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Moses Yellow Horse was 23 years old when he made his major league debut in 1921 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Said to have been the first full-blooded Native American to play in the majors, the Pawnee may also have been the darkest-skinned major leaguer since the color line was drawn in the late 19th century. […]

INTRODUCTION This article reports on MLB “played-with” relationships for the time period 1930 through 2016. We define player A as having played-with player B if the two appeared in the same major league game for the same team. This doesn’t necessarily mean both players stood on the field at the same time. We also include cases where […]

EVERY YEAR dozens of players are traded or sold. While the success or failure of trades has been analyzed from the long-run perspective of the teams involved, most notably by Bill James, the immediate impact of a change of scenery on a player’s performance has not been evaluated. This article will try to answer the […]

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. Twelve managers have won more games than Bill McKechnie. None has won more respect. Deacon Bill McKechnie was the first to lead three different teams to the World Series and the […]

After 100 years of organized baseball, dating from the start of the National Association in 1871, it is about time for a brief summing up. This study is concerned with the all-time leaders in the various batting, fielding, and pitching categories in O.B.., including both major and minor league play. While we are generally familiar […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s February 2018 newsletter. The accessibility of the Deadball Era derives, in part, from the many existing images of players from the period. It is worthwhile to recall that some of the most vivid and enduring player portrayals are on contemporary baseball cards. […]

Baseball has been traditionally divided into the three major aspects of hitting, pitching, and fielding. While there are abundant quantitative measures for hitting, far fewer for pitching, fielding ability has but one, the fielding average. Unfortunately, this dominant statistic is a poor measure of fielding skill. It is computed by dividing the fielder’s total of […]

U.S. All-Star outfield from the 1962 game have their bats locked and loaded. The players are (L–R) Tony Conigliaro, Ron Swoboda, and James Huenemeier. Conigliaro and Swoboda starred for the Red Sox and Mets, respectively. Huenemeier signed with the White Sox, but never got beyond Class A. (HARRY RANSOM CENTER/JOURNAL-AMERICAN ARCHIVES)   Set against the […]

Sixteen months ago, we were stuck in our homes wondering if, or under what circumstances, baseball would return. To some degree, as I began this essay in April 2021, things had not changed. There were encouraging signs during the summer of 2020. Once, as I was walking my dog, Buddy, we happened on a batting […]

In February 2001, more than a dozen members of the Society for American Baseball Research joined the first Cubaball Tours visit to enjoy a week of baseball in Cuba. Most tour participants felt the weeklong tour was one of the best travel experiences they’d ever enjoyed. The group, led by Kit Krieger and Peter Bjarkman, […]