Infinite Inning 373: Baseball and Helen's Missing Cup

Two managers dropped this week, but four teams haven’t fired a manager in-season since the last century. Which were they, and is there even a point? Then we travel back to 1887, the ill-fated marriage between a Hall of Famer and an actress, her personal gift to baseball, and the birth of a character type whose time has come again (no matter what anyone says). The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'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?