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It could be compared, in a way, to a romance novel — first they hate each other, then they start to learn more about each other to where they like each other, and finally they fall in love and get married. Unlike the two protagonists in this popular style of fiction, though, the National and […]

Major league baseball is now in its 10th year in Canada, dating from the establishment of the Montreal franchise in 1969. But Canadian association with Big League baseball goes back much further. In fact, this is the 100th year that Canadians have participated at the top level, dating back to the debut of first-baseman William […]

It took some time for professional baseball to take hold in Minneapolis. Ultimately, a feisty first baseman with the unintimidating nickname of “Peach Pie Perry” made a record-setting contribution to get professional baseball over the hump in Minneapolis. Organized professional baseball first arrived in Minnesota in 1877 when Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Winona sported entries […]

Despite the picturesque setting of Honolulu, baseball’s owners were a largely dispirited lot as they headed into the 1982 winter meetings. They were a year and a half removed from a brutal strike in which they had failed to achieve their main objective of direct player compensation for free agents; many teams were losing money; […]

Since the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961, the team has boasted many stars, including several of the greatest players in the game. Minnesotans have embraced these players differently, highlighting the changing nature of our complicated relationship with our sports heroes.

1874 had been a banner year for “Base Ball” in the small river town of Saugerties, New York. The local newspaper accounts told often ball clubs from the central village and surrounding rural hamlets, playing “matches” among themselves and against opponents from as far distant as 70 miles. That excursion, a significant trip in those times, […]

They used to call Spottswood Poles the “black Ty Cobb.” He was a Negro League contemporary of the Detroit outfielder who excelled at hitting and running. Paul Robeson, football star of the 1918-22 period and later a famous singer, considered Poles one of the greatest black athletes of all time, grouping him with Jesse Owens, […]

Very little has been written about Deadball Era umpires who established the foundations of the modern umpiring profession — the implementation of umpire signals, the two-umpire system, and more support from league authorities for umpires. And yet this group of men who umpired during the Deadball Era established the traditions, rules, and procedures by which […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Winter 1987 (Vol. 6, No. 1). During the summer of 1895, John Peter Wagner — not yet known as “Honus” or “Hans,” nor yet as a shortstop — played at least 79 games for teams at Steubenville, Akron, and Mansfield, Ohio; Adrian, Michigan; and Warren, […]

“I don’t give a damn about O’Malley.” Hank Greenberg was furious. The 6-foot-4 Hall of Famer towered over Commissioner Ford Frick, who had just told him what he did not want to hear: Before Greenberg could put an American League expansion team in Los Angeles, he would have to pay tribute to Dodgers owner Walter […]