Search Results

Entrance to Replay Operations Center, New York City.   In 1955, a producer on Canadian television used a kinescope to show a replay during a Hockey Night in Canada telecast, the first time anyone had shown a play a second time on television. In the early 1960s, a director for CBS Sports invented a replay […]

Olean, New York, sits in a plateau in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains. It is surrounded by rolling hills whose forests burst into a rainbow of color in autumn, mimic crystal and silver spires in winter, explode with new life in the spring, and cover the land with cooling shade in summer. Residents and […]

The slugger stands at the plate in the bottom of the ninth, the score tied. The crowd rises in anticipation. The windup. The pitch and…there it goes! We’ve all seen them. Game-ending or “walk-off” home runs are shown on SportsCenter almost every night and many fans consider them to be among the most exciting plays […]

“They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.” – Ted Williams1   Willie Mays played in a record 24 All-Star games. Here, he talks with, left to right, Charlie Neal, Henry Aaron, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial before the second game of 1959. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   It starts with the numbers, […]

It was a summer day in Brooklyn when the spectacular winning streak finally came to an end. On June 14, 1870, the Brooklyn Atlantics defeated the mighty Cincinnati Red Stockings, 8-7, thus halting the most remarkable string of victories in baseball history. Over the past 100 years different accounts have given the 1869-1870 Cincinnati skein […]

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 […]

By the spring of 1945, Jackie Robinson was well known to readers of the Kansas City Call, the Black-owned and -operated weekly newspaper that had covered the Kansas City Monarchs thoroughly since the team’s origin in 1920. The Call had reported on Robinson’s exploits as a UCLA football star,1 and even his winning a ping-pong […]

At the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Dodgers tried to compensate for the short distance to left field with a high screen and national park-like dimensions for right and right-center. This is the 1958 layout. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   With a seating capacity of over 90,000, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was […]

The 2007 Old-Timers Day included Whitey Ford (16), Yogi Berra (8), Reggie Jackson (44), Don Mattingly (23), Ron Guidry (49), Moose Skowron (14), Don Larsen (18), Graig Nettles (9), Bobby Murcer (1), Goose Gossage (54), Paul O’Neill (21), Scott Brosius (18), Joe Pepitone (25), and Chris Chambliss (10). (Jerry Coli/Dreamstime)   The original Yankee Stadium, […]

Note: All statistics are current through the 2016 season.   Bruce Froemming, who umpired in the major leagues from 1971 through 2007, was on the field for the most no-hitters ever — 11. Froemming was the home-plate umpire four times for a no-no. He called Milt Pappas’s in 1972, Ed Halicki’s in 1975, Nolan Ryan’s […]

As Major League Baseball moved toward a possible players’ strike in 1981, the Chicago baseball scene had plenty of drama: the White Sox signed future Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk, the Wrigley family sold the Cubs, and beloved broadcaster Harry Caray moved from the South Side to the Friendly Confines. A possible 1980 players’ […]

President Warren G. Harding shaking hands with  New York Yankee Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium. April 25, 1923.  (Leslie Jones photo, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)   In the wake of the 1919-20 Black Sox scandal, baseball got lucky. Luck’s name was George Herman Ruth, who entered our vernacular in a long-ball way and […]

This article was selected as a finalist for a 2017 SABR Analytics Conference Research Award. In the immediate aftermath of the exciting Game Seven between the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants in 2014, the baseball world fixated on one question: should Alex Gordon have been sent home with two outs in the bottom […]

This is a list of all pitchers from 1969 to 2010 who have made an appearance at another position in the field. It is supplemental material to Philippe Cousineau’s article, “Pitchers in the Field: The Use of Pitchers at Other Positions in the Major Leagues, 1969–2009″, in the Fall 2011 Baseball Research Journal.   Date […]

Yankee Stadium prepares to host its first Papal visit in 1965. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library).   The history of Yankee Stadium would be incomplete without mentioning some of the unusual events held there. Yes, baseball is King in the House that Ruth Built, but many other events besides baseball were held there, including […]

Pitcher Dick “Turk” Farrell was selected in 1962 to represent the expansion Houston Colt .45s franchise at both All-Star Games. In the expansion draft to fill the rosters of the new clubs in New York and Houston, the Mets elected to go with veterans, while Houston built on youth. Under manager Harry Craft and general […]

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 […]

1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars (Rob Fitts Collection)   Eddie Lopat was a fine, soft-tossing southpaw during a 12-year baseball career with the Chicago White Sox and most famously the New York Yankees. Called the Junkman because of his assortment of off-speed pitches, Lopat was also something of a baseball entrepreneur. He not only ran a […]