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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 […]

More than 35 years have passed since the re-introduction of Negro players into Organized Baseball after World War II. Before discussing how slow/fast that integration process was, let us backtrack several decades to the 19th century for a brief mention of blacks in that period. There were only two recognized blacks who played in the […]

  Baseball as played in the Caribbean Winter Leagues is of top-notch caliber, with many of the players themselves admitting the competition can be as tough as it is in the majors. This should not be too surprising because baseball has had a long history in Latin America, and the players produced there, from Dolf […]

The first attempt to organize a Negro professional baseball league appears to have been made, surprisingly, in the south in the spring of 1886.   In March of that year a number of newspapers in major southern cities carried the following brief item in their sporting news columns: “A call has been issued for the captains […]

The baseball community met at the Galt House hotel in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, December 3-9, 1992. Reportedly, 1,800 to 1,900 people registered for the annual meeting, with vendors increasing the size of the meeting to about 2,500. By most accounts, the 1992 Winter Meeting was especially eventful, highlighted by a number of prominent free-agent signings […]

Narrative films are not factual films — even when they purport to divulge the true-life stories of real people. Whether their subjects are sports figures,show business personalities, or world leaders, such movies often are rife with misinforma­tion. But unless their function is to propagandize, they are not purposefully fashioned to toss the viewer curveballs and […]

The Boston Beaneaters were coming off a disappointing third-place finish in 1894 at 78-54. If that doesn’t sound disappointing, take into account that the team had won three straight National League pennants (1891-1893) and set the bar and the expectations of Boston fans high. In 1894 the Beaneaters didn’t have a losing month or even […]

In 1912, Chicago was under consideration by two upstart baseball leagues. On February 12, John T. Powers’s Columbian League awarded a franchise to Chicago (along with Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, Milwaukee, and St. Louis), but the venture failed to materialize due to a lack of money. On April 3, an official announcement was […]

Background The 1971 baseball Winter Meetings took place in Phoenix, Arizona, from Saturday, November 27, through Friday, December 3. As was the custom, the National Association meetings took up the first few days, while the major-league meetings got going on Wednesday. Rule 5 Draft In the annual major-league draft, the big-league clubs claimed 13 players […]

The Washington Post sports section for August 28, 1897 contained several familiar baseball names at unusual positions and with unusual teams. Honus Wagner was playing second base for the Louisville Colonels and hit a home run in a losing cause. Nap Lajoie was stationed at first base for the Phillies and, the Post reported, “was […]