Explore every episode of the podcast Midnight Library of Baseball

Today the idea of paying to see a baseball game is perfectly normal, but there was a time when this notion was insane, and this new breed of human, known as the fan, was considered out of their minds. In this episode, I explore with a number of expert guests, the very beginning of professional baseball, and how it changed so much in America. 

Over the last 100+ years, we've come to associate amateur sports (Olympics, college sports), with purity, sanctity, honor. In many cases, athletes trying to turn professional and make money from their performance has been seen as dirty, dishonorable. This conflict is at the heart of a scandal surrounding Jim Creighton, and it has to do with a skewed understanding of where amateurism came from in the first place. Tonight we discover the truth. 

In this episode, I talk to a living, breathing reincarnation of Jim Creighton, to shed light on historical mysteries that have been lost to time. I'll also talk with Tom Gilbert to figure out exactly how fast Creighton was throwing, and what the difference between his speed and the speed of his contemporaries would look like today. Here's a hint. It would have looked bonkers! 

The knuckleball is not only the most mysterious, most fascinating pitch in baseball, it might also be the most interesting phenomenon in all of sports. In this episode, I talk with journalist and documentarian Brian Gaffney about the story of the knuckle ball and how his three sons pursued this elusive pitch, and are still pursuing it. The full story can be found in Brian's book, The School of Hard Knucks, recently published and available online. 

We've been talking about how Jim Creighton broke the game of baseball. In this episode, we pull back the curtain and see exactly how he did something no other player could do. 

If you lived in New York in the 1850s, you would have heard of a game catching on that was extremely fast-paced. Blink and you'll miss it. What was this lightning-quick game? Baseball. Hard to believe, but this was the reality at the time. And then, in 1859, in stepped a pitcher who did something that stunned the baseball world. And the game would never be the same. 

 In this episode, I begin to explore the strange and still familiar game of baseball during Jim Creighton's day, and how the restrictions paved the way for his rebellion. Also, beyond the historical story is often the incredible work of the investigative historian, and here we begin to see the amazing work of Tom Gilbert and fellow historians in untangling the mess of the past to bring us some wonderful gems. 

There are stories that come along once in a while that send sparks flying inside your brain. That's what happened to me when Tom Gilbert first told me about Jim Creighton, this young ballplayer alluded to in The Simpsons' episode, Homer at the Bat. Once seen, you can't unsee the hidden truths and amazing twists and turns of this story, beginning with the fact that when Jim Creighton died in 1862, he was already a superstar, his impact on baseball was monumental, and yet his death was distorted and changed, until eventually he and his story was erased from history. This is the beginning of an amazing tale. 

In this episode, I talk with Gaines Johnson, founder of The World Baseball League, about the progress of the league, what else Gaines has in mind, and the upcoming event at the Field of Dreams. After you listen, if you have questions or curiosity, you can check out theworldbaseballleague.com. 

In this episode, I debate with Matt Collins the merits of comparing players from different eras, and we discuss our own experiences with broadcasting and deeper takeaways from Season 4.

In this episode, Matt Collins and I explore the three-part 1919 Black Sox Scandal series from Season 3, to see what fresh questions and insights we can bring to this endlessly fascinating story. And there are many!

In this special “Best Of” edition of Midnight Library of Baseball, host Ben Orlando sits down with producer and collaborator Matt Collins to revisit the episodes listeners chose as their favorites. Together, they explore the hidden stories behind the stories: how certain moments came together, what surprised them in the reporting, and why these forgotten lives and unlikely baseball histories continue to resonate long after the final out. Part retrospective, part conversation, and part late-night wander through the archives, this episode opens the door to the deeper emotional threads connecting the series.

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 fascinating story behind the World Baseball League, and the possibility that the future of the game may look very different from its past.

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. As technology promises so much more, we’re left with an important question: What are we at risk of losing?

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 means for people of different countries with different beliefs to connect and grow together, through baseball.

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 mediocrity into a lifetime of fame, not by hiding his failures, but by turning them into comedy gold. This is the story of Bob Uecker, the man who made us laugh at baseball’s absurdity, and, in doing so, reminded us why it matters at all. 

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, and we never noticed what we were giving away. This is the story of how ads didn’t interrupt baseball, and then they did, and it was too late.

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 using baseball to explore time, memory, loss, and the things we can’t quite explain. From childhood afternoons that never really end, to games haunted by what’s missing, these stories reveal why baseball keeps showing up when television wants to talk about the human condition.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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 favorite sports heroes by humanizing these mythical figures, and it instilled a deeper curiosity for those on the periphery of the game. If you’re a fan of the Simpsons and baseball, there are many great stories about the making of this episode you won’t want to miss.

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.

What do hauntings look like in baseball, and where are ghosts most entrenched? In this episode, I answer these questions, and I explore some of the fascinating, overlooked elements of the most well known curse in baseball history.

In this episode, I try to solve the mystery of why Larry Luebbers spent the equivalent of $300,000 to rebuild Crosley Field on his farm, ten years before a fictional character named Ray Kinsella would decide to accomplish a similar feat.

In this episode, I dive deep into the story of a baseball museum described as both a compliment to and antithesis of Cooperstown, a place where players and people are recognized for their contributions and character, not their statistical accomplishments. A place that has been overlooked and undersold. A place that deserves more attention.

In this episode, I dive into the extraordinary life and career of Lefty O’Doul—a baseball legend whose impact on the game goes far beyond his unorthodox playing days. Despite his remarkable contributions both on and off the field, he remains absent from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Why has he been overlooked, and what can we learn from this amazing story?