about the shape of things in baseball now, in the hypothetical future when the game returns, and in a random 1984 Rangers-Tigers game. Plus: Tales of managers killing pitchers from the 1940s, 80s, and 90s and Joe McCarthy of the Yankees promulgates a rule that has applications to the present.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
You had just ONE job (Pitcher-Killing Managers, Among Other Things)*The “Don Buddin Era” and Not Alibiing the Tough Hops*Craig Calcaterra: A Saturday Night Live thing*Larry David’s Baseball Bookshelf*Bad Baseball is Better Than No Baseball*The Collapse/Collapsing of the Minor Leagues*Does Major League Baseball Have an Obligation to Take Care of Its Indirect Workers?*What Will We Learn to Do Without?*Great Uncle Harry and the 1984 Tigers*That Ron Guidry Game*Remembering the 1984 Texas Rangers and Dave Stewart*Continuing to Obsess About Opposite-Field Hitting in 1977* “Clunky” McGillicuddy is Born*Second-Guessing the 1984 Draft*What Form Will the Season Takes, If There’s a Season?*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?