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On Larry Tye’s 2009 biography of Paige and Timothy M. Gay’s 2010 book on the barnstorming tours of Paige, Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller.

After winning three pennants in a row from 1891 to 1893, the Boston Beaneaters were denied a fourth consecutive championship during the 1894 season when the brawling Baltimore Orioles earned their first National League title. The team’s prospects for 1894 were derailed early that January when veteran catcher Charlie Bennett lost both of his legs […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers wanted Babe Ruth for his box office drawing power, not his coaching expertise. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Of all the facets of Babe Ruth’s long and distinguished career, his time as a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938 has received the least consideration. Perhaps that is justified: Ruth […]

  While the World Series returns to us annually, some Series live in legend forever. One of those classics was surely the 1906 World Series, which pitted the Chicago Cubs against the Chicago White Sox.1 The 1906 World Series was full of firsts. Being an all-Chicago affair, it was the first twentieth century “Subway Series”2 […]

Introduction and Context In 1973, when 24 teams existed in major-league baseball, the sport conducted its annual Winter Meetings in Houston, Texas, from December 3 to December 7. Several issues or topics dominated these meetings. A relatively complex managerial situation, featuring Ralph Houk, who had been the manager of the New York Yankees, and Dick […]

  Chocolatier William Klein Sr. of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, had a problem. The year was 1918. Soldiers were returning from the war in Europe. Klein was looking to expand to a national market for his “Lunch Bar,” a three-cent candy bar that was in direct competition with the chocolate bars produced by Milton Hershey at his […]

It’s often said that there are no ties in baseball. If a game is deadlocked after nine innings,1 you keep playing until someone wins.2 That’s the general rule, to be sure, but tie games have occurred in the past, for all sorts of special reasons.3 And the neck tie, the real subject of this essay […]

On November 9, 1894, the Boston Globe reported, “At 9:55 PM last night, King Kelly heard the decision of the Great Umpire from which there is not appeal.”1 The best loved ballplayer of the nineteenth century was dead. Even after he retired from major-league baseball in 1893, Mike “King” Kelly was arguably America’s biggest sports […]

This article was originally published in “St. Louis’s Favorite Sport,” the 1992 SABR convention journal.   Sixty years ago there were no millionaire ballplayers in St. Louis. No night baseball, no artificial turf, no exploding scoreboards, no plane travel, no West Coast baseball teams, no television, no helmets, no batting gloves, no blacks in the […]

As World War II progressed and the war effort lay greater and greater claim to American resources, every industry tightened up as best it could. One adaptation that baseball made was to schedule spring training nearer the cities that the teams would ultimately have as a home base. The Boston Red Sox, then, instead of […]

In a sport now dominated by teams from sunnier climates, the University of Minnesota baseball program has generated its share of warm memories in the Upper Midwest. The Golden Gophers have captured three College World Series (CWS) championships, finished third once and placed sixth once in 30 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament appearances, the […]

Editor’s Note: This is an article that appeared in the August 1984 issue of Baseball Gold.   Memories of Lane Field & Westgate Park Franklin Roosevelt swamped Alf Landon to win a second term as President, King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to court Mrs. Simpson, and Bing Crosby introduced his newest hit, “Pennies […]

Baseball is great theatre. Indeed, baseball stories have been fodder for Hollywood since the era of silent films, both dramatic and comedic. But baseball biographies in movies and TV-movies often sacrifice facts to move the story forward at a watchable pace, increase drama, or provide comic relief. For a sport whose patrons guard its history […]

The word nickname is derived from the Old English eke name based on the verb ecan meaning to add or augment. Thus, nicknames augment given names and provide a richer and more explicit denotation. They tell us something more about a person than just the fact that he is officially James Smith. Nicknames often serve […]

On May 31, 1884 the Altoona Unions disbanded; club president Lucas arranged for their best players to be transferred to Kansas City. As an inducement for Kansas City to pick up Altoona’s schedule, the results of all previous Altoona games were cancelled. The new Unions started with a clean slate. A.V. McKim, the Kansas City […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Over the decades, major-league baseball has produced a host of memorable teams, but only one infamous one — the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Almost a century after the fact, the exact […]

Speculating on ultimately unanswerable questions remains one of most fascinating aspects for those of us who study baseball history. For example, how might many of the all-time records differ if Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, and all of the other great Negro League stars had been eligible to play in white Organized Ball? How […]

Colt Stadium, back, was Houston’s fiery first MLB home from 1962 to ’64. The Astrodome replaced it beginning with the 1965 season. (COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS)   It is something of a minor irony that Houston, the city that brought totally covered stadiums and air conditioning to baseball and football, also became the place […]

On May 7, 1915, a German submarine sank the Cunard Liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland with a loss of 1198 lives, and this was one of the great news stories of the twentieth century.  The day before, a young pitcher with the Boston Red Sox lost a tough 5 to 3 thirteen-inning game […]

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 […]

INTRODUCTION Pitchers are a breed apart. On average, they are taller and heavier than most players; contrary to their fielding brethren, they do not play every day; even the most resilient of relievers have to sit out half of their team’s games or risk burning out their arms, and most starters will work only every […]

IN 1954, the Washington Senators were an abominable team They finished the season ensconced in sixth place in the American League, with a 66—88 record. The previous year, they were a fifth-place ballclub, completing the campaign at 76—76. In 1952, they also ended up in fifth place, with a 78—76 mark. In mid-decade, Ernest Barcella, […]