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A bronze plaque erected by the City of Bisbee in May 1994 proclaims Warren Ballpark in that southeast Atizona municipality as the oldest baseball stadium in Arizona. But Bisbee’s boast may be too modest. This classic structure, which was constructed in 1909, may in fact be the oldest ballpark in the United States now being […]

SABR’s phenomenal membership rise is indeed a testimony to the burgeoning numbers of dedicated baseball researchers about the land. However, a menacing schism, one pitting baseball historians against baseball statisticians, bids foul to disturb the tribal unity. As a precipitating cause of this fratricidal struggle, baseball historians point to the distortion of historical records done […]

Major League Baseball has always been a for-profit business.  It emerged from the Roaring Twenties and survived the Great Depression to emerge firmly entrenched as “The National Pastime,” but despite the reverence held for the game the primary objective of the owners was to fill the stadiums and keep costs to a minimum, maximizing their […]

Sometimes research leads us to answers we never intended to find. My quest began in 2010 when I set out to review the history of an unlucky baseball pitcher named Sylvester “Syl” Johnson. This man had the honor to work with one of the most notorious baseball men in history, Tyrus Raymond Cobb. He was […]

When legendary sportswriter Furman Bisher died in 2012, his obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution repeated a claim that had been casually tossed around for many years — including by Bisher himself: One of the biggest “scoops” of his career occurred in 1949, when “Shoeless” Joe Jackson gave Bisher and Sport Magazine his only interview since […]

Today not too many people remember Dexter Park, but in the first half of the twentieth century it played host to many the top baseball stars of the majors and the Negro Leagues. Those who attended games there remember it with respect and affection. Some stoutly maintain that it was in Brooklyn, but it was […]

This article was originally published in “Baseball in Chicago,” the 1986 SABR convention journal.   You and I embark on a wondrous journey as we are magically whisked away to a long-ago time and place. We stand on the corner of State and Madison. The familiar iron-facade entrance of Carson, Pirie, Scott’s is behind us […]

The World Series is the capstone of each baseball season. It ties up the annual package that was the pennant races, crowning an ultimate champion and providing fans with memories and associations that continue to live: the Called Shot, Al Gionfriddo, Bill Mazeroski. The special events of the World Series have a parallel in the […]

Jackie Robinson and young fan, Stephen Rozansky in 1951 at the Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown. Inspiring youth remains a goal of today’s Jackie Robinson Foundation.   “After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.” – Jackie […]

Once upon a time in a faraway place—a place so far away no one under the age of sixty today has ever been there—there was a land called Organized Baseball, consisting of two major leagues of eight teams each and fifty-one minor leagues with names like Kitty, Pony, Cotton States, and Three-I. There were six […]

A look at the Dodger way of scouting, tracing its roots back to Branch Rickey. 

Pittsburgh Pirate Honus Wagner is the greatest shortstop of all time. Baseball guru Bill James ranks Wagner as the second greatest baseball player in history, behind only Babe Ruth. He was a longtime hero in Pittsburgh. So how did the beloved Pirate get routed in the 1925 race for sheriff of Allegheny County? He ran […]

A poem about the Dodgers’ relocation.

Hall of Fame executive Ed Barrow secured his legacy during his years with the Yankees. He joined New York’s front office after the 1920 season as their first de facto general manager. The next year the team won its first pennant; during his 24-year tenure, from 1921 through 1944 (through 1947 he stayed on as […]

When the Yankton Treaty was signed in 1858, the United States government acquired a large parcel of land: the northernmost part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, much of which had been Sioux Indian land. In 1861, the area was incorporated as the Dakota Territory. Its borders changed over the next decade, at one time […]

The 1976 renovation of Yankee Stadium removed the columns that obstructed views on the lower decks and the seats in center field that obstructed batters, but it also relegated the recognizable frieze to above the outfield wall. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   In the spring of 1976, the Yankees celebrated a grand reopening of Yankee Stadium.1 It […]

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem during a 2016 preseason game to protest police violence against black people in America, all hell broke loose. Voices of praise and condemnation rained down. Passion often trumped reason. The “conversation” remains heated, while complicated criminal justice problems remain unsolved. Is […]

Carlos Bernier was 26 years old when he broke the Pittsburgh Pirates’ color line on April 22, 1953, nearly one year before Curt Roberts played his first game with the Pirates.1 The controversial and temperamental outfielder was one of two Bucs, with Lino Donoso, a Cuban pitcher, who encouraged Roberto Clemente to refrain from emotional […]

Once upon a time, A.J. Liebling, consummate Manhattanite and writer for The New Yorker, dubbed Chicago America’s Second City.1 But in relation to New York-centric baseball movies, this AAA-league rating is extremely generous. Across the decades, baseball films with Chicago references have been relatively scarce. For every on-screen image of Wrigley Field, there are scores […]

Introduction Deep in the heart of Texas, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (better known as the minor leagues) huffed and puffed at their major-league brethren and tried to … well … not blow the house down but remodel it into something they could live with more comfortably. But from New York, the majors […]

Heinie Groh of the Cincinnati Reds had one of the most distinctive bats in baseball history, a “bottle bat” which had about a 17-inch barrel that tapered sharply to a thin handle. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Introduction Over the centuries, baseball bat shapes have undergone all kinds of contortions: Bat diameters have […]

Baltimoreans strolling on Eutaw Street outside Oriole Park before a home game may stop for a bite to eat and kibbitz with owners of the establishments. It’s not an unusual sight. But one owner happens to be a civic icon—John Wesley Powell. Boog. The slugger who bashed 339 home runs in the majors does more […]