Midnight Library of Baseball

I had the pleasure recently of sitting down with Dan Levitt and Mark Armour, authors of the book, Intentional Balk: Baseball’s Thin Line Between Innovation And Cheating. We dig into the gray areas of cheating, what cheating and innovation have meant to baseball, baseball fans, and Mark and Dan. We also discuss where the game is headed and what kind of cheating and innovation we might see in the future.
More info about the book is at https://intentionalbalkbook.com and the book can also be found at https://www.amazon.com/Intentional-Balk-Baseballs-Innovation-Cheating/dp/B09ZZXTB7G

In terms of traditional stats that have misled fans, players, and managers for decades, the pitcher win is a whopper. In this episode I discuss the origins and many examples and reasons why wins and saves have been so problematic, and also why we love them all the same.

A few of the pillars of baseball statistics contain serious flaws, but it can be hard to turn away from them. In this episode, I discuss the historical reasons for trusting these stats, the consequences of this trust, and the reasons why so many closed their eyes to the truth for so long.

Before there were leagues in baseball, there was barnstorming, and as major league baseball expanded, with its rules, revenue, and discrimination, barnstorming remained to remind players and fans what baseball was, when stripped down to nothing but the game.

In this episode, I explore the origins and background of various popular substances in Major League Baseball, and the entertaining and heartbreaking stories that go with them. From Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD, to the tragic end to one of the best players in the game in his prime, to the debate of performance enhancing drugs and some surprising arguments.

There are a lot of surprising twists and turns in the history of tobacco in Major League Baseball. In this episode, I will answer why smokeless tobacco was so popular during the origins of baseball, why it then almost disappeared, and how it roared back despite its known dangers. 

I’ve written about both The Natural and Field of Dreams, so I thought it would be fun to compare the two films, based on a number of different criteria, to see, in the end, which film came out ahead.

In this episode, I talk with Jason Turbow, author of “The Baseball Codes, the Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime,” about his updated views on the code since writing the book and viewing the changes in baseball. 

People think they know what they saw in 1993 between Nolan Ryan and Robin Ventura, just like they think they know what they saw in the 1996 collision between Albert Belle and Fernando Vina. But they don’t, because behind the scenes, the code was dictating the behaviors and actions of players. In this episode, I break down some of the most important and interesting elements of the code, elements that the baseball world works hard to keep secret.

Before Roy Hobbs of “The Natural,” there was Eddie Waitkus, a star of the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies, whose forgotten true story was more fascinating than the fiction that came after.