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A summary of the 1951 World Series, won by the New York Yankees in six games over the New York Giants. Game One New York Giants 5, New York Yankees 1 October 4, 1951, at Yankee Stadium With the recurring sounds of “the Giants win the pennant!” still echoing, a World Series – even a […]

Opening Day, April 13, 1954, should have been one of the best days of Wally Moon’s life. Instead, it was turning out to be one of his worst.1 The heavy-browed, lean-jawed, 24-year-old rookie from Bay, Arkansas, was the starting center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. But as he came to bat for the first […]

Bobby Thomson’s home run in the bottom of the ninth in the third game of the 1951 National League playoff is generally considered baseball’s greatest walk-off home run. Broadcaster Russ Hodges captured Thomson’s shot and froze it in time, echoing it through baseball’s ages. After the ball soared over Dodgers outfielder Andy Pafko’s forlorn face, […]

Was Burt Shotton the best person to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Jackie Robinson’s historic rookie season? The “People’s Choice” is one person Branch Rickey may not have considered.

“Now it’s even. It’s neck and neck. We’ll start from here and see who’s boss.” — Reggie Jackson1 There have been two players in Chicago White Sox history that led the American League in home runs. Only two over the first 123 seasons of baseball on the south side of Chicago. The second of those […]

Psychologists have long known that perceptions impact the way humans interact with each other. Stereotypical beliefs are attempts to organize the world and classify individuals into neat, predictable groups. For example, there is a tendency to generalize college professors as liberals and construction workers as conservatives. Of course, these far- sweeping generalizations may or may […]

The players on the train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals back to Union Station should have been vibrant and fun-loving as it rolled through the Land of Lincoln on October 2, 1949. The Redbirds had thumped the Chicago Cubs, 13-5, at Wrigley Field in the season finale that afternoon. Thanks to a thrilling pennant race, […]

During the 1940s National League baseball was largely dominated by the Cardinals and the Dodgers. St. Louis won four pennants in the decade while finishing second five times. Brooklyn took three flags and were runner-ups three as well. Besides a horrendous 1944 season, “dem Bums” were third the rest of the time. It was the […]

Jackie Robinson’s major-league debut was more than just the first step in righting an historical wrong. It was a crucial event in the history of the American civil rights movement, the importance of which went far beyond the insular world of baseball. The Dodgers signed Robinson to a major league contract just five days before […]

Mark Belanger, winner of eight Gold Gloves in the last ten years, received more votes than any other player in SABR’s recent survey to determine the best fielders of the 1970s. The Baltimore shortstop received more than 90% of the nearly 400 votes cast for American League shortstop. Johnny Bench led all National League players. […]

Forfeits were relatively commonplace in the early days of baseball. There was at least one forfeit in the major leagues every year from 1883 to 1907, including 13 in 1884. A review of the reasons for these forfeits reveals how ”bush league” the major leagues still were. In 1889, St. Louis’s American Association team failed […]

Here is the appendix for Pete Palmer’s article “Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing by Catchers” in the Spring 2014 Baseball Research Journal.

In 2009, on SABR-L (SABR’s online listserv), Trent McCotter cited two instances of a player taking a swing while being walked intentionally and wondered if anyone knew about other instances of a batter hitting a deliberate ball. I responded with two such incidents I had happened on during my research. Several other SABR members, including […]

Second base. It might not have the pizzazz of shortstop. It also might not have the glamour of third base, which is known as the “hot corner.” Fans don’t normally expect the same power numbers from a second baseman that they see in others who play the infield, like the stereotypical slugger who plays first […]

Shifty. That’s a good word for Walter Dilbeck, the huckster who launched the Global Baseball League in 1966. And launched it again in 1968. And crashed it in 1969. The barely believable saga of Dilbeck and his self-styled third major league involves 11 Hall of Famers, a former vice president of the United States, a […]

In the 1970s, the very time when players and umpires gained wealth and power, baseball’s field managers’ status declined as they became wretched scapegoats to be sacrificed to the bloodlust of victory-starved fans. True, sacking the manager was a time-honored ploy; whenever rumblings of fan discontent erupted, a manager was bumped off as virgins in […]

After the passing of nearly 40 years, as is the case since World War II, we are inclined to recall events differently than the way they really happened. Now, there’s nothing wrong with fantasizing a little or adding color to actual events, but the amount of distortion and misleading material that has been published in […]

Leo Durocher, who is said to have said “nice guys finish last”—also the title of his autobiography—plausibly could have asked, “who said cheaters never prosper?” I refer, of course, to the revelation by Joshua Prager—first in a 2001 Wall Street Journal article and then his book, The Echoing Green—that in 1951 the New York Giants […]

There are two main objectives for the hitter.  The first is to not make an out and the second is to hit for distance. Long-ball hitting is normally measured by slugging average. Not making an out can be expressed in terms of on base average (OBA), where:       OBA    =  Hits + Walks […]

More than 50,000 people jammed the old Polo Grounds on the sultry night of June 26, 1944, to view major league baseball’s first and only three-sided game. As the New York Times’ Arthur Daley said the next morning, “All in all, it was a wonderful affair-crazy but wonderful.” Conceived as a War Bond fund-raising event […]

Led by National League Most Valuable Player Dolph Camilli, the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers won their first National League pennant in 21 years with a 100-54 record to edge out the St. Louis Cardinals by 2½ games. Camilli led the league with 34 home runs and 120 runs batted in.  Pete Reiser had the league’s highest […]

Tom Harris interviewed Bobby Thomson at his home in New Jersey on September 26, 1993. Some text in the original transcript has been omitted here and, for clarity, some portions have been transposed. Click here to listen to the entire interview in the SABR Oral History Collection.   Bobby Thomson: I was born in Glasgow, […]

On October 26, 1960, Calvin Griffith received permission to move his Washington Senators ballclub and bring major league baseball to Minnesota. As a result, in 1961 the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul were joined in support of one team. Until the coming of the Twins, however, the two cities had been supporters of their […]

It is well known that a manager may formally protest a game only if he claims an umpire has made a decision contrary to the rules. Dissatisfaction with a specific call (safe/out, ball/strike, fair/foul) is not grounds for a protest. However, sometimes things get a little murky. Take, for example, the game of July 20, […]