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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 incredible, and also a blueprint for how to become a baseball broadcaster. His life is a tapestry of incredible connections, perseverance, and fantastic moments created by simply being himself. Come along for the ride that is Ed Randall.

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 disappearances of Mel Allen, Red Barber, and Phil Rizzuto, and why their silences lingered longer than their calls.

In this episode, we discuss the career and life of Gabby Street, and we also take a look at what some people call the greatest Allstar game in history, which occurred 22 years before the first official Allstar game in Major League Baseball.

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 for doing something history said couldn’t be done. In this episode, I revisit 1961 and the story baseball got wrong.

Some say that Napoleon Lajoie is the first real baseball superstar, and there's good evidence for this. Come along as I explore Lajoie's career and incredible accomplishments in this installment of extra innings.

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, and we might get a glimpse of what's to come with home run derbies of the future. 

I continue the series exploring the lives and careers of Mr. Burns' old-school allstar team. This episode, I dive into the life of Mordecai Three-Finger Brown.

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 about or hear on the radio, but watched. This episode tells the rarely discussed story of how television shaped Robinson’s fame, magnified the pressure he carried, and helped transform American culture in ways no box score could capture.

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 their imagination for grainy black-and-white flicker. And yet, one messy, chaotic, barely-watchable baseball experiment in 1939 sparked a revolution. In this episode, I trace the improbable origin story of baseball on television, from the fuzzy “little white flies” of the first broadcast to the national shared experiences that made America rush to buy a set for themselves. This is the story of how a single game, and a single swing, helped sell a country on an idea that would transform the future.

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 for the next sixty years as the most flexible, reliable way to experience a game away from the ballpark. In this episode, I discuss the history of this breakthrough, along with some of the iconic personalities that benefited from the invisible waves that carried their voices to the most remote reaches of the country, and world.

In this episode, I discuss three different mysteries related to oldschool ballplayer, Harry Hooper, who gained more popularity after his inclusion in the Simpsons episode, Homer at the Bat.

Completing this episode on baseball recreation got me to thinking about other types of "accepted" pretending or lying in society, and I thought, what a great discussion it would be to compare recreation and Santa Claus. I hope you enjoy, and have your own ideas and opinions to contribute.

In this episode, I begin a new series, turning the list of names from Mr. Burns' old-time all star team into three-dimensional human beings. We start with Pie Traynor, the man with the funny name, who turned out to be one of the most human and humane players in the history of the game.

The story of the 1987 Salt Lake Trappers is fascinating and deeply emotional, specifically because the team was not a major league club.

In this episode, I explore various factors to determine whether Babe Ruth or Shohei Ohtani is the bigger unicorn in baseball history.