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Over the past generation, sabermetricians have expended a great amount of time and energy studying the effects of free agency and long term contracts on player performance (Maxcy, Fort, and Krautmann 2002; Krautmann and Solow 2009; Krautmann and Donley 2009; Hakes and Turner 2011; Martin et al. 2011; O’Neill 2014; Paulsen 2020). How ever, they […]

On the eve of the 1943 season, Boston Red Sox manager Joe Cronin faced a daunting task: replacing Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio in his outfield. The two All-Stars were serving their country as World War II raged across Europe and the Pacific. Sensing Cronin’s predicament, Associated Press features sports editor Dillon Graham shared a […]

A 16-year veteran whose professional tenure included four seasons with his native Louisville (including one as a player-manager), Nathaniel Frederick “Dandelion” Pfeffer recorded a personal best .308 mark there in 1894. But it was Pfeffer’s glove that garnered him his fame. One of the two greatest second basemen of the pre-modern (pre-1900) era, Pfeffer made […]

Dodgers manager Walter Alston celebrates with his Hall of Fame left-hander, Sandy Koufax. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Sandy Koufax and Walt Alston will forever be linked in the minds of baseball fans, especially those who consider themselves to be close observers of the national pastime. One was a ferocious competitor who drove himself beyond reasonable thresholds […]

This article was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s February 2025 newsletter.   The date was July 16, 1909, and there was baseball in the air.1 The catcher showed up in a Panama hat. The left fielder was clad in white flannel trousers with a black silk watch fob dangling from his belt. The […]

The 1964 Phillies enjoyed a six-and-a-half game lead in the National League with 12 games left in the season, proceeded to lose 10 in a row, and surrendered the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. The closing two weeks of the 1964 regular season inflicted psychic baseball wounds which began to heal after the Phillies’ […]

  On June 24, 1972, Bernice Gera became the first woman to umpire a professional baseball game. Immediately after the game ended, she quit. She fought baseball for five years for the chance to umpire a professional game. Why fight so long for an umpiring career, just to give it up after one game? We […]

Seattle Pilots spring training program from 1970. The franchise began spring training as the Pilots but officially became the Milwaukee Brewers on April 1 (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)   “Dewey was in a dream world. He had no money. I swear to God, the whole franchise was being run on a Visa card.” The […]

What a difference a year makes. When an estimated 1,200 baseball owners, executives, and club representative convened at the Los Angeles Hilton in December 1976 to conduct the 75th annual Winter Meetings, professional baseball had experienced dramatic and history-altering changes in the preceding 12 months. Sportswriter Joseph Durso suggested that the meeting “couldn’t have come […]

In a scene from the Marx Brothers’ “Animal Crackers”, Chico and Harpo attempt to switch a priceless painting with a copy. After the usual mayhem, the duo turns to exit, stage left. When they open the French doors, there’s a caterwauling of thunder, with lightning and sheets of rain. The pair close the doors, head […]

On December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the United States declared war. It was only 39 days after the September 28 doubleheader in Philadelphia when Ted Williams went 6-for-8 and elevated his batting average from .3996 to .406, the last time a major-league batter has hit .400. Baseball contined, and […]

Adam Ford and his wife, the former Jane Cruttenden, ca 1872. Seated center is Jane’s father Lauriston Cruttenden, one of the early settlers of St. Marys. Ford’s marriage into the respected and influential family provided an immediate boost to both his social standing and his political aspirations. (St. Marys Museum and R. Lorne Eedy Archives, […]

Red Smith wrote of Willard Mullin, the cartoonist: “There is no estimating how many sports columns were inspired by his sketches.” Likewise, it would be difficult to overestimate the influence of sports cartoonists on our memory of baseball from the 1940s and 1950s. The cartoonists created many of the best-remembered images from that era of […]

While professional baseball and politics have always been linked, only once has a major league baseball team become a voluntary part of a Presidential campaign. The visible evidence of this happenstance is the 1920 Chicago Cubs’ exhibition game in a small Ohio town against a squad of local semi-professionals called the Kerrigan Tailors. United States […]

May 1, 1951: Minnie Minoso debuts for Sox and homers in first at-bat On April 30, 1951, the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics, and Chicago White Sox orchestrated a trade. Philadelphia sent Lou Brissie to Cleveland, which in turn shipped Sam Zoldak and Ray Murray to Philadelphia and Orestes “Minnie” Minoso to Chicago. The Athletics also […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, No. 2 (1983). Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century. — Mark Twain . . . social inequality … means that in all the relations that […]

ORIGINAL BULLPEN PLACE FOR FRUGAL FANS THE TERM “BULLPEN” IS generally believed to have come into baseball with the advent of relief pitchers who usually warmed up in the area where Bull Durham signs were located. The term, however, goes all the way back to the beginning of major league baseball itself, and its original […]

1998 Super Dome All-Star Series program featuring Sammy Sosa (Robert Fitts Collection)   For baseball, 1998 was a banner year. The home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa made headlines worldwide and caused a surge in interest in the game after years of flagging attendance and viewership. For a group of major-league players and […]

Larry Twitchell’s greatest day in baseball came on August 15, 1889 — but for many years, it was unclear whether he should share the record for most total bases in a single nine-inning game. This article clears up the mystery. I was researching information related to an afternoon game held on May 30, 1894. Bobby […]

Dick Hall’s trade to the Baltimore Orioles — with Dick Williams — on April 12, 1961, for Jerry Walker and Chuck Essegian, was influenced by Charles Finley’s resolve not to trade with the Yankees, a team he despised. Finley once pointed a school bus in the direction of New York and burned it to symbolize […]

Meooowwwwww, avoid black cats! Don’t step on the base lines! Don your rally cap! Grab your magic seat and jewelry! Superstition has been a part of baseball since the game’s earliest days. Almost anything and anyone have been fair game to promote personal and team good fortune: pre-game meal rituals, lucky clothes and equipment, mascots, […]

No one knew it at the time, but the January 22, 1969, trade that sent Rusty Staub from the Houston Astros to the Montreal Expos was arguably the most significant player transaction in baseball since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920. The actions of the players involved showed that […]