The Infinite Inning #050: Shoeless Joe Didn't Floss

Jacob Pomrenke, editor of Scandal on the South Side: The 1919 Chicago White Sox and SABR’s Director of Editorial Content joins Steve to explore the relevance of the Black Sox to our time, appreciate and criticize both the book Eight Men Out and its filmed counterpart, and attempt to fix the roles of both Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver in throwing the World Series. In addition, this week Steve offers tales of an unappreciated player from the 1940s and of the world of the Black Sox as seen from a small room with just one exit located in the Washington DC of 1923.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Roy Cullenbine and What Might Seem Like an Inappropriate Comparison to Vincent Van Gogh*“My God, How the Money Rolls In!”*Jacob Pomrenke: Are the Black Sox still relevant?*When all sports were corrupt*Shoeless Joe: Victim or Villain?*The Triples-to-Left Theory of Guilt*Entombed in the Hall of Fame*Illiterate doesn’t mean unintelligent*The most heroic act is failure*The duality of Charles Comiskey*The “Hey, Barney!” Affair*When gamblers were in the stands*Judge Landis’s mandate*Buck Weaver is a man for today*The Lefty Williams Blackmail Myth*John Sayles’ “Eight Men Out”*How the government changed the way baseball players look*SABR in the era of Bowling Alone*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?