Search Results

Lyle Spatz was a devoted fan of baseball and his hometown Dodgers by 1946, which was just in time to bear witness to one of history’s most storied teams. Jackie Robinson came to Brooklyn the next season, and Lyle attended his first game at Ebbets Field on July 5, 1947. Though his team lost that […]

With the influx of Japanese players to the majors, interest in Japanese baseball has risen. One outgrowth of this interest is the question posed by the title of this article. I want to present a thorough examination of Oh’s qualifications for Cooperstown, and then report the findings together with my conclusions. The evidence is divided […]

John McGraw, seen with Philadelphia Phillies manager Pat Moran, led the New York Giants to a record-setting 26-game winning streak in 1916. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, BAIN COLLECTION)   On a dreary Friday afternoon, September 29, 1916, 43-year-old John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants, stood in the third base coaching box at the Polo […]

This paper explores potential areas of improvement in the JAWS statistic and proposes an alternative for evaluating candidates for the Hall of Fame. In 2004, Jay Jaffe created the Jaffe WAR Score system (JAWS) based on Baseball Reference’s bWAR.1 Its stated purpose is “to improve the Hall of Fame’s standards, or at least to maintain […]

Editor’s note: This article is from our special issue of The National Pastime looking ahead to the future of baseball in the 21st century, in which  contributors from many fields of study present their predictions and opinions.    What does climate change have to do with baseball? There are various factors: First, the relationship of climate […]

Mickey Mantle is carried off on a stretcher after injuring his knee during the 1951 World Series at Yankee Stadium. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   A batter takes a fastball to the ribs. An outfielder crashes into the wall trying to make a circus catch. A baserunner steps on the side of first […]

Lou Gehrig Played First and Last Games of Consecutive Streak at Yankee Stadium In the July 12, 1999, edition of Sports Illustrated, the magazine listed some memorable dates in the history of Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The item for May 1, 1939, read,”Lou Gehrig played his 2,130th consecutive game—the last of his major league career.” […]

The 1954 Winter Meetings opened on December 6 at New York’s Hotel Commodore with an agenda filled with issues that had plagued the sport for years. They included the ongoing decline of the minor leagues, the increasing misalignment of major-league franchises with the national population, and player-management conflicts. Owners left the meeting two days later […]

The 1950 ManDak League Champion Winnipeg Buffaloes, featuring four Negro Leaguers: Hall of Famers Willie Wells (front row, fourth from left) and Leon Day (middle, far left), as well as Lyman Bostock (middle, far right) and Butch Davis (front, second from right). Third from right in the front row is John Kennedy, who never played […]

  On June 24, 1972, Bernice Gera became the first woman to umpire a professional baseball game. Immediately after the game ended, she quit. She fought baseball for five years for the chance to umpire a professional game. Why fight so long for an umpiring career, just to give it up after one game? We […]