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In addition to an All-Time Georgia-born All-Star team, the Magnolia Chapter selected an All-Time Atlanta Braves All-Star team. While acknowledging the talent of any number of players who served the Braves franchise during its time in Milwaukee and Boston, we wanted to restrict this team to players who actually played in Atlanta. We suggested that […]
In 1892, Frank Grant played for the Gorhams and then the Cuban Giants on his way to a Hall of Fame career. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY) During a playoff game in October 1905, Leland Giants pitcher Walter Ball rushed onto the diamond at Chicago’s West Side Park and threw a punch “with […]
Introduction and Context Some of the best players in baseball traded places at the 1933 winter meetings. The meetings opened amid optimism, with a feeling that baseball was recovering from the Depression and could “be expected to gain steadily” as it moved forward.1 During 1933, all 14 minor leagues that began the season completed it; […]
Baseball fans love numbers — 755, 511, 2,632, for instance, or .300 batting averages, winning 20 games, stealing 100 bases, hitting 100 mph on the radar gun — all are part of the lore of the game. Sometimes those numbers include specific years, generally the year we started watching or the year our favorite team […]
Following years of posturing and outright conflict, first with the Brotherhood, then in the final showdown with the American Association, the National League achieved monopoly status. Twelve clubs, deemed the strongest of the two great major leagues of the 1880s, stood alone in a combination at the top of Organized Baseball. After deep financial losses […]
Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans, who played for the Cincinnati Reds 36 years before Jackie Robinson came along, should be credited with crashing the color barrier. — Felipe Alou1 On April 15, 1947, the story goes, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the first black American to play baseball in the major leagues.2 […]
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 […]
Nelson Rockefeller stands with Jackie Robinson, who served as a special assistant on community affairs for the New York Governor in the 1960s. Between 1960 and 1968, Jackie Robinson was widely regarded as the most famous Black Republican in the country. Following his announced retirement from baseball in January 1957, and in remarkably short […]
OPENING DAY Vendors sold peanuts, popcorn, and hot dogs, but tea and ramen noodles were favorites among the fans in the stands. Tickets ranged in price from $7 to $180 and a 12-ounce beer cost $1.50. Cheerleaders performed in foul territory and elderly fans practiced tai chi near the stadium entrance before the game. During […]
In 1922, the New York Yankees played the New York Giants in the World Series; the majors produced three .400 hitters; Rogers Hornsby won the Triple Crown; and Organized Baseball reached the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Baseball had long been a popular pastime on the Shore. Almost every town supported a team, and competition among […]
Baseball is thankfully free of artificial boundaries of time which confine other sports. This freedom helps to shape the unique magical charm that is an evening at the ballpark. Fans never know whether it will be a two-hour squeaker or whether they may be enchanted until past sunrise by the first-ever wild 12-hour 46-inning slugfest. […]
This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda. On May 7, 2000, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully gave Fordham University’s 155th commencement speech. “Don’t let the winds blow away your dreams or your faith in God,” he said. “And remember, sometimes your wildest dreams come […]
You won’t find the definition of “baseball lifer” in the American Heritage Dictionary, but if you did, Don Zimmer’s picture would be a suitable choice to accompany it. Over a period of 60 years, Zimmer claimed to have never collected a paycheck anywhere other than baseball, except once from Social Security. “I never dreamed I’d […]
Darrin Jackson has spent more than 40 years in professional baseball, first as a highly respected (and well-traveled) outfielder (1981-99) who overcame cancer and serious illnesses to have a productive career, and then as the longtime analyst for Chicago White Sox television (2000-08) and radio (2009- ) broadcasts. In 2024 Jackson completed his 25th season […]
On August 6, 1890, Cy Young made his major-league debut with the Cleveland Spiders and hurled a three-hitter as the Spiders defeated Cap Anson’s Chicago Colts, 8-1. Young’s batterymate was Chief Zimmer. Young was accustomed to minor-league backstops who struggled to catch his blazing fastballs. When Zimmer had no trouble catching them, Young worried that […]
Shortstop Humberto “Chico” Fernández played the game with flair. It was a flair that endeared him to fans and fellow players, but often saw him at odds with his many managers. He was a daring, some would say reckless, baserunner. Playing for the Detroit Tigers, he showed that special flair in the second game of […]
In a career in professional baseball that had already spanned 40 years – and would continue for another quarter-century – Don Zimmer had seen a lot of baseball. In 11 years as a big-league manager through 1989, he had made thousands of in-game decisions. But perhaps none was as interesting as an intentional walk in […]
On April 8, 1960, the Los Angeles Dodgers traded infielder Don Zimmer to the Chicago Cubs for three minor leaguers and $25,000. Just four days later, on Opening Day, Zimmer hit a home run off Don Drysdale at the Los Angeles Coliseum in his first at-bat against his former team. After the home run, Zimmer […]
The 2018 season saw a breakout in “bullpen games,” with managers strategizing to get more rest for their starters by using relief pitchers to open games, pitch two or three innings, then yield to another reliever. The practice is of recent vintage for regular season games, but circumstances across baseball history have sometimes necessitated the […]
The warmth of early summer welcomed the Ladies Day crowd of 13,643 who gathered at Ebbets Field to watch the Redlegs play the Dodgers, each trying to gain ground on the league-leading Braves.1 Bonus baby Sandy Koufax took the ball for the defending World Champions, and faced off against Cincinnati’s Hal Jeffcoat. A dramatic comeback […]
“[He] was tough in the clutch and deserved a shutout,” opined Los Angeles sportswriter Frank Finch about 22-year-old Sandy Koufax’s six-hitter on May 28, 1958, which extended his streak to a then career-best 19 innings without an earned run.1 “[He] could work when the chips were riding,” observed Pittsburgh Pirates beat reporter Jack Hernon about […]
On the team flight to Atlanta after the Padres’ 3-2 loss at Houston on July 31, manager Don Zimmer sat down next to first baseman Nate Colbert and asked how he felt. Atlanta was the third stop on a five-city, 16-game road trip and Zimmer was concerned about his big slugger, who had recently twisted […]
George Scott. Fred Lynn. Butch Hobson. Bernie Carbo. Lynn again. Jim Rice. Carl Yastrzemski. Scott again. Every one of these Red Sox players hit a home run in the July 4, 1977, game at Fenway Park against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Red Sox came into the game having lost nine in a row. They […]