Search Results

Baseball is one of the few sports not dictated by a time clock, but its beautiful symmetry is what makes it unique: the ultimate game of equal opportunity. Countless contests in history have extended into extra innings. In some cases, overtime matchups have turned into drawn-out affairs leaving only the most ardent fans waiting for […]

Any way you look at it, the 1970s was a decade of upheaval and change everywhere in the country, but particularly in New York City. The “police action” of Vietnam ended and an era of urban decay began. The personal computer arrived, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center became the world’s tallest buildings, […]

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 […]

In December 1959 I was studying for my master’s degree in history at Notre Dame. As a Phillies fan since 1946, I was starved for news about the team when one of my friends told me that they had traded Gene Freese to the Chicago White Sox for someone whose name he couldn’t remember. I […]

Introduction: Entry, Reaction, Conflict, Change, Growth An important event leading into the 1882 season was the founding and organization of the American Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs (AA). The National League (NL) survived the difficult economic environment of the late 1870s and the club competition with the International Association. It emerged as the sole […]

For more than a century the World Series has been an integral part of American culture. It has become a final celebration of the more than 2,700 games that connect the early spring with the late fall. The annual ritual of the best team in the American League facing the best of the National League […]

  Zane Grey, the great Western novelist, played baseball in college plus several years in the minors but his younger brother, Romer, not only had a long minor league career but actually played one game in the majors. Somehow, Romer has been confused with another player and his name is not listed in any baseball […]

  The fiftieth anniversary of the passage of Title IX of the Higher Education Amendments of 1972 gives us an opportunity to reflect on its impact on women’s sports as a whole and on specific sports such as baseball. Women’s participation has been overlooked and marginalized in most publications and general discussions about the sport. […]

On October 10, 1961, the National League held the expansion draft to provide players for the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets. While the American League had held a seemingly similar expansion draft on December 14, 1960, the National League draft had the following distinctions: It was held earlier in the year. There […]

The Fall Meeting — November 16-17, 1894 The first conclave after the 1894 season convened in Parlor F of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City.1There were no hot-button issues facing the magnates, but there were still critical details that required the group’s collective attention.The largest single administrative action came in reappointing the Board […]