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  Modern baseball analysis has established without a doubt that the longer a pitcher stays in the game, the better the batters will perform against him. Beginning in 1996, analysts evaluated the starting lineup’s plate appearances and later coined an acronym for the rule: TTOP, for the “Times Through (the) Order Penalty.” That is, “As […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Each season, baseball fans and journalists alike identify which players are in the final years of their contracts because a lot rides on how the players produce in their “contract year.” […]

In 100 years of major league baseball and well over 100,000 games played, only 14 pitchers have registered four strike outs in an inning. Reflecting on the need to chalk up an extra out after a pitcher has achieved pitching perfection for a single inning with three strike outs, one wonders if the gift of […]

Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, the shortstop of the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, first met the morning of August 28, 1945, in Rickey’s fourth-floor office at 215 Montague Street in Brooklyn, New York. Clyde Sukeforth, a Brooklyn scout, told Robinson that Rickey was interested in signing the ballplayer […]

Roger Kahn coined the phrase “The Era” to represent New York City baseball from 1947 through 1957.1 During this era the Yankees won nine AL pennants and seven World Series, the Dodgers won six NL pennants and one world championship, and the Giants won two NL pennants and one World Series. While this success certainly […]

Baseball “common wisdom” says that in the days of yore, the shortstop was a defensive specialist whose bat was secondary, and that it is only in recent decades that we have seen the “rise of the offensive shortstop.” But the word “shortstop” alone conjures thoughts of some of the game’s greatest players, both past and […]

Philadelphia Phillies fans and Phillies management looked forward to contending again in 1965. But their close finish in 1964 turned out to be an illusion.Philadelphia Phillies fans and Phillies management looked forward to contending again in 1965. But their close finish in 1964 turned out to be an illusion. The Phillies had won 92 games […]

The Canadian Military Headquarters team defeated their American opponents before a huge crowd at Wembley Stadium on June 3, 1944. The hero of the day, Ed Smith, is back row, third from the right. (Library and Archives Canada)   Ed Smith was twice a hero during Canada’s Second World War. Smith, working at the Canadian […]

The “sport” of dog fighting captured many headlines in 2007 with the conviction of Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons star quarterback who admitted to participating in the inhumane and illegal business of pit bull fighting as well as the execution of underperforming dogs. No major league baseball player has ever been similarly implicated in criminal […]