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The 1884 New York Gothams, featuring catcher Jack Humphries (front row, far right). Humphries’ improbably journey took him from the hamlet of North Gower, outside Ottawa, to Cornell for Latin and Greek, then to New York to catch Mickey Welch and Tip O’Neill. (COURTESY OF DAVID McDONALD)   On September 6, 1993, Denis Boucher pitched […]

From the mid-1970s until the Angels won the World Series in 2002, frequent stories of an Angels “curse” or “jinx” appeared in the local and national media. Typically blamed on a rumor that Anaheim Stadium was built on a Native American burial ground, the curse persists to the present day despite the fact that several […]

Until my freshman year of college, the only books I’d read cover-to-cover were baseball almanacs and biographies of early and mid-twentieth century baseball players like Ed Delahanty and Satchel Paige. Throughout grade school, I spent my evenings flipping through onionskin pages full of baseball stats or studying the backs of baseball cards. An Indians fan, […]

One of baseball’s most highly-regarded accomplishments by an individual player is hitting for the cycle: collecting at least one of each of the four types of safe hits (single, double, triple, and home run) in the same game. While recognized as a rare and remarkable feat, the cycle has been achieved 286 times during the […]

Introduction The 1884 professional baseball season demonstrated the nationwide baseball boom then underway.1 It was an exciting time to be a lover of baseball. The 1883 season concluded with most professional clubs in acceptable financial condition, with plans for higher salaries and improved baseball grounds for 1884. Like 1882, the 1884 season offered new associations, […]

Introduction and Context The 2006 baseball Winter Meetings were held in Orlando, Florida, at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. The size of the resort — an 87-acre facility featuring two hotels with over 80 meeting rooms and 300,000 square feet of meeting space — matched the big names on the market heading […]

Cecil Fielder on the Hanshin Tigers (Robert Fitts Collection)   In the mid- to late 1980s, tensions between the United States and Japan rose to a level not seen since World War II.1 Americans were frightened at the rising strength of the Japanese economy. Japanese imports, especially automobiles and electronics, seemed to be taking over […]

Nolan Ryan celebrates his 7th no-hitter on May 1, 1991. (MLB.COM)   A pitcher usually needs good command and quality stuff to toss a no-hitter.1 Stellar fielding and a dollop of good luck doesn’t hurt, either. A bad-hop single or a flare off the end of the bat that falls for a hit is all […]

The New York Mets and Houston Colt 45s were the first new franchises in the National League in 70 years. The last time the league had expanded was 1892, after the folding of the American Association led to the NL absorbing four AA clubs. The two new teams in 1962 had come from another league […]

When Jason Varitek sets up low and outside, when Alex Gonzalez moves a little more to his left, when Curt Schilling fires a fastball right down the middle to A-Rod for a called third strike, it’s not pure guesswork and not just baseball instinct. There’s always an element of guesswork and always an element of […]