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“Pretty as the first flush of a June morn and as shapely as a peachblow vase filled with violets and many-hued pansies.” That’s how the Chicago Tribune described a tall, blond, and strikingly handsome 21-year-old Harley Parker in his 1893 debut for the Chicago Colts.1 Thirteen years later, when the right arm of the less […]

Pat Corrales spent more than 50 years in professional baseball as a player, coach, and manager. Although he will never be confused with a slugging catcher like Mike Piazza, Corrales was an excellent defensive catcher and a student of the game who parlayed his knowledge and experience into a long and successful career as a […]

Jake Stenzel compiled a lofty .339 lifetime batting average in nine major league seasons, and hit over .350 for five consecutive years, but has received little recognition for his accomplishments. His entire major league career was confined to the 1890s when there were so many outstanding hitters that even in his peak seasons he could […]

Was Babe Danzig of Polish ancestry, or German? If his father had come to the United States before 1793, the city that is his last name would have been – as it is today – Gdansk, part of Poland. But all but seven years from 1793 through 1919, the city was Danzig and part of […]

Now forgotten, the name Lester German regularly appeared in sporting pages newsprint for almost 40 years. In the early 1890s German was a young right-handed pitcher whose four consecutive 30-win professional seasons made him a hot prospect. But his major-league career, hampered by illness and arm trouble, proved a disappointment. And his underperformance at times […]

As a 33-year-old veteran outfielder, “call me Mike” McCormick was a major contributor to the Boston Braves’ run to the 1948 pennant. In 343 at-bats in 115 games, the right-handed-hitting McCormick batted .303, to help solidify the Braves outfield. A pinch hitter extraordinaire, Mike stroked six hits in 14 tries off the bench. He started […]

Tom Simpson’s career in the major leagues was fairly brief, but he did put in a full season with the Chicago Cubs in 1953 and pitched in 30 games. Simpson was a 6-foot-1 right-hander, listed at 190 pounds. He had five years of minor-league experience behind him when he joined the Cubs. Thomas Lee Simpson […]

At the start of the eighth inning of Game Seven of the 1971 World Series, the Pittsburgh Pirates clung to a 1-0 lead over the Baltimore Orioles. With his second pitch of the inning, Baltimore starter Mike Cuellar delivered a fastball to the leadoff hitter, big Willie Stargell, who rapped a single to left field. […]

He was perhaps named after one of the German emperors named Friedrich Wilhelm, or after German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Frederick William Muller was born on December 21, 1907, a son of German immigrants George and Mary Muller. George Muller worked as a laborer in a varnish factory at the time of the 1920 US […]

Herm Winningham’s professional career lasted 13 seasons. Yet only after the third time that he was a first-round draft pick did the speedy outfielder sign and turn pro. He played in the majors with four teams from 1984 through 1992. A skillful defender and bunter, Winningham got into 868 games at the top level, starting […]

“Horner and Warner are a strong team… [Pitcher] Horner’s delivery is very quick, he controls good curves and he is a magnificent fielder… Warner, as catcher, is likewise good. He is as agile as a cat and throws with a precision that is not often seen.” — Fort Wayne (Indiana) Gazette, April 6, 1884 “Utica and Toronto both […]

Lee Pfund pitched in 15 games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, but his real claim to fame came after he retired from professional baseball and became a college baseball coach. Leroy Herbert  Pfund was born on October 18, 1919, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb adjacent to Chicago. His parents were Liebhart and Helen […]

Across the decades, various New York Yankee, New York Giant, and Brooklyn Dodger baseball names have acted on-screen. Babe Ruth, for one, appeared in silent-era features; played himself in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), the Lou Gehrig biopic; and starred in various short subjects. Gehrig was toplined in Rawhide (1938), a B-Western. Jackie Robinson […]

The late 1940s Boston Red Sox consisted of larger-than-life, highly paid, talented baseball men who could accomplish just about anything “except win pennants,” according to Al Hirshberg in a 1951 Saturday Evening Post article on Billy Goodman. Goodman had made his major-league debut in the spring of 1947 and was “not a glamorous slugger, not […]

Many baseball fans know about the 1894 Philadelphia Phillies team that featured four outfielders who each batted over .400. In fact, if you look at the Phillies’ lineup on Baseball-Reference, all of the starting eight batted over .300 and the team led the league, hitting .350. The lowest average for a position player with over 100 at […]

In his book The Boys of Summer, author Roger Kahn relates how even after leaving daily 1950s baseball coverage to write for magazines, his “journalistic identity, such as it was, lived with my [New York Herald] Tribune stories” on the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Robert Frost consoled him, telling Kahn that “nearly everyone has to lead two […]

Citi Field has been home of the New York Mets since 2009. (COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK METS)   As part of the expansion of the National League in 1962 a franchise was given to New York City. From 1962 to the current day, the Metropolitans’ ownership has been fairly stable. Joan Payson and her […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) November 2018, Volume 4, Number 1 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley From the Chair Conundrum of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Meet Sven Muencheberg Profile: Pat Thompson 9.17 From 1944 Conundrum Solution […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) November 2018, Volume 4, Number 1 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley From the Chair Conundrum of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Meet Sven Muencheberg Profile: Pat Thompson 9.17 From 1944 Conundrum Solution […]

  Clark Griffith, right, and Philadelphia A’s manager Connie Mack shake hands on Opening Day 1919 at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. The Washington Senators began playing at Griffith Stadium in 1911. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   As the 1911 season started, Griffith Stadium represented a work in progress after an offseason fire. Nevertheless, Washingtonians eagerly […]

“Timothy Keefe, umpire, cold-bloodedly gave a game of baseball to Boston yesterday,” wrote the Chicago Tribune about a weird game with Boston in the Windy City on May 13, 1896.1 While the Tribune slammed the umpire, its rival Chicago newspaper the Inter Ocean placed no blame on Keefe but called the game “the funniest series […]

Nothing in the early spring of 1951 gave any clue that this would be the New York Giants’ season of miracles. The year when the Giants overtook the Dodgers in baseball’s most dramatic pennant race saw the New Yorkers drop 12 of their first 14 games, and by the end of April they were in […]

Winning their fourth title, the New York Yankees crushed the Chicago Cubs 13-6 to sweep the 1932 World Series. Guy Bush started for Chicago and opposed Johnny Allen of New York. Both exited early. After averaging eight runs over the first three games of the Series, the Yankees got off to another good start offensively, […]

Here are the SABR Defensive Index™ rankings through games of June 16, 2019. For the seventh consecutive season, the SDI will be used to help select the winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The SABR Defensive Index accounts for approximately 25 percent of the Rawlings Gold […]