Steven Goldman
@stevengoldman.bsky.social
Casey Stengel biographer. Shanty Hogan chronicler. Infinite Inning podcast host. Baseball Prospectus author and Consulting Editor. Collector of far too many books. | https://www.baseballprospectus.com/show/the-infinite-inning/
From 1924. Specifics (a La Follette-looking guy trying to walk in TR's backwards shoes) aside, it's sorta depressing that putting on your shoes backwards and walking into yourself is the eternal story of liberalism in America sans some discrete periods like 1933-1937 or so.
November 12, 2025 at 8:10 PM
From 1924. Specifics (a La Follette-looking guy trying to walk in TR's backwards shoes) aside, it's sorta depressing that putting on your shoes backwards and walking into yourself is the eternal story of liberalism in America sans some discrete periods like 1933-1937 or so.
Came across a review of this novel while spelunking 1939-1940 newspapers. Oddly timed wish fulfillment then and struck me the same sort of way now... but someday!
November 10, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Came across a review of this novel while spelunking 1939-1940 newspapers. Oddly timed wish fulfillment then and struck me the same sort of way now... but someday!
This week's Infinite Inning: A typical day of baseball yields to a night of murder, with a young life inexplicably snuffed out due to a young man who had never acted out before or after. A look back at May 8, 1949 on and off the field: www.spreaker.com/episode/infi...
November 10, 2025 at 6:01 PM
This week's Infinite Inning: A typical day of baseball yields to a night of murder, with a young life inexplicably snuffed out due to a young man who had never acted out before or after. A look back at May 8, 1949 on and off the field: www.spreaker.com/episode/infi...
1949 installment of the comic strip "Penny," by Harry Haenigsen. I often have this problem, and since I've gotten used to sleeping with white noise of various kinds (vocal cats) I experience it if trying to sleep in a quiet room. Is there a word for finding a silence distractingly loud?
November 7, 2025 at 7:36 PM
1949 installment of the comic strip "Penny," by Harry Haenigsen. I often have this problem, and since I've gotten used to sleeping with white noise of various kinds (vocal cats) I experience it if trying to sleep in a quiet room. Is there a word for finding a silence distractingly loud?
1949: Why does Mutt's kid resemble Jeff? What was going on between Mrs. Mutt and Mutt's best friend (or, just as often, frenemy)? Has Mutt been the victim of the ultimate prank?
November 7, 2025 at 1:31 AM
1949: Why does Mutt's kid resemble Jeff? What was going on between Mrs. Mutt and Mutt's best friend (or, just as often, frenemy)? Has Mutt been the victim of the ultimate prank?
Came across the "Funnyman" strip while researching some 1949 baseball. Two comments:
1. This was by Superman's creators, Siegel and Shuster, trying to prop themselves up while suing DC over revenues. Alas, it didn't work.
2. "He's your father, Tommy!" A likely story and a classic album by the Who.
1. This was by Superman's creators, Siegel and Shuster, trying to prop themselves up while suing DC over revenues. Alas, it didn't work.
2. "He's your father, Tommy!" A likely story and a classic album by the Who.
November 4, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Came across the "Funnyman" strip while researching some 1949 baseball. Two comments:
1. This was by Superman's creators, Siegel and Shuster, trying to prop themselves up while suing DC over revenues. Alas, it didn't work.
2. "He's your father, Tommy!" A likely story and a classic album by the Who.
1. This was by Superman's creators, Siegel and Shuster, trying to prop themselves up while suing DC over revenues. Alas, it didn't work.
2. "He's your father, Tommy!" A likely story and a classic album by the Who.
Subterranean Homesick Mayor. Wish I could vote for him.
November 3, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Subterranean Homesick Mayor. Wish I could vote for him.
This policing makes me wonder why, if these foods are w/o value, they are sold at all. The psychology of buying the "wrong" or "irresponsible" thing w/scarce money was addressed by the great Meridel Le Sueur in 1932. I quoted this passage in this week's Infinite Inning. So, yes, have some empathy.
November 2, 2025 at 10:59 PM
This policing makes me wonder why, if these foods are w/o value, they are sold at all. The psychology of buying the "wrong" or "irresponsible" thing w/scarce money was addressed by the great Meridel Le Sueur in 1932. I quoted this passage in this week's Infinite Inning. So, yes, have some empathy.
I'm amused that in 1922 America enough people were engaged in the art of the blancmange that it made sense to try to entice them into buying your filling brand. "Hey, mom? Can I have dinner over at Jimmy's? His mom is making a blancmange!"
October 30, 2025 at 11:43 PM
I'm amused that in 1922 America enough people were engaged in the art of the blancmange that it made sense to try to entice them into buying your filling brand. "Hey, mom? Can I have dinner over at Jimmy's? His mom is making a blancmange!"
One of the reasons the Republicans suffered a landslide loss in November 1932 was their (Herbert Hoover's) insistence that relief was a local and not a federal responsibility, and in any case it was morally wrong because not starving to death would erode your work-ethic.
October 30, 2025 at 8:47 PM
One of the reasons the Republicans suffered a landslide loss in November 1932 was their (Herbert Hoover's) insistence that relief was a local and not a federal responsibility, and in any case it was morally wrong because not starving to death would erode your work-ethic.
Some of the managerial decisions this postseason got me thinking about tests you just can't pass, a 1962 New Yorker story about the same, and the time the Yankees IBB'd a PH who was barely ambulatory due to vertigo and a badly injured ankle. www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...
October 30, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Some of the managerial decisions this postseason got me thinking about tests you just can't pass, a 1962 New Yorker story about the same, and the time the Yankees IBB'd a PH who was barely ambulatory due to vertigo and a badly injured ankle. www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...
He's going to team up with...
October 29, 2025 at 1:23 AM
He's going to team up with...
See also: Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger, May 1, 1920.
October 28, 2025 at 6:56 AM
See also: Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger, May 1, 1920.
On 9/15/1941, Dodgers and Reds played a game that Leo Durocher talked about for the rest of his life because it was a scoreless tie through 16 and Leo kept starter Johnny Allen in the whole way, telling him, "One more, just one more. We'll get you some runs, I swear." And it was just... a lie.
October 28, 2025 at 6:46 AM
On 9/15/1941, Dodgers and Reds played a game that Leo Durocher talked about for the rest of his life because it was a scoreless tie through 16 and Leo kept starter Johnny Allen in the whole way, telling him, "One more, just one more. We'll get you some runs, I swear." And it was just... a lie.
NYT, October, 1933. I realize "Dog bites man" is supposed to be the most jejune thing ever, but I can't imagine this version happens too often. Did he lean in to SNIFF the dog?
October 27, 2025 at 11:26 PM
NYT, October, 1933. I realize "Dog bites man" is supposed to be the most jejune thing ever, but I can't imagine this version happens too often. Did he lean in to SNIFF the dog?
I admit I cheated to pull together two lines from a 1933 NYT book review, eliminating a lot of stuff in between, I think for the better. Oddly enough, the second line refers to a book about "the Reno divorce market."
October 27, 2025 at 9:58 PM
I admit I cheated to pull together two lines from a 1933 NYT book review, eliminating a lot of stuff in between, I think for the better. Oddly enough, the second line refers to a book about "the Reno divorce market."
PS, I found Eric Nusbaum's book very good on that:
October 27, 2025 at 9:37 PM
PS, I found Eric Nusbaum's book very good on that:
The [future] compound, ie Battery West? "Take the Skybucket to the ballpark courtesy of noted incompetent Frank McCourt!" is not a great pitch. It would invite the same questions as shots of Spider-Man swinging in the middle of the street or above buildings: What is that wire attached to? Anything?
October 27, 2025 at 9:00 PM
The [future] compound, ie Battery West? "Take the Skybucket to the ballpark courtesy of noted incompetent Frank McCourt!" is not a great pitch. It would invite the same questions as shots of Spider-Man swinging in the middle of the street or above buildings: What is that wire attached to? Anything?
A new week means a new Infinite Inning podcast! Baseball, history, and baseball history for our mutual edification and education. Also: totally not my fault that Casey shows up in this one. Join me! www.spreaker.com/episode/infi...
October 27, 2025 at 7:26 PM
A new week means a new Infinite Inning podcast! Baseball, history, and baseball history for our mutual edification and education. Also: totally not my fault that Casey shows up in this one. Join me! www.spreaker.com/episode/infi...
What free speech-citing apologists like Mrs. Booth here miss is that being a Nazi isn't just a "difference of opinion," it makes you an explicit threat to a LOT of people.
October 27, 2025 at 7:16 PM
What free speech-citing apologists like Mrs. Booth here miss is that being a Nazi isn't just a "difference of opinion," it makes you an explicit threat to a LOT of people.
We've been arguing about work and "welfare" for over a hundred years, and the hooray-for-me/to-hell-with-you talking points of the right have never varied by a syllable.
October 27, 2025 at 2:46 AM
We've been arguing about work and "welfare" for over a hundred years, and the hooray-for-me/to-hell-with-you talking points of the right have never varied by a syllable.
We never gave food assistance to the poor because they were lazy, but because if you're poor for systemic reasons or even due to bad luck, do you deserve illness and death? When you let the innocent suffer we are all harmed by the meanness of the world we created. Re a 1932 study on hunger in Phila:
October 26, 2025 at 10:55 PM
We never gave food assistance to the poor because they were lazy, but because if you're poor for systemic reasons or even due to bad luck, do you deserve illness and death? When you let the innocent suffer we are all harmed by the meanness of the world we created. Re a 1932 study on hunger in Phila:
Thos line appeared in the Atlantic in 1940 re inadequate food assistance. Thanks to Let 'Em Eat Ballroom Republicans, it's about to be true again.
October 26, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Thos line appeared in the Atlantic in 1940 re inadequate food assistance. Thanks to Let 'Em Eat Ballroom Republicans, it's about to be true again.
Ronald Reagan, May 1975:
October 26, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Ronald Reagan, May 1975:
Mr. Schneider comes to us from 1963. So do every one of these headlines.
October 24, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Mr. Schneider comes to us from 1963. So do every one of these headlines.