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The Cape Cod Baseball League, one of the top summer collegiate circuits, celebrated its first 100 years in 1985. This brought to mind David Q. Voigt’s suspicion of centennials. Writing on the origins of the Boston Red Stockings in the December 1970 issue of The New England Quarterly, Voigt noted that many baseball centennials had […]

During World War II there were a number of special benefit baseball games aimed at war relief, war bond sales, or other fundraising purposes. One of these was as early as March 17, 1940, in Tampa, Florida, and was played for the Finnish Relief Fund following the invasion of that small nation by the Soviet […]

A 1950 preseason poll of Southern Association sportswriters picked the Atlanta Crackers to finish in the second division of that league.[fn]Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 July 1950.[/fn] The pick surprised almost no one. After three consecutive firstplace finishes—under manager Doc Prothro in 1944 and Kiki Cuyler in 1945 and 1946—the Crackers had slipped into the second […]

Introduction and Context Some of the best players in baseball traded places at the 1933 winter meetings. The meetings opened amid optimism, with a feeling that baseball was recovering from the Depression and could “be expected to gain steadily” as it moved forward.1 During 1933, all 14 minor leagues that began the season completed it; […]

The National League started off without too much fanfare in 1876. Only one game was scheduled on its opening day on Saturday, April 22, with Boston playing at Philadelphia. Of course, that was 34 years before a President of the United States attended an opening game, but it wouldn’t have been too difficult for President […]

Hitting for the cycle is coming back into style. A player connecting for a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game is a feat that has been accomplished with unusual regularity in recent years. In 1976 six players did it; in 1977 three, 1978 three, 1979 four, and in 1980 five. In […]

As I sprinted across Oracle Park with my son during the San Francisco Giants home opener on April 7, 2023, an usher and I struck up a conversation.1 Understanding that I was from the Twin Cities and a fan of the Minnesota Twins, he asked me point blank, “Will Joe Mauer end up in the […]

Here is the appendix for Pete Palmer’s article “Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing by Catchers” in the Spring 2014 Baseball Research Journal.

A list of all documented cycles through the end of the 2017 MLB seasonThis is the online Appendix for Michael Huber and Allison Davidson’s article, “Origin of the Phrase ‘Hitting for the Cycle’ and An Approach to How Cycles Occur” in the Spring 2018 “Baseball Research Journal.   Here is a list of all documented […]

Oscar Charleston was known as “the Black Ty Cobb.” Both men sprayed line drives to all fields and played a savage running game on the bases. But Charleston hit with power, which Cobb did not, and on the field he ran circles around the more famous Georgian. He was considered in a class with Tris […]