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  When he stepped on the mound at Municipal Stadium to face the hometown Waterbury Giants on September 3, 1967, Dick Such of the York White Roses carried the burden of an 0–16 record. It was his last chance that season to snap his winless streak. The 6-foot-4 right-hander got off to a rocky start […]

When Joe Dwyer was a kid in high school, his teammates on the Orange Athletic Association Meadowbrooks of Orange, New Jersey, a semipro outfit, watched him belt out more than his share of doubles. “I always had a penchant for two-base hits,” said Joe. That being the case (and nicknames being a big part of […]

In 1877 the National League began the season on April 30 with six clubs. However, in mid-June, the Cincinnatis disbanded for reasons only partly related to their poor on-field performance. A second Cincinnati club was quickly organized under different ownership and stronger financial backing. It began play less than three weeks after the first disbanded […]

It was a hot summer day in 1897 when hundreds of fans of the Federalsburg Club in Maryland gathered for a game. This small town of barely a thousand people was proud of their team. Little did they know that three of the young teenagers taking the field for them that day would soon be […]

Long before the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the Angels sprang into being three years later, professional baseball and its rivalries had been a central part of the Southern California sports scene. Los Angeles had its first team of professionals in 1890, then joined the fledgling California League in 1892.  When this league folded […]

From 1954 through 1966, Willie Mays dominated the National League. While he won the MVP Award only twice, in 1954 and 1965, he led it in Wins Above Average (whose derivation I shall explain below) nine times, in 1954-58, 1962, and 1964-66, and finished among the leaders in all the other years in that span. From […]

2000 AAABA Champion Maryland Orioles with General Manager Walter Youse (center) and Manager Dean Albany (standing far left second row). (GREG PAUL)   Emergence of Summer College Baseball For more than a century, summertime baseball has been a significant part of the lives of young Marylanders. Over the decades, this has evolved from pickup games […]

The first game played by the Toronto-based professional baseball team that ultimately became the Maple Leafs took place on April 29, 1895, and marked the beginning of a proud franchise that would play in the International League (and its predecessor) continually for 72 years. TORONTO OF THE 1890S During the nineteenth century, Toronto went from […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 31 (2002).   John McGraw was one of the most successful baseball managers ever, leading the New York Giants to ten pennants in his 30 years with the club. His arrival in mid-1902 marked the turning point in the fortunes of the Giants, a […]

Some teams today don’t even play a single game on a holiday, providing a stark contrast to the many years when the holiday doubleheader was a staple of the major league baseball schedule. From the 1890s through the 1950s, most major league teams were scheduled to play two games on each of the three national […]