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Huggins Beats Bresnahan in Centennial Sweepstakes
Miller Huggins, the mighty mite who managed the New York Yankees to six pennants and three world championships, decisively defeated Roger Bresnahan in the Society for American Baseball Research survey to determine the person born in 1879 who contributed the most to baseball. With a total of 236 ballots returned, Huggins had 135 […]
Baseball Rhyme Time
Rod Carew, Vida Blue, and Big Klu Connie Mack, Stan Hack, Max Flack Guy Bush, Emil Kush, Heinie Manush Joe Rudi, Lyle Judy, and Howdy Doody Ty Cobb, Scotty Robb, Rusty Staub Rip Sewell, Bob Buhl, Joe Kuhel Hank Bauer, Vic Power, Hank Sauer Tris Speaker, Roy Meeker, and a streaker Lyn Lary, Charlie Berry, […]
The 1920-1925 Fort Worth Panthers
In the winter of 1916 – 1917, a stock company headed by W. K. Stripling and Paul LaGrave purchased the Fort Worth franchise of the Class B Texas League. Mr. Stripling was elected president of the club, while LaGrave was engaged as secretary and business manager. They immediately hired, as field manager, Jake Atz, a […]
Tim Hurst’s Last Call
It was an unlikely time for a post-game riot, even in a baseball-crazy city like Philadelphia. Yet that is exactly what occurred at newly-minted Shibe Park on the afternoon of August 3, 1909. Moments earlier, the hometown Athletics had completed an exciting come-from-behind 10–4 victory to sweep a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox. The […]
Virginia-North Carolina League: A Fascinating Failure
Most professional baseball is minor league. Most minor leagues struggle. In this classic case, even a league in Bull Durham country failed in its first attempt. IN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, as in most of the South, professional baseball in this century has meant minor-league baseball. On several occasions the two neighboring states have combined […]
Interview With George Digby, Boston Red Sox Scout
This interview by Ron Anderson was originally published in SABR’s “Can He Play? A Look at Baseball Scouts and Their Profession” (2011), edited by Jim Sandoval and Bill Nowlin. Interviews were conducted on January 18, 20, and 29, 2007. RA: You’re a former scout of the Boston Red Sox. GD: Yes. I started with them […]
Minor-League Baseball in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area
Minor-league baseball in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is virtually synonymous with Texas League professional baseball in the region. The small parts not connected to the Texas League are the rise and fall of black baseball in the area and the brief sojourns of the Fort Worth and Dallas teams in other leagues. (The Metroplex is […]
The 1878 Buffalo Bisons: Was It the Greatest Minor League Team of the Game’s Early Years?
This article was originally published in the 1991 SABR convention journal (New York City). In baseball’s modem era there have been many outstanding minor league teams. Coming to mind immediately are the 1937 Newark Bears, the 1934 Los Angeles Angels, the 1925 San Francisco Seals, the 1939-1940 Kansas City Blues, the 1933 Columbus Red […]
The First Great Minor League Club
In the modern era of baseball there have been many great minor league clubs. Those that come immediately to mind are the 1937 Newark Bears, the 1934 Los Angeles Angels, the 1925 San Francisco Seals, the 1939-40 Kansas City Blues, the 1933 Columbus Red Birds, the 1928-31 Rochester Red Wings, and those special minor […]
Books Before Baseball: A Personal History
The image of American higher education reflected by college athletics is anything but flattering. As of March 1982, 17 schools were on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s probation list—the highest number for a single period—and the Association’s enforcement department declared that the list would lengthen before it shortened. An additional 35 schools were under investigation […]
Appendix 1: Hit Sequences for Cycles, 1920-2017
A list of hit sequences for players who completed a cycle during the 1920-2017 period.This is the online appendix for Herm Krabbenhoft’s “‘When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It’: Who Took the Cycle or Quasi-Cycle?” Click here to scroll down for Table A-2: Sequences for Players Who Completed a Quasi-Cycle […]
Fair-Weather Fans
In Rob Neyer’s chapter on San Francisco in his Big Book of Baseball Lineups, he speculates that there aren’t really good baseball cities and that attendance more closely correlates with winning percentage than with any other factor. He also suggests that a statistically-minded person look at this. I took the challenge and have been playing […]
The New York Mets in Popular Culture
When the nascent New York Mets set out to fill the National League void created by the migration of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants to California after the 1957 season, they faced a Herculean task: to excite, inspire, and motivate baseball fans mourning the loss of two baseball mainstays while creating a […]
Has Greg Maddux Employed the ‘Bagwell Gambit’ in His Career?
In a Newsweek article George Will called Greg Maddux “the most artistic pitcher of the lively-ball era.” As an example of Maddux’s knowledge of the hitters, Will wrote the following: Leading 8-0 in a regular season game against the Astros, Maddux threw what he had said he would never throw to Jeff Bagwell – a […]
Professional Baseball and Football: A Close Relationship
The National Football League and baseball have enjoyed a close relationship from the beginning. To capitalize on the popularity of baseball, pro football teams have, at times, adopted major league names: Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, New York Yankees, and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Jets picked their name to rhyme with the […]
Black Baseball at Yankee Stadium: The House That Ruth Built and Satchel Furnished (with Fans)
Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 7 (McFarland & Co., 2014). The long relationship between Negro League baseball and Yankee Stadium that provided the Black leagues with both income and prestige began in 1930 when a millionaire lent his prized major league ballpark to a man who […]
The Windy City–Collar City Connection: The Curious Relationship of Chicago’s and Troy’s Professional Baseball Teams (1870–82)
Both Chicago and Troy fielded strong baseball nines in the baseball’s post-Civil War pioneer days. With the advent of professional baseball after the 1868 season, the fortunes of Chicago and Troy became intertwined by happenstance and the loosely-knit structure and highly unstable nature of nineteenth century baseball. Both cities played a major part in the […]
The 1968 All-Star Game
In the early 1960s, each of the recent expansion cities played host to the MLB All-Star Game, New York in 1964, Anaheim in 1967, Houston in 1968, and Washington DC in 1969. The 1968 baseball season took place against a backdrop of racial violence. The late 1960s trembled with social and political turbulence, with the […]
Pitching Against Alzheimer’s: A Study of Baseball Reminiscence Programs
There is not a person alive in the industrialized world who has not been touched directly or indirectly by the wonders of medical science. Death-sentence diseases of the past, like cancer, now carry longer and longer commutation periods, thanks to advanced early detection and modern surgical techniques. The twentieth century discovery of insulin has […]
Great Team Home Run Feats
While considerable attention has been paid to the home run feats of outstanding players such as Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, comparatively little consideration has been given to outstanding team home run achievements, particularly those occurring in a single game. On 28 occasions, a major league team has nit at least 7 home […]
Latest News
Cieradkowski: Jake Atz, his whole story from A to Z
From SABR member Gary Cieradkowski at The Infinite Baseball Card Set on August 11, 2015: When I first started this blog a little over five years ago, I started receiving many requests for players to be profiled on here and given The Infinite Baseball Card Set “treatment.” Out of all the emails I began to […]