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PODCAST

Midnight Library of Baseball

bendavidorlando

In the Midnight Library of Baseball, Ben Orlando offers a unique perspective to historic and modern aspects of the game. He does so with no loud music and no jarring sounds. Tune in to discover the untold stories that make baseball so much more than a game.

sports baseball

All Episodes

53:28

E14: Baseball Through the Lens of TV Drama

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2026/02/07

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.

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37:40

E13: Ed Randall, The Makings of a Broadcaster

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2026/01/26

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.

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39:03

E12: When They Vanished

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2026/01/19

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.

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48:30

E11: The Curse of 61

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2026/01/10

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.

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34:53

E10: The Strange History of Home Run Derby

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/12/24

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.

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63:37

Ep9: The Athlete Television Made a Star

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/12/13

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.

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36:29

E8: The Game that Sold America on Television

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/11/23

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

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45:45

Ep.7: The Voices We Carried

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/11/14

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

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37:37

Ep6: Homer at the Bat

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/11/07

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.

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55:53

Ep. 5: The Golden Age of Baseball and Radio

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/11/01

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.

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39:28

Ep4: The Recreators

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/10/26

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.

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46:16

Bonus: An Interview with Kelyn Ikegami, director of...

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/10/20

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

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35:16

Ep3: The Day Baseball Found Its Voice

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/10/17

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.

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34:21

Ep2: The Swing Heard 'Round The World

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/10/12

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.

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46:18

Ep1: A Love Letter to Phil Rizzuto

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/10/03

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.

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52:45

Bonus Episode: Rounders Host Jeffrey Lambert Stops by...

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/08/16

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?

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54:16

Ep. 19: What if They Lived in Each Other's Time?

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/08/01

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.

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52:13

Bonus Episode: Robert Elias Stops By the Library

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/07/28

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.

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43:12

Ep. 18: Legacy in Only 2,131 Steps

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/07/26

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.

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58:39

Ep. 17: The Man Behind The Streak

Midnight Library of Baseball ·

2025/07/17

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.

en

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