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Ray Brown: Hall of Famer When Negro Leagues great Ray Brown was inducted posthumously into baseball’s National Hall of Fame in 2006 as one of 17 individuals chosen for their essential contributions to “the history of blacks in the game,” he also became the first player with links to the Quebec Provincial League ever to […]

Baseball was booming in the years immediately following the Civil War. New clubs were forming in cities and towns across the country as established clubs created more excitement than ever. Major matches attracted unprecedented crowds. Competitive rivalries grew more heated. This environment led inevitably to controversies. One of the greatest was the claim that the […]

Rod Carew, Vida Blue, and Big Klu Connie Mack, Stan Hack, Max Flack Guy Bush, Emil Kush, Heinie Manush Joe Rudi, Lyle Judy, and Howdy Doody Ty Cobb, Scotty Robb, Rusty Staub Rip Sewell, Bob Buhl, Joe Kuhel Hank Bauer, Vic Power, Hank Sauer Tris Speaker, Roy Meeker, and a streaker Lyn Lary, Charlie Berry, […]

From left to right: Takehiko Bessho, Eddie Lopat, Joe DiMaggio, and Tetsuharu Kawakami. (Rob Fitts Collection)   In 1951 American troops still occupied Japan, but their mission had shifted. Rather than seeing the country as a former enemy to be subjugated, Japan was now viewed as an ally in the fight against communism. As the […]

Introduction and Context Baseball’s 1943 winter meetings were held in New York City from November 29 to December 3. The minor leagues and the major leagues took care of their business at the New Yorker Hotel, marking the first time in 24 years that both the majors and minors sat down together in New York. […]

The magnificent September sunset offered the perfect backdrop for the final game of a four-game series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals. A cool northerly wind blew. Autumn had arrived, and the postseason was rapidly approaching. Although that breeze provided a momentary chill, the battle on the diamond—along with the sold-out ballpark and deafening […]

Click here to read Part I of this article on Roberto Clemente’s Puerto Rico winter league career. Roberto Clemente with San Juan in 1959. (Courtesy of Thomas Van Hyning.)   In August 1959, Roberto Clemente was traded from Caguas of the Puerto Rico Winter League to San Juan, with Canenita Allen and José “Palillo” Santiago […]

On June 21, 1952, the Harrisburg, Pa., Senators of the Inter-State League announced plans to sign a female player to a contract. She was Mrs. Eleanor Engle, 24, a 132-pound stenographer at the State Capitol. She worked out with the club at shortstop the next day, but did not play in the game against Lancaster. […]

Introduction In January 1942, one month after the attack on Pearl Harbor had made the United States a combatant in World War II, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in which he had inquired “whether professional baseball should continue to operate.”1 Roosevelt’s famous reply, now known as the “green […]

People of a certain age know where they were when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt died, and Bobby Thomson swung. “The most famous sports moment of all time,” Jon Miller termed Thomson’s October 3, 1951, pennant-winning blast. We still recall the Shot Heard ’Round the World: Russ Hodges five times crying, “The Giants […]

Roland Hemond has made lasting and unprecedented contributions to professional baseball with seven major-league teams. Born in 1929 to parents of French-Canadian heritage in Central Falls, Rhode Island, Hemond is one of the industry’s most respected and experienced executives. Hemond is also a member of one of baseball’s most distinguished multigenerational families. His wife, Margo, […]

Jackie Robinson in his UCLA track uniform. (UCLA LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS)   Once he got to the major leagues, it didn’t take long for Jackie Robinson to establish his credentials as a Hall of Fame baseball player. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1947, and MVP two years later. His skill at baseball […]

“Free-agent frenzy.”1 “Meat Market.”2 Negotiations dominated by “fast-talking, greedy little men.”3 Memories of the 1992 Winter Meetings in Louisville, Kentucky, were unvaryingly ugly. Over a tumultuous four days, baseball’s annual gathering had dissolved into nightmarish chaos and sent major-league executives running. Among the worst incidents, the Rev. Jesse Jackson denounced baseball’s “institutional racism,” threatening to […]

The old ball was perched on a low, dusty shelf in a not very distinguished antique shop in Philadelphia; I spotted the ball only by chance just as I was about to leave the store. Even though I was an impoverished college sophomore who had no business spending $40 on a used baseball, I figured […]

Harry Passon, the Jewish owner of a sporting goods store, played a strategic role in promoting both black and white semi-pro baseball in Philadelphia. (Courtesy of the Passon Family)   Semi-professional baseball, black and white, flourished in Philadelphia in the first half of the twentieth century. Harry Passon (1897–1954), a Jewish owner of Philadelphia’s leading […]

Now that Greg Maddux has won his 300th game, an obvious question arises. Will any other major league player reach that exalted level of pitching proficiency? There is, of course, no conclusive answer. But the question is one of particular interest as baseball continues to undergo changes while it moves deeper into the 21st century. […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (McFarland & Co., Fall 2009).   In August of 1932, Gus Greenlee added permanent lights to the Pittsburgh Crawfords home field. (NOIRTECH RESEARCH INC.)   The Story of Greenlee Field Any story requires plot, characters, and setting. In […]

Fat Cats catcher Eitan Maoz leaps for a ball. (Michael Gauthier, Freedom Photography)   Professional baseball in Ottawa has had a turbulent existence and at times, a bitter heritage. From 1898 to the present, Ottawa professional baseball has been a race between sporadic success and crashing failures, featuring eight professional franchises.1 As a semiprofessional team, […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, No. 17 (1997). For a tradition-minded American baseball fan fed up with ear-piercing Diamond Vision entertainment, cavorting cartoon-style mascots, shopping-mall stadia, luxury-box extravagance, inflated beer and parking prices, plastic-grass fields, and spoiled ballplayers, a trip around the Cuban ballpark circuit in mid-Febru­ary — during the […]

2014 Suzuki Nichibei Yakyu program (Robert Fitts Collection)   On June 10, 2014, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association announced that the Nichibei Yakyu All-Star Series would be held in the fall after an eight-year hiatus. In 2006 the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association had voted not to participate in the […]

On July 8, 1949, the New York Giants became the fourth major-league team to put a black player on the field when Hank Thompson started at second base and Monte Irvin pinch-hit in the eighth inning of a 4-3 loss to the Brooklyn Dodgers. All of the five black players who would play in the […]

“On Monday morning, before accepting of any civilities at the hands of the Nationals, the Mutuals [of New York] held a special meeting at Willard’s Hotel, at which President [Andrew] Johnson was unanimously elected an honorary member of the club. After which such of them as felt like sight-seeing were taken in charge by the […]

In February 1933 – when Jackie Robinson was 14 years old – Heywood Broun, a syndicated columnist at the New York World-Telegram, addressed the annual dinner of the all-White New York Baseball Writers Association. If Black athletes were good enough to represent the United States at the 1932 Olympic Games, Broun said, “it seems a […]

George H. Lawson (1864–1927), promoter of various baseball leagues, including the United States League, which drew attention for his announcement that he would sign African American players. After a modest launch in spring 1910, the league was disbanded in May, a few weeks into the season. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   Few men appear to have […]