Midnight Library of Baseball

In this episode, I discuss the complicated relationship between radio and baseball, and how, when baseball was resisting, radio was sneaking in through every back door in America. I tell the stories of some iconic announcers of the day, like Red Barber, who nearly quit when he heard Branch Rickey was going to sign Jackie Robinson.

Step into the forgotten world of baseball recreation, a unique phenomenon created to fill an enormous void in baseball coverage during the 1920s to the 1950s, a strange blending of truth and fiction that connected millions to the game and their heroes, and introduced millions to a young recreator named Ronald Reagan, who cited baseball recreation as a valuable tool in his journey through American politics. 

The story of Kelyn Ikegami developing and completing this documentary is as fascinating as the story itself: a bunch of ragtag minor leaguers relegated to the baseball graveyard, only to resurrect their story in legendary fashion. I really enjoyed our conversation just as I really enjoyed the documentary, which you can find on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Links to film at Apple and Amazon

Before Graham McNamee, there was basic reporting of the game by broadcasters, and long dead silences between plays. But the opera singer turned broadcaster changed the way people listening to their radio interacted with the game, and he paved the way for the type of broadcasting we know and love today. Tune in to listen to this story and more.

Radio was floundering in its early days. People didn’t know what to make of it. Baseball owners were afraid of it, and for the first years of radio broadcasting, there was no banter, only dead air between plays. In the midst of this lull came an athlete and personality who bewitched a nation, and was single-handedly responsible for the spread of millions of radios across the country. But the reasons for the “Babe Ruth addiction” are not as obvious as they may seem.

In this first episode of Season 4, I discuss a lie I’ve been telling myself for 40 years about who my favorite team actually was, and I begin the amazing journey of baseball broadcasting. Before there was television, there was radio, and before that, there was the telegraph and the amazing broadcasting innovations that came from this limited technology, like scoreboard baseball, and ballgames performed, live, in opera houses. But the first radio broadcasts were missing one crucial ingredient.

I sit down with Jeffrey Lambert to have a fun debate about whether or not certain players should be included on record lists, and whether we should be comparing players from different eras in the first place. You can find the Rounders podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rounders-a-history-of-baseball-in-america/id1415099174. And you can find a new MLoB episode at https://www.patreon.com/midnightlibraryofbaseball/about?

It’s easy to compare numbers on paper, but what happens when we do a deep dive into the times and worlds in which Cal Ripken Jr and Lou Gehrig lived? In this final episode of Season 3, I pull back the curtain on what training, medicine, culture, and competition looked like for each man in his day, to get a much better idea of where each man stood in the realm of baseball legacy.

I had the pleasure recently of sitting down with prolific baseball author Robert Elias. We talk about the amazing and overlooked life of ballplayer Danny Gardella, the man of a thousand nicknames who receives little credit for how significantly he changed the game. You can find Elias’s book on Amazon, but send a message to midnightlibraryofbaseball@gmail.com for a discount code.

In this episode, I explore several key factors that would have helped or hurt Gehrig and Ripken Jr in their pursuit of the consecutive game streak. This comparison will also shed light on each player’s baseball legacy. Who had it harder, considering the times. The answer might not be what you think.

Most people know Lou Gehrig as the Iron Horse, as the man who played more games than any other player, until Cal Ripken Jr. They know him as one of the best players in baseball history, period, and the man who had a disease named after him. In this episode, I shed light on lesser-known stories about the man, and how some hidden traits and tendencies point to the real motivations behind his wish to play indefinitely without taking a break.

Cal Ripken Jr and Lou Gehrig are well known for their consecutive game streaks. But what about the third man on the all-time list? Had circumstances been slightly different, his name would be the name we all know, we all talk about. And yet, most of us have never heard of him. Tonight, I move his fascinating story from the dark corners of history, into the light.

n the early 1900s, there was no such thing as a consecutive games streak, because nobody followed it. Until a man named Al Munro Elias brought the statistic into the public consciousness. Even then, few players actively chose to pursue the streak. So of all the people to attempt this feat, of all the people to do what no one else had come close to doing after Lou Gehrig, why Cal Ripken Jr? In this episode, I try to get to the bottom of this question.

The consecutive game streak is not just something that happened with Cal Ripken Jr. The whole, fascinating story involves Lou Gehrig, dozens of aspiring ballplayers, statistical pioneers, and a rollercoaster of emotions, perceptions, and changed minds regarding a record people ignored, ridiculed, and finally, revered.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is known in baseball history as the man who saved baseball, the man who took charge, and acted. But he is also known as the man who did nothing in some of the biggest issues to ever occur in the major leagues? Was he a man who intentionally stood in the way of human rights and progress, or was he simply a man of his time?

In the second part of this 3-part series, I dive into Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ transition from federal judge to first baseball commissioner, and what happens when the judge gets down to business. Lives will be destroyed. More conspiracies uncovered. But while he’s cleaning up baseball, Landis is also willfully preventing millions of Americans from enjoying the game. The man seen as a saint, as a tough-as-nails hero, is not quite as shiny and pure as advertised.

For all the known controversies and unbelievable stories surrounding Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, there are just as many mysteries. In this episode, I dig into the origin story of the man who shaped baseball like no other commissioner in the history of the game.

I sit down with Scott Miller to discuss his new book about the relevance of managers, fifty years ago, and today. I love the overlooked and misunderstood parts of the game, and during our conversation, Scott Miller does not disappoint.

In this episode, I uncover some hidden stories and unforeseen outcomes of night games in Major League Baseball, including a son who learned, after his father’s death, how integral his father had been in the development of lights in the game.

In this episode, I dig into the question, why did it take Major League Baseball 55 years to introduce the night game, when the first night game actually occurred in 1880? I’ll explore the reasons, and the overlooked consequences to millions of fans.