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The First starred David Alan Grier, as Jackie Robinson, along with costar David Huddleston as Branch Rickey. (Courtesy of David Chapman)   “You know what would be a great musical? The story of Jackie Robinson.” So said film critic Joel Siegel to writer Martin Charnin at a chance meeting at their business manager’s midtown office […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Vol. 1 (1986).   Those of us who discovered baseball during our formative years in the 1950s confronted a paradox which our youthful minds could not quite appreciate. We knew of Jackie Robinson and his heroic efforts to end segregation, and we gloried in […]

This article was originally published in “The Northern Game—And Beyond,” the 2002 SABR convention journal.   Like the sea captains of an earlier era, Roland Hemond is a native New Englander who has sailed far and wide and worked in many ports along the way. A kid with a fervor for baseball, he started at […]

A no-hitter turns a pitcher into an instant celebrity in the baseball world. Regardless of what he did before or what he does after, he’ll always be a member of an elite group, a fraternal brotherhood that links Cy Young and Nolan Ryan with the likes of Jose Jimenez, Mike Warren, and Bobo Holloman. What […]

The Great War in Europe had finally reached the shores of the United States in 1917, and when the time came for baseball leagues to plan for the following season, many able-bodied young men had already signed up to serve their country. With a short age of players and finances, many leagues had folded by […]

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 […]

The Callaghan sisters, Helen (left) and Margaret. (British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame)   The young women gathered on the grass in Chicago shagged flies and fielded grounders. They played scrub games under the watchful eyes of coaches. Even the practice games were not without incident, as Gladys “Terrie” Davis, a batting star in Toronto’s […]

In 1915, the Chicago Tribune announced a contest to find the three best amateur baseball players in Chicago. The prize for the three youngsters would be a chance to join each of Chicago’s major league teams, the American League White Sox, the National League Cubs, and the Federal League Whales. The contest’s origins, execution, and ultimate success […]

Defiance College in northwestern Ohio has fielded a baseball team since 1905. Like most small colleges, Defiance places academics ahead of athletics, and the baseball team generally loses more games than it wins. The 1961 baseball season, however, was a shining exception. That season the Defiance College baseball team was invited to the NAIA national […]

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, […]