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Cy Young said he didn’t have the speed he once had but could still “lob a hook up there.” (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   The reader probably knows that Cy Young is baseball’s all-time winningest pitcher with 511 victories and that his 22-year career ranks as one of the greatest in baseball history. […]

Inevitably, the deeds done in ball parks receive more publicity than the stadia themselves.   Comiskey Park is where Luke Appling and Bill Pierce went to greatness and Chick Gandil to infamy, but the architect’s name is all but unknown.  This is lamentable, for the park has long been admired for its spaciousness and symmetry, and […]

If you had asked fans prior to the 1969 baseball season which scenario was more likely—man landing on the moon or the New York Mets wining the world championship—they would probably have been hard-pressed to choose, both being equally improbable. Casey Stengel, original Mets manager and overseer of the ugliest launching of a franchise in […]

In early February 1985, Alan Wiggins became the newest big-money player for the 1984 National League champion San Diego Padres. With the help of his San Diego-based agent, Tony Attanasio, and Padres general manager Jack McKeon, Wiggins, just 26 years old, signed a guaranteed four-year, $2.5 million contract, making him one of the highest paid […]

The Yankees arrive in Japan on October 20, 1955. (Rob Fitts Collection)   On Thursday, October 20, 1955, the New York Yankees and their entourage landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to begin a three-week, 16-game goodwill tour of Japan. There, they were mobbed by kimono-clad young women bearing bouquets, an eager press corps, and a […]

In the early months of 1926, Ty Cobb recounts in his autobiography, My Life in Baseball, the great outfielder was obliged to submit to eye surgery at the Johns Hopkins Clinic in Baltimore: “the dust of a thousand ballfields was in my eyes.” Shortly before he was admitted, a poem appeared in one of the […]

No one knew it at the time, but the January 22, 1969, trade that sent Rusty Staub from the Houston Astros to the Montreal Expos was arguably the most significant player transaction in baseball since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920. The actions of the players involved showed that […]

From 1920 to 1958, baseball fans across the Deep South and Southwest looked forward to the annual Dixie Series, a best-of-seven postseason matchup between the playoff champions of the Southern Association and the Texas League. In 1967, after an 8-year hiatus, owners in the Double-A Texas League and the newly created Southern League resurrected the […]

Major League Baseball implemented a package of rule changes for the 2023 season designed to address complaints that the game had become tedious to watch.1 Those complaints centered on pace of play and lack of action, with fans and media noting fewer balls in play and stolen bases and more strikeouts and home runs.2 Some […]

The players on the train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals back to Union Station should have been vibrant and fun-loving as it rolled through the Land of Lincoln on October 2, 1949. The Redbirds had thumped the Chicago Cubs, 13-5, at Wrigley Field in the season finale that afternoon. Thanks to a thrilling pennant race, […]

He spent 20 years as a professional umpire, baseball’s loneliest profession, passing judgment on the performances of the game’s great athletes and egos. Many people have pursued this particular job, but Emmett Ashford had the added burden of breaking racial barriers throughout his career, as a black man whose job required maintaining authority over white […]

Editor’s note: This article was published in the April 2018 edition of the SABR Deadball Era Committee newsletter. Pervasive cheating plagued baseball during the Deadball Era. Cutting bases, blocking baserunners, doctored baseballs, lob pitches, indifferent play, bribery, and fixed games found a way into every crevice of baseball. Much of the indiscretion occurred openly, regarded […]

The dominant characteristics of the Texas Rangers’ early history were inept management, pitiful baseball, and terrible attendance. The team proved incapable of coming up with a workable plan and sticking with it. This premise was stated well by a presumably neutral observer, veteran Chicago sports columnist Bernie Lincicome: “Texas has been a franchise governed by […]

When the movers and shakers of the baseball world descended on the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas for the 2008 Winter Meetings, the sport and the country faced economic uncertainty not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic downturn that became known as the Financial Crisis or the Great Recession began rumbling […]

“Although he never hit more than 47 home runs in a season…” was a common refrain in the eulogies that marked Henry Aaron’s passing on January 22, 2021. Intended as a nod to Aaron’s workmanlike virtue, the suggestion that his peak fell short of the more spectacular feats of other sluggers set up the inevitable […]

After a 1985 season in which he hit 29 home runs and drove in 97 runs, Detroit Tigers outfielder Kirk Gibson was the top position player of that winter’s free-agent class. So when he accepted an invitation to go bird hunting with people from the Kansas City Royals, he believed the outing would be a […]

If a modern fan could be transported back to a baseball game in 1908, to the strains of the new tune “Take Me out to the Ball Game,” he or she would feel right at home. The rules, the two major leagues, and many of the teams were similar then to what they are today. […]

Babe Ruth, left, poses with Boston Braves teammates Wally Berger and Hal Lee in 1935. (Leslie Jones photo, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)   The buildup had been tremendous, and for a few days, at least, the hype seemed completely justified. On April 16, 1935, the Boston Braves hosted the New York Giants in […]

The mentor-mentee relationship is a bedrock of Hollywood storytelling: Dr. David Zorba and Dr. Ben Casey. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. Mr. Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso. Mickey Goldmill and Rocky Balboa. Three movies and one TV-movie set in baseball’s minor leagues exemplify the dynamic.   Stud Cantrell (William Petersen) and Dixie Lee Boxx (Virginia Madsen) […]

Dave Barnhill. He was small, only weighing 130 pounds “when it snowed on him.” But on the mound he stood tall, Leon Day, a six-time all star pitcher for the Newark Eagles and a contemporary of Barnhill’s, marvels, “That’s what I couldn’t understand about him. He was so small, but he could throw that ball […]

Tecumseh Park hosts an International Association match between Guelph and London, 1877. (C.J. Dryer, Canadian Illustrated News. Photo courtesy of Library and Archives Canada)   There resides in London, Ontario, across Queen’s Avenue from the old early nineteenth century courthouse located above the confluence of the north and south branches of the Thames River (locally […]

P.K. Wrigley and the Chicago Cubs’ “College of Coaches” in 1961. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)   In any business venture, management often seeks to make changes in everyday operations in order to bring about improvements in overall performance. These changes may range from minor tweaks in normal operating procedures to overhauls of the conventional methods in place. […]