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Bonus Episode: What the Heck is the World Baseball League?
A chance encounter involving the Hall of Fame plaque of Willie Mays leads to an audacious idea: reinvent baseball. In this episode, with the help of Gaines Johnson, I explore the strange and…
S4E17 E17: The Last Broadcast
In this season finale, I reflect on the surprising origin stories surrounding the advances in technology that made broadcasting in baseball possible. I also discuss the future path of broadcasting.…
Bonus Episode: More Than Just a Game
In the spirit of the World Baseball Classic, I put together an episode about this event, its origins, and the journey of one national team that has evolved along with the tournament. And what it…
E16: The Last Laugh
A catcher with a .200 batting average. A career WAR of negative one. In most cases, a résumé like that disappears into the dustbin of baseball history. But this player turned six seasons of…
S4E15 E15: Summer, Interrupted
There was a time when a baseball broadcast asked nothing of you. No sponsors. No jingles. Just the game and the voice describing it. Then one day, a ten-second watch commercial changed everything,…
S4E14 E14: Baseball Through the Lens of TV Drama
Baseball has always been more than a game on television. It’s a doorway. In this episode, we move through three very different TV dramas: The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and The Wonder Years, each…
S4E13 E13: Ed Randall, The Makings of a Broadcaster
Before the voice became familiar to millions, Ed Randall was just a New York City kid who was obsessed with baseball. In this episode, I talk with Randall about a story that is both unique and…
S4E12 E12: When They Vanished
For years, three voices defined the sound of Yankees baseball. Then one vanished. Then another. And finally, the last walked away. This episode investigates the unanswered questions behind the…
S4E11 E11: The Curse of 61
Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s most sacred record, and baseball never forgave him. Labeled unfairly, burdened by an asterisk, and judged by a narrative that ignored the facts, Maris paid a heavy price…
S4E10 E10: The Strange History of Home Run Derby
In this episode, I explore the strange and overlooked history of what has become an event that rivals the allstar game for American popularity. Through this history, we see how baseball has changed,…
S4E9 Ep9: The Athlete Television Made a Star
Jackie Robinson arrived at exactly the right moment, not just in baseball, but in media history. As television spread into American homes, Robinson became the first athlete millions didn’t just read…
S4E8 Ep8: The Game that Sold America on Television
In the beginning, experts swore television would never matter. Viewers would tire of “staring at a plywood box.” Baseball could never be captured on one screen, and no one would trade the color of…
S4E7 Ep7: The Voices We Carried
In the 1950s, baseball broadcasts on television were expanding, and this fairly new technology was starting to catch up to radio in sports coverage, until a groundbreaking innovation cemented radio…
S4E6 Ep6: Homer at the Bat
Like broadcasts and broadcasters of the early days, the 1992 Simpsons episode, Homer at the Bat, shaped the lives of millions. It made people laugh, it connected people more deeply with their…
S4E5 Ep5: The Golden Age of Baseball and Radio
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…
S4E4 Ep4: The Recreators
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…
S4 Bonus: An Interview with Kelyn Ikegami, director of "The Streak"
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…
S4E3 Ep3: The Day Baseball Found Its Voice
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…
S4E2 Ep2: The Swing Heard 'Round The World
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…
S4E1 Ep1: A Love Letter to Phil Rizzuto
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…
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Midnight Library of Baseball has published 87 episodes since November 2023, covering topics in Baseball, History.
Midnight Library of Baseball is currently active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 38m.
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