The Infinite Inning 062: The Great Disposable Ballpark Society

Business of baseball writer Maury Brown (Forbes) joins Steve to talk about the future of labor relations in the game, the shift from television to on-line viewing, the stadium-financing boondoggle, and more, plus tales of Pepper Martin and Joe DiMaggio in distress.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pepper Martin’s breaking point*Joltin’ Joe’s lack of leverage*Maury Brown: The usual hat talk*Do the players get a cut?*The players and online revenue*The legal landscape of a baseball labor war*Maury Year One (a Bay Area baseball upbringing with the Finley robot rabbit)*Remembering Doug Pappas*Grasping for balance in MLB business coverage*Gimmie Some Truth*The persistence of the ballpark boondoggle*The 2018 attendance slide*Does revenue-sharing create negative incentives?*Is Portland, Oregon a viable major league market*Maury shook you all night long*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?