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Introduction The 1884 professional baseball season demonstrated the nationwide baseball boom then underway.1 It was an exciting time to be a lover of baseball. The 1883 season concluded with most professional clubs in acceptable financial condition, with plans for higher salaries and improved baseball grounds for 1884. Like 1882, the 1884 season offered new associations, […]

The 1887 season saw the American Association and the National League enjoy success on the field. Attendance at American Association games set a league record and attendance at National League games exceeded the attendance of the American Association for the first time since the American Association’s inaugural season in 1882. Still the American Association regular […]

It has been noted time and time again that the search for the good old days of baseball is bound to come up dry. In every period of the national pastime, there has been greed, poor sportsmanship, lying, and cheating, to name a few of the lesser offenses. The subject of this article is further […]

Shaun McCready, an amateur umpire in Pennsylvania, wrote a daily blog detailing his experience as a student at the Wendelstedt Umpire School in 2013. It is a superb account not only of the instruction he received, but also the about techniques and duties of an umpire. This edited version of the blog, about one-third of […]

Before we can talk about the future of the rules in baseball, we ought to have a peek at the past. But more importantly we should acknowledge that the reason we’re so interested in the future of the rules right now is because in 2021 anxiety over Major League Baseball’s rules is running high. The […]

The National League and the American Association entered their respective winter meetings — hereafter called the annual meetings1 — buoyed by the growing popularity and profits of the past 1886 season.2 The owners recognized that to further expand the popularity of baseball and, with the consequent rise in attendance, increase their profits, they had to […]

The Empire Base Ball Club of Freeport, Illinois, began its 1865 season by lamenting “the melancholy and terrible blow which has fallen upon this country by the untimely death of President Lincoln.”1 The assassination of “Father Abraham” only days after the surrender of the rebel Army of Northern Virginia especially distressed the residents of Freeport, […]

Jackie Robinson playing in a spring training game vs. Havana Cubans. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   Separated by fewer than three miles, the Hotel Los Angeles near la Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and the Hotel Nacional in the city’s Vedado district were worlds apart. Sitting on a bluff overlooking El Malecón, Havana’s famed coastal roadway, the Nacional […]

Doug Glanville in his new baseball memoir notes that many players, “rewarded with huge contracts because of their offensive prowess, . . . have developed a kind of attention deficit disorder when it comes to defense. . . . If you put up tremendous offensive numbers year after year, the game will cut you a […]

One of baseball’s highest-regarded feats is the cycle: “A single, double, triple, and home run (not necessarily in that order) hit by a player in the same game.”1 In the history of major league baseball (1876–2023) there have been 351 documented regular-season cycles, including seven in the Negro Leagues.2 The distribution of the starting defensive […]