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On John Klima’s 2009 book about Willie Mays and the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons and James S. Hirsch’s 2010 book, “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”

On September 5, 1929, Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees played an exhibition game against the Mutual Welfare League team inside the walls of Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. “I hear we’re going to Sing Sing next Thursday,” Yankees catcher Ben Bengough announced in the Yankee Stadium dugout. “Yeh,”said Babe Ruth, […]

It has been 50 years since the Astrodome first opened to worldwide acclaim as the world’s first domed, air-conditioned, multipurpose facility. From the beginning it was more than just a building; it was an experience of awe and a demonstration of civic swagger.1 As the brainchild of enigmatic former Houston mayor and political stalwart Judge […]

Pumpsie Green. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   When Elijah “Pumpsie” Green made his debut for the Boston Red Sox in 1959, the American League team became the last of the original 16 major-league White clubs to cross the color line, 12 years after Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers broke the major-league color barrier. Thus, Green became forever […]

When Negro National League officials agreed to close operations for 1932 due to the hard realities of the Great Depression, the usually minor Negro Southern League and the newly created East-West Colored League became black baseball’s “major leagues.” Low attendance figures, disillusionment with the National League collapse, doubts about the ability of the leagues to […]

On the eve of the opening game of the 1919 season in Cincinnati, veteran baseball writer Jack Ryder predicted that no batter could hit a pitched ball out of vast Redland Field (renamed Crosley Field in 1934).1 Ryder was not crazy. He had covered the Reds since 1905, and in the seven years he had […]

Hanlan’s Point illuminated in 1928, not for baseball, but for opera. (City of Toronto Archives)   As soon as it became possible to play ballgames at night, baseball purists scoffed at the idea. In 1915, the Toronto Daily Star declared that night baseball had always been, and would always be, a dismal failure. “When it […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (McFarland & Co., Fall 2008). Premise By the late 1930s, and particularly during the years of US involvement in World War II, segregation in sport and society was a topic of increasing public interest. Nationalism had at least […]

One could pen a book or perhaps even an encyclopedia on the manner in which baseball and television have merged across the decades. Such a volume not only would explore the manner in which ballgames have been broadcast on TV both locally and nationally and the celebrated sportscasters who announce them. It would feature everything […]

Spike Lee, in his Jackie Robinson jersey, on the set of Do the Right Thing. (Courtesy of Alamy)   In an Instagram post on March 29, 2020, Spike Lee announced that he would be sharing the 155-page fifth draft of a script for a Jackie Robinson biopic, which he wrote in 1996. The project, he […]

The caller to the post-game radio talk show was upset. “Who are these official scorers anyhow?” he demanded of the host. “At this rate the Diamondbacks will have a Gold Glove infield.” It was a few games into Arizona’s franchise-opening homestand when, while driving home from Bank One Ballpark one evening, it hit me for […]

Was the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 a major league? Baseball authorities interested in the answer have been, and still are, divided in their opinions. Could a six-team independent league in 1913, generally regarded as no better than Class D, become an eight-team organization of major league quality a year later? The odds suggest […]

Editor’s note: In the Spring 2012 issue of “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game,” noted Black Sox expert Bob Hoie used player salary data to put to rout the long-held notion that the 1919 Chicago White Sox were underpaid. As it turns out, the Sox had the second-highest player payroll in the major […]

Ty Cobb is usually thought of as the very embodiment of the Deadball Era hitter; the “Punch and Judy” counterpoint to the post-1920 Ruthian power game.1 This common misconception is underscored in a number of ways. First, it is supported by the types of players who have surpassed Cobb’s career records. Lou Brock bested his […]

This undated publicity photo (circa 1944–49) of the Clowns includes Edward “King Tut” King and in the lower right inset, “baseball clown” Ed Hamman in full clownface. Hamman would eventually become sole owner of the Clowns. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Found almost exclusively in black newspapers, box scores for Miami Ethiopian Clowns […]

(Les Banos photograph courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)   About Roberto Clemente, Ozzie Guillén, the three-time All-Star shortstop, outspoken World Series-winning manager, and fellow Latin American, said, “He is the Jackie Robinson of Latin baseball. … He lived racism. He was a man who was happy to be not only Puerto Rican, but Latin American. […]

In Mark Armour’s SABR biography of Jim Brosnan he observes that Brosnan “wrote the first honest portrayal of the life of a ballplayer,” and that “Fifty years on, Brosnan’s books (The Long Season and The Pennant Race) remain the gold standard for baseball memoirs.” Brosnan allowed fans to gain a degree of understanding about the […]

The “Astros Better Halves” prepare to play their husbands under the Dome in the 1970s. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOUSTON ASTROS)   Although the earliest of American baseball clubs in the mid-1800s were organized as exclusively male social organizations, spectators were soon drawn to their games, and plenty of women were among them. The Knickerbocker Base […]

A fictional tale about a personal rivalry between a Minneapolis player and a St. Paul player in the late 19th century.

That summer of 1949, at twelve, I got closer to baseball. I carried a ball and glove in the car in case I met someone who wanted to play. I judged people by their baseball connections: if they didn’t have any, they weren’t interesting to me. One of my grandmother’s neighbors, Mr. Martin, took on […]

Toronto hosted the 1979 winter meetings at the Sheraton Centre, marking the fourth time the winter meetings were held outside the United States (Montreal in 1930 and 1936 and Mexico City in 1967).1 The owners’ discussions, both formal and informal, focused on the game’s economics and the coming labor negotiations with the players — only […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, No. 2 (1983). Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century. — Mark Twain . . . social inequality … means that in all the relations that […]

Columbia University’s Society for Baseball Research group includes the following contributors: Anthony Montes, Anthony Argenziano, Brian O’Sullivan, Charles Orlinsky, Drew Posner, Matthew Chagares, Anna Flieder, Bennett Bookstein, Jack Chernow, and Teddy Brodsky.   The shift has been a part of baseball for as long as the sport has existed. From a crisp “give me two […]