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The cartel that ruled the national pastime was called Organized Baseball, but its second round of expansion in 1969 turned into a model of disorganization. The American and National Leagues could not agree on whether, when, or how to expand. The result was a radical restructuring of both leagues that abolished the traditional pennant races. […]

Alex Gordon was held at third instead of sent home with the potential tying run in Game Seven of the 2014 World Series. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   No sooner had Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez popped up for the last out in the 2014 World Series, the pundits, second-guessers, arm-chair managers, […]

Every batter has unique psychological approaches, swing mechanics, habits and characteristics. Even so, one thing about hitting is true for every hitter: Every time he walks up to the plate, he has only one tool to work with. In 1920 and 1927, Babe Ruth hit more home runs than every other team in the American […]

Visiting Cuba is like tripping in a time machine. We’re not talking about a beach vacation at Varadero, but a visitation to the living, working Cuba. A Cuba where baseball is woven into the shirts they wear, is the caffeine in their coffee, and the excitement in their voices. When you are there, you’ll find […]

L to R: Mookie Betts, Janet Marie Smith, and David Price tour the outfield construction work at Dodger Stadium. (Photograph by Jon SooHoo / Los Angeles Dodgers)   Besides her work on the renovations of Dodger Stadium, Janet Marie Smith is well known for her work in building Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 […]

When quintessential baseball buff Douglas Heeren first approached me about a player named Ducky Holmes, I failed to grasp the depth of the subject. Pointing out my misidentification of Ducky in a team photo in my book about baseball in Northwest Iowa, Heeren simply wanted to set the record straight.1 A young man from rural […]

0-10, 10.32: That is the major-league career line for one William T. Stecher of Riverside, New Jersey. If you look it up, the record book tells you that Stecher also holds the records for the “most career games by a pitcher who lost all his games (0–10)” and “most career innings by a pitcher with […]

The search for data on nineteenth-century minor leagues to be used in compiling league records has led to the discovery of stories about the accomplishments of individuals, teams, and even leagues which have long been forgotten, completely overlooked, or in some cases attributed to others. In 1887 Walton Goldsby assembled one of the premier teams […]

“Was Simon Nicholls a typical turn-of-the-century player? Maybe not, but he certainly represented an overlooked contributor to the era: the well-mannered college grad. If you take into account the proportion of the total population that went to college back in those days I think it’s pretty clear that we had more than our share of […]

The year 1906 was one of change for minor league baseball in Ohio. The previous season, independent teams from Ohio and western Pennsylvania had joined organized ball as the Class C Ohio Pennsylvania League. By early spring, the unmanageable number of teams was reduced to eight, six of them in Ohio. New Castle was one of […]