Search Results

It was a game of excess, played on a Friday afternoon in Philadelphia’s Shibe Park. Two teams combined for 104 plate appearances, 77 total bases, and 17 runners left on base. The first-place Yankees were playing the fourth game of a six-game series against the Athletics, who occupied fourth place in the American League, 5 […]

The Red Sox split a Sunday doubleheader with Connie Mack’s Athletics on the final day of the 1941 season — meaningless games, with the Sox in second place, 17½ games out, and Philadelphia 20 games behind them. But these were professionals. And there was something else at stake. From May 25 until they arrived in […]

With their A’s once again mired in the American League cellar, an above-season-average 10,268 fans nonetheless found their way to Philadelphia’s Shibe Park on the last day of the 1941 season.1 A Lefty Grove Day observance celebrating their once-dominating southpaw held a degree of interest as the old-timer returned with the Boston Red Sox. But […]

“The old White Elephant stands above the great throbbing world of baseball,” gushed sportswriter Jim Nasium following the Philadelphia Athletics crushing 13-2 victory over the New York Giants in Game Six of the 1911 World Series to capture their second consecutive title.1 “The Athletics were positively savage the with the bat,” opined scribe Thomas S. […]

“It was all my fault,” Philadelphia Athletics first baseman Ferris Fain said in a postgame interview. “I threw the ball while I was still pivoting, and it was five full feet from the bag.”1 The 26-year-old rookie was lamenting his second-inning error on a groundball off the bat of Stan Spence that allowed the Washington […]

From 1910 through 1914, Philadelphia won four of five pennants in the American League. Included in this stretch were three World Series championships (1910, 1911, and 1913). But after losing to the Boston Braves in the 1914 fall classic, the Athletics fortunes’ plummeted as they occupied the cellar of the junior circuit from 1915 to […]

“Jackie has been accepted in baseball, and we of the Philadelphia organization have no objection to his playing and wish him all the luck we can. Baseball is an American game, and there are no nationalities, creeds, nor races involved. Jackie Robinson is an American.”1 This quote, attributed to Philadelphia manager Ben Chapman, was made […]

The story of the Philadelphia Athletics’ 24-2 shellacking of the Detroit Tigers on May 18, 1912, actually started three days earlier with an incident involving Ty Cobb and a spectator during the Detroit Tigers’ 8-4 victory over the New York Highlanders at Hilltop Park in New York. The succession of events that followed produced an […]

The 1949 World Series opened with Allie Reynolds facing Brooklyn’s best pitcher, Don Newcombe. Yankees manager Casey Stengel wanted the 1950 World Series to start that way as well. Reynolds against Philadelphia’s best pitcher. But it did not work out that way as Jim Konstanty rather than Robin Roberts started Game One. Eddie Sawyer’s gambit […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]