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A 1991 1922 American Caramel (E120) reprint baseball card of Ray Powell. The back of the card reads, “Boston Nationals “Braves” Manager — Fred Mitchell Dana Filligim Pitcher Hugh McQuillan Pitcher Joe Oeschger Pitcher John Watson Pitcher Richard (Rube) Marquard Pitcher George O’Neil Catcher Hank Gowdy Catcher Walter Holke First Base Horace Ford Second Base […]
A 1991 1922 American Caramel (E120) reprint baseball card of Billy Southworth. The back of the card reads, “Boston Nationals “Braves” Manager — Fred Mitchell Dana Filligim Pitcher Hugh McQuillan Pitcher Joe Oeschger Pitcher John Watson Pitcher Richard (Rube) Marquard Pitcher George O’Neil Catcher Hank Gowdy Catcher Walter Holke First Base Horace Ford Second Base […]
A 1991 1922 American Caramel (E120) reprint baseball card of Larry Kopf. The back of the card reads, “Boston Nationals “Braves” Manager — Fred Mitchell Dana Filligim Pitcher Hugh McQuillan Pitcher Joe Oeschger Pitcher John Watson Pitcher Richard (Rube) Marquard Pitcher George O’Neil Catcher Hank Gowdy Catcher Walter Holke First Base Horace Ford Second Base […]
A 1991 1922 American Caramel (E120) reprint baseball card of Hank Gowdy. The back of the card reads, “Boston Nationals “Braves” Manager — Fred Mitchell Dana Filligim Pitcher Hugh McQuillan Pitcher Joe Oeschger Pitcher John Watson Pitcher Richard (Rube) Marquard Pitcher George O’Neil Catcher Hank Gowdy Catcher Walter Holke First Base Horace Ford Second Base […]
The 1985 Winter Meetings had showcased a then-record 62 free agents, but the 1986 free-agent class shattered that mark as 82 players filed for free agency by the deadline.1 Despite the uptick in the number of free agents, however, for the second year in a row none of them signed with a new club at […]
This story tells the tragic tale of Michael “Doc” Powers, a catcher who played primarily for the Philadelphia Athletics and whose baseball career was cut short by his untimely death. Misconceptions about what caused his demise abound, but can be laid to rest by this article. Ultimately, “Doc Powers Day” was organized by the American […]
For baseball fans who are no longer young, it is easy to conjure up the once-common image of a man behind home plate with a radar gun pointed at the pitcher. But as technology has advanced, the once cutting-edge radar gun has been replaced by new and better equipment. Today, advanced systems, such as TrackMan […]
Rock and roll is the métier of choice at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (a.k.a. O.co Coliseum since 2011). For example, the Allman Brothers Band’s hit “Ramblin’ Man” can often be heard at the baseball Athletics’ 35,067-capacity home. It is fitting, given the franchise’s peregrination from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955 and then to Oakland […]
While professional baseball and politics have always been linked, only once has a major league baseball team become a voluntary part of a Presidential campaign. The visible evidence of this happenstance is the 1920 Chicago Cubs’ exhibition game in a small Ohio town against a squad of local semi-professionals called the Kerrigan Tailors. United States […]
Friday, August 10, 1883, promised excitement for baseball fans in Toledo. The Toledo Blue Stockings of the Northwest League played host to the three-time world champion Chicago White Stockings, and thou sands jammed League Park at Monroe and 13th Streets to see the greatest team in baseball and its star player-manager, Cap Anson. What the […]
WORLD WAR II decimated minor league baseball. Then, like the legendary phoenix rising from the ashes, the 1945 low of 12 leagues soared to an impressive 52 leagues in 1947. They ranged from Triple-A to Class D and covered the length and breadth of the United States plus towns in Canada and Mexico. Old leagues […]
“Jarvis fires away…That’s a fly ball, deep to left, back, back…HEY HEY! He did it! Ernie Banks got number 500! The ball tossed to the bullpen…everybody on your feet…this…is IT! WHEEEEEEEE!” — Jack Brickhouse, WGN-TV, May 12, 1970 1 When the curtain rang down on the 1969 season, Ernie Banks was just three home […]
As Major League Baseball cuts out the lower rungs of the minor-league ladder, author David Lamb’s observations on the nature of the minors become ever more poignant: “Although on the surface, the minors may seem like a quaint relic of America’s mom-and-pop era, the truth is that in the past decade, they’ve moved into […]
Babe Ruth pitches in to help the grounds crew in The House That Ruth Built. (Getty Images) November 27, 1922, was an overcast and chilly day, but the grounds crew finished laying the last pieces of outfield sod, pleasing the head groundskeeper. Phil Schenck stood with New York Yankees co-owner Colonel Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston […]
Meooowwwwww, avoid black cats! Don’t step on the base lines! Don your rally cap! Grab your magic seat and jewelry! Superstition has been a part of baseball since the game’s earliest days. Almost anything and anyone have been fair game to promote personal and team good fortune: pre-game meal rituals, lucky clothes and equipment, mascots, […]
This article was selected as a winner of the 2016 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award. This well-known Chicago Tribune photo of Black Sox defendants, attorneys, jurors, and supporters shows them celebrating the not guilty verdicts on the steps of the Cook County Courthouse on August 2, 1921. A number of the celebrants have numbers inscribed […]
The oldest professional baseball park in the United States—Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama—adds another chapter to its rich history this summer when it hosts the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in a regular-season game.1 The specialty game will coincide with Juneteenth celebrations and honor Hall of Famer Willie Mays, who played for the […]
In December 1936, the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League purchased a catcher from the Albany Senators. Bill Starr would leave his mark on San Diego baseball history: As a player, he had the honor of pinch-hitting for Ted Williams. As an owner, he signed the player who broke the Pacific Coast League […]
In the summer of 1908 Tyrus Cobb, the Georgia Peach, discovered a ten-year-old black orphan, Lil’ Rastus, hanging around the Detroit ballpark. Cobb became the boy’s protector, feeding and housing him and eventually taking him to Georgia. The relationship of Cobb and Lil Rastus opens up the question of Cobb’s attitude towards blacks, a topic […]
1923 Eastern Colored League After the initial success in the Midwest of the Negro National League, which was launched in 1920, there began a drumbeat on the East Coast for a black league there. There were enough good teams to support one, and as early as the spring of 1922 rumors of an organization were […]
Willie Mays with the Minneapolis Millers in 1951. (SABR-Rucker Archive) The New York Giants purchased the Minneapolis Millers in 1946. It took five years for Minneapolis fans to fully process the impact. A charter member of the American Association in 1902, the Millers had a rich history that extended to the final decades of […]
Cover of the May 1927 issue of Yakyukai depicting O’Neal Pullen and Shinji Hamazaki (Rob Fitts Collection) Kazuo Sayama, baseball historian, author, and member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame (enshrined in 2021), states with great passion and conviction that had it not been for the tours of the Negro Leagues’ all-star Philadelphia […]
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Journalism History, Vol. 32, No. 1, Spring 2006. Had baseball card collecting been popular in the 1920s, fans of the nascent Negro leagues likely would have coveted the cards of Andrew “Rube” Foster, C.I. Taylor, Ed Bolden, and John Blount. Because these men were team owners and […]
One of America’s oldest commercialized sports spectaculars, major league baseball has adjusted repeatedly and dramatically to significant ideological and technological changes. Indeed, so cumulative have been these forces of change that each passing decade of baseball history reveals profound changes in the game’s social organization and in the behavior of the players. Thus, to scrutinize […]