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Introduction In September 2005 the confirmation hearings of John Roberts as the nominee for chief justice of the United States included an unexpected but telling nod to the national pastime when Roberts observed, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; […]

The 1936 Black Panthers. Charlie Culver is the first on the left, sitting. (Jerry Cohen, Ebbets Field Flannels)   The reception that Jackie Robinson received in Montréal is well known. A few years later, the Provincial League became a prime destination for Negro League veterans. Many factors can explain how that came to be, but […]

Described by Edward Burns of the Chicago Tribune as “one of the most important meetings in baseball history”1 and “one of the most harmonious sessions”2 by New York Times sportswriter John Drebinger, the 1952 Baseball Winter Meetings took place in Phoenix from December 1 to 7. “Never before, perhaps,” wrote The Sporting News, “has the […]

The image of American higher education reflected by college athletics is any­thing but flattering. As of March 1982, 17 schools were on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s pro­bation list—the highest number for a single period—and the Association’s enforcement department declared that the list would lengthen before it shortened. An additional 35 schools were under investigation […]

  With Connie Mack’s election as president of the Athletics in January 1937, the Mack family now controlled all of the senior leadership positions in the club’s front office. From left: Earle, Connie, and Roy Mack in 1937. (Courtesy of Robert D. Warrington)   The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954. In […]

The National League and the American Association entered their respective winter meetings — hereafter called the annual meetings1 — buoyed by the growing popularity and profits of the past 1886 season.2 The owners recognized that to further expand the popularity of baseball and, with the consequent rise in attendance, increase their profits, they had to […]

Introduction The most important events of the season were the founding, organization, and successful completion of its championship season by the American Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs (AA), and the market responses by the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (NL), the incumbent, and the death of longtime NL President William Ambrose Hulbert. […]

Appendix 2 in Herm Krabbenhoft’s research on Hank Greenberg.

The importance of psychology in the development of baseball players has been recognized for many years. But there is not much information on how professional baseball organizations began to utilize the services of full-time mental training consultants during the 1980s. Harvey Dorfman is perhaps the most celebrated of these consultants. For over 27 years, Dorfman […]

Ray Scarborough holds the first modern assigned win in baseball history, April 18, 1950.   A recurring question among SABR members in recent years involves the first modern win: when was the first win awarded to a starting pitcher incorporating a league-mandated rule requiring the five-inning minimum standard? On the SABR-L email list, historian David […]