Stan welcomes back to the podcast historian David Henkin of the University of California, Berkeley, to talk about his latest book, Out of the Ballpark: How to Think About Baseball (Oxford University Press, 2026). Henkin strips away the mythology that has accumulated around baseball in the United States and rejects the notion that understanding the game requires focusing solely on what happens on the diamond, choosing instead to explore the game’s history, it’s obsession with rulebooks and statistics, the game’s “clubs” and “leagues,” mass media, and the international appeal of this wonderful and enduring pastime.