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Adrian C. Anson was the venerable captain of the famous Chicago White Stockings when they were the kingpins of the baseball world in the 1880s. Anson is more popularly, although slightly incorrectly, known to today’s fans as “Cap.” In his own time, Anson was identified in the press, variously, as “Ans,” “The Big Swede,” and […]

Triple Crown Winners: Champions of three different leagues for 1938. (Nikkei National Museum 2010-30-1-3-15 ab)   A curving pitch appears in slow motion from a hurler not in focus. The voice-over is somber, an older man, remembering. “We were born in Canada,” says Kaye Kaminishi. “We spoke English.” On screen, a batter pushes a bunt […]

George Herman Ruth is probably the most well known of all American baseball players. He may also have been the best. There has never been another player who had such an effect on the sport. He revolutionized it from a pitcher’s game to a hitter’s game, and it has remained that way ever since. Ruth […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989).   Good afternoon, students. I am Professor Hailey, and this is Industrial Organization 162, “Baseball as a Business Enterprise” — which is better known around campus, I understand, as “Bats, Balls, and the Bottom Line.” In 1914 a New York court […]

This article was originally published in the 1984 SABR convention journal (Providence, Rhode Island).   The semi-pro baseball season of 1875 at Adelaide Park was so successful that Gen. Dennis and his associates placed a much faster team on the field in 1876, one that would hold its own with any independent team in New […]

The band struck up “Hail the Conquering Heroes Come,” and cheering Philadelphia fans opened a gauntlet at the depot October 24, 1910, to let their victorious Athletics pass through. The A’s had just arrived from Chicago, where they had whipped the Cubs four games to one to win the baseball championship of the world. At […]

National League president Warren Giles was in San Diego for Opening Day, April 8, 1969, and here joins Buzzie Bavasi holding an aerial photograph of the Padres’ new ballpark, San Diego Stadium. (Courtesy of Tom Larwin)   San Diego’s quest for major-league baseball began in the mid- to late 1950s, around the time Los Angeles […]

Detroit Tigers fans in every part of Michigan were focused on the team as they led the pennant race in the fall of 1934. For the first time in 25 years, the team was poised to advance to the World Series. And for the first time in the team’s history, Tigers fans throughout the state […]

This article discusses Roger Maris’s 1961 season from a new perspective. This is not a comparison of each home run hit by Maris in 1961 with those hit by Babe Ruth in 1927, but rather proposes a method to compare the Maris performance with the Ruth performance on a near-equivalent basis. Though there exists the […]

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 […]