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The batting out-of-turn (BOOT) rule has been a continuing source of confusion to players, managers, and umpires. Even a league president had trouble with it on one occasion after the May 24, 1945, Tigers at Athletics game, which was notable in other respects.1 The current BOOT rule (6.07), which has been in place since 1957, […]

An important part of the folklore of baseball is the significance attached to pitching in winning games. John Schwartz in his article, “New Measures for Pitchers” in the 1979 edition of the Baseball Research Journal writes: “Pitching as the old cliche goes, is somewhere between 75 and 90% of baseball.” The legendary Connie Mack is […]

COLLABORATOR’S NOTE: My friendship with James Fargo (Jimmy) Lanier went back approximately eighteen years, to a time when I helped organize a local baseball conference and learned that the man who had been Ty Cobb’s batboy and then lived in the Atlanta area. I contacted him, and he agreed to participate in the conference. We […]

Roy Mack affixes his signature to an agreement selling the Athletics to the Philadelphia syndicate on October 17, 1954—a commitment Roy would betray just a day later in a backroom deal with Arnold Johnson. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Bill Renna was playing winter ball for the 1953–54 San Juan Senators, managed by […]

“Long ago when the team was known as the Beaneaters.”  On Wednesday afternoon, June 17, 1953, at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, Warren Spahn, one of baseball’s greatest left-handed pitchers, was on the mound for the Milwaukee Braves to take on the visiting Philadelphia Phillies. While the veteran Spahn already had a celebrated career with four 20-plus-win […]

The story of Jimmie Foxx is bittersweet. In his prime, he was one of baseball’s greatest sluggers. But his career diminished prematurely as he battled injury and alcohol. Foxx struggled with life after baseball and ultimately died before his time. So, who was James Emory Foxx, and how should he be perceived by fans in […]

NOTES ON EDITIONS SABR is publishing two editions of The National Pastime in 2013. The electronic edition (online at SABR.org and the e-book) is the complete journal; the print edition is an abridged presentation. The electronic edition tells a comprehensive story of baseball in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. SABR’s Philadelphia chapter received well over […]

Part I: The Great Glass Era In the damp and chilly spring of 1907, at the height of the great glass era, an erudite professor of languages, a polite young first baseman and an eccentric left-handed pitcher came to the Hilltop in Kane, Pennsylvania to play professional baseball. While their time together as teammates would […]

The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians played two historic games in Cleveland in July 1932 — games which were a study in contrasts. On July 10, Philadelphia defeated Cleveland 18-17 in 18 innings at League Park, in a game in which many batting records were set or equaled and which featured a remarkable relief […]

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s and ’50s was probably the greatest human tragedy of the nineteenth century. After a nearly total failure of Ireland’s potato crop in 1845, followed by successive years of poor harvests, more than a million and a half Irish—nearly 20 percent of the island’s population—died of starvation from 1845 […]