Infinite Inning 233 Smells Like Hot Yogurt

Chats are back! David Roth returns to ask existential questions about Juan Soto, the billionaire class, and if the average person can develop Steve Blass’s disease. Plus tales: A reserve catcher has a fateful meeting with a man who brought dignity to a bodily function and several current players conjure a classic tale from the beginning of the 20th century due to their lack of vaccination. TABLE OF CONTENTSThe Reds Catcher and a Man Named Sneeze*Cardinals with White Feathers*1902, WHIT*David Roth: A Random Invocation of William Saroyan*Steve Sax, Steve Blass, and Someone Else Named Steve*Being Normal is Hard*Gore Vidal on Em-Dashes*Category Error at Fenway Park*It’s “The Time of Your Life”*Radical Despairing Empathy*Interrogating Nick Castellanos and Kindness to Joey Gallo (and Mackey Sasser)*Dick Young and Dave Egan*Ted Williams and Spider-Man*Sympathy for Horace Clarke*Andrew McCutchen and “Furries”*The Mets on the Brink*Who Mourns for the Nationals?*Are Americas Billionaires Depressed?*Full Circle to the Red Sox/You Can’t Win a World Series as a Cynic*The Temperature on the Field (And Everywhere Else)*Goodbyes.WARNING: On Roth week, we swear. Hide the sheep and console the shepherd. 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?