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Tris Speaker, considered one of the greatest hitters and center fielders of all time, is rarely considered a great manager, though his rallying the Cleveland Indians to the 1920 world championship after the death of Ray Chapman is readily acknowledged. His remarkable achievement of managing the Indians in 1921—keeping them in the pennant race against […]

The 1934 baseball winter meetings could very easily have just gone to the dogs. The talk leading up to the convention was the desperate attempt of the Boston Braves owner, Judge Emil Fuchs, to pull his team out of the red by requesting that Braves Field host nightly greyhound racing. These were desperate times during […]

Early 1950s Japanese publication featuring Jackie Robinson. (Author’s collection)   There was a saying in Japan during the late 1950s: Kamisama, Hotokesama, Inaosama (God, Buddha, Inao). The 19-year-old Kazuhisa Inao was out there on the mound. The kid wasn’t that big, at least not by American standards – about 5-foot-9, 185 pounds. But he was […]

South Florida is notoriously hot in the summer, but conditions heated up another notch in 1952 when the Miami Sun Sox and the Miami Beach Flamingos fought it out in one of the great pennant races of minor league baseball. The 1952 dash for the pennant involved two colorful managers, the contentious Johnny “Pepper” Martin […]

Stars of Soul of the Game, Mykelti Williamson (l.), Blair Underwood (c.), and Delroy Lindo (r.) at an event honoring the film at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. (Courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)   Soul of the Game premiered on April 20, 1996, on the Home Box Office (HBO) cable network. The docudrama […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 4, No. 1, in Spring 1985.   THE COURT HOUSE This is that theater the muse loves best. All dramas ever dreamed are acted here. The roles are done in earnest, none in jest. Hero and dupe and villain all appear. Here falsehood skulks […]

Prologue The American National Leagues each held individual annual meetings on December 9, 1930, in New York City. Although the National League was bound by its constitution to meet in New York City, its American League counterpart had originally planned to meet in Chicago. However, league President E.S. Barnard later changed this arrangement so the […]

This article was originally published in the November 2018 edition of “The Inside Game,” the SABR Deadball Era Committee newsletter. Since February 2015, The Inside Game has had the privilege of publishing Herm Krabbenhoft’s record-revising research into the accuracy of Deadball Era statistics. Herm’s work on stats long predates his association with the newsletter, and […]

On August 4, 1948, the Roseville Press-Tribune trumpeted the arrival of a new professional baseball team. The Far West League’s financially failing Pittsburg Diamonds were moving ninety miles northeast along what was then US Highway 40 to Roseville, just outside Sacramento.1 The late-season move was bold; although Roseville today ranks among California’s fastest growing cities […]

Some History Baseball is a superstitious sport. Players skip over foul lines on the way to the dugout, refuse to change their socks during a hitting streak, and avoid talking to a pitcher while he is hurling a no-hitter. Some superstitions have as their subject not only an individual player but an entire team. For […]