The Infinite Inning #043: Glad To Be Unhappy?

Baseball Prospectus writer Rachael McDaniel joins Steve to talk about surviving the offseason when baseball is your defense against time spent alone with yourself, plus Steve’s encounter with Chuck Knoblauch and twin tales of a great songwriter and a not-so-great pitcher from 1936.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chuck Knoblauch and the Chicken Française theory*Van Lingle Mungo and Larry Hart*Rachael McDaniel: Baseball Prospectus writer at 20*Baseball as a lens on experience and vice-versa*The Box*Finding baseball again after losing touch*The price of being candid* “Time is limited”/”Hurry up, please, it’s time”*The bird’s nest at the University of British Columbia*We can’t all be STEM kids*Knitting away anxiety*Does a poor postseason negate the enjoyment of the regular season?*Coping when your baseball coping device has been taken away*The aging Blue Jays and the departure of Josh Donaldson*Troy Tulowitzki/Don Mattingly*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?