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Sherman Institute, the new federal Indian boarding school at Riverside, California, as it appeared in the popular national Leslie’s Weekly in 1902. (COURTESY OF TOM WILLMAN)   On May 3, 1905, much of California discovered that Native Americans really could play baseball. On that day the team from Sherman Institute, the three-year-old federal Indian boarding […]

Who are the professional thieves (base stealers) and who are the top cops (catchers)? How do we differentiate professional from amateur? Do arrests by the constabulary (caught stealing by the catcher) measure greatness in a backstop or is it pure ineptness by the thief? An analysis of Retrosheet data from 1963 to 2004 was performed […]

Graveyards are not a significant part of baseball lore. True, the 1919 Cincinnati Reds held spring workouts in a Texas town’s cemetery. Moe Berg, visiting a Baltimore cemetery after dark, is reported to have stood on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe and recited “The Raven” from beginning to end. Edd Roush administered a cemetery […]

In a stunning development on September 29, 1953, the city of Baltimore went from being the home of the minor league Orioles of the International League to having the major league Orioles of the American League.1 On that historic day, Bill Veeck, president of the St. Louis Browns, announced “a Baltimore group headed by attorney […]

The record for the largest number of participants ejected from one game is 17. The game was at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on August 12, 1984. The ejections were all made by home-plate umpire Steve Rippley, and one of the men he threw out was his current boss, Joe Torre. In an early 2017 interview, Rippley […]

SABR members have selected all-star fielding teams for each decade since 1900. Wary of the dangers lurking for the baseball researcher, they have not ventured into the poorly charted territory of the 19th century. But the urge to explore is irresistible to those willing to rush in where wise men fear to tread. The selections […]

After a 90-loss, ninth-place season in 1966, the Boston Red Sox entered spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, with a new manager and a new outlook.Spring training 1967 was quite different from spring training 1966 for the Boston Red Sox. We can remember 1966 as the year when Earl Wilson was turned away from the […]

Minor-League Winter Meeting The 1949 Winter Meetings saw several firsts for the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues: the first time a meeting was held in Baltimore, the first time a player draft was held during a meeting, and the first time an incumbent Association president missed a meeting. The meeting itself was held at […]

As the 1929 major-league season came to a close, the two best teams in baseball prepared to do battle in the upcoming World Series. Joe McCarthy’s National League champion Chicago Cubs cruised into October 11 games in front of the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates. In the junior circuit, Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics racked up 104 victories […]

Most major-league teams have retired one or more numbers worn by the best players in franchise history. The New York Yankees have retired 19 numbers, the Cardinals 12, and the White Sox, Braves, and Dodgers have each retired 10. Only the Seattle Mariners are yet to retire a number. The Marlins retired the “number” of […]