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Scores of professional ballplayers have made their way from the big leagues to the big screen. A few, including Chuck Connors, Bob Uecker, and John Beradino (who played for the Browns, Indians, and Pirates as Johnny Berardino), became successful actors or media personalities. Some, notably Babe Ruth, appeared in movies as themselves, or as thinly […]

For as long as I can remember I have had an unquenchable passion for baseball. Beginning in the 1920s, when I was about five years old, I’d watch my big brother, Marv, playing sandlot games, then high-school and college games. The biggest thrill of all was witnessing his sparkling professional play in a major-league career […]

From the moment Andy Pafko put on a Chicago Cubs uniform he was a fan favorite. He debuted on September 24, 1943, in a rain-shortened, five-inning 7–4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. In front of a crowd of 342—the smallest to ever see a game at Wrigley Field—he went 2-for-3 with a double and four […]

He was known as “The Tall Tactician” and was baseball’s grand old gentleman for more than a generation. Statuesque, stately, and slim, he clutched a rolled-up scorecard as he sat or stood ramrod straight in the dugout, attired in a business suit rather than a uniform, a derby or bowler in place of a baseball […]

Editor’s note: Justice Samuel Alito delivered this speech as the Supreme Court Historical Society’s 2008 Annual Lecture. It was published originally in the “Journal of Supreme Court History 34,” no. 2 (July 2009): 183–95, and republished in SABR’s law-themed Fall 2009 issue of the Baseball Research Journal. The Justice expresses his gratitude to James Hunter, […]

A version of this article was originally published in the SABR Deadball Era Research Committee’s February 2015 newsletter. The contributions of Dorothy Seymour Mills to our understanding of baseball history can hardly be overstated, as her work with her husband Dr. Harold Seymour on the 1971 book Baseball: The Golden Age laid the foundation for […]

If the most iconic sports-related Coca-Cola television ad features a child offering a Coke to an injured football star—Mean Joe Greene, the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer—countless hurlers and hitters have hawked the product across the decades. The Greene spot first aired in 1979; however, starting in the early 1950s, the Coca-Cola Company has produced […]

For 21 years Theodore Amar Lyons pitched for the Chicago White Sox, endearing himself as no other player to South Side fans. He was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1955. Yet for all of his honors, two major aspects of Lyons’ career have never been properly assessed: the superiority of his own record […]

Star shortstop Dick Lundy was on the Hilldale team that played against the Boston Red Sox on September 14, 1918, just a week after the World Series ended. (HELMAR ART CARDS)   “Every one of the 16 Major League franchises that operated between 1901 and 1960 faced a black team at some point in their […]

In general, the baseball Winter Meetings can be viewed as a watershed event, marking both the end of one season and the beginning of the next. Even before the 2007 Winter Meetings got under way in Nashville, however, the offseason had been launched with a major new initiative. Major-league general managers held their annual meetings […]