Search Results

Calbee potato chip baseball card depicting Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh during their November 2, 1974 home run contest (Robert Fitts Collection)   For certain kids growing up in Tokyo in the 1970s, three of the most popular sports to watch on television were baseball, pro wrestling, and roller derby. For Hanshin fans, there was […]

In early February 1985, Alan Wiggins became the newest big-money player for the 1984 National League champion San Diego Padres. With the help of his San Diego-based agent, Tony Attanasio, and Padres general manager Jack McKeon, Wiggins, just 26 years old, signed a guaranteed four-year, $2.5 million contract, making him one of the highest paid […]

Most baseball fans are familiar with historian Jacques Barzun’s famous 1954 quotation, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball,” but they may not know the rest of the sentence: “…the rules and realities of the game—and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”1 If […]

If the most iconic sports-related Coca-Cola television ad features a child offering a Coke to an injured football star—Mean Joe Greene, the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer—countless hurlers and hitters have hawked the product across the decades. The Greene spot first aired in 1979; however, starting in the early 1950s, the Coca-Cola Company has produced […]

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 […]

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 […]

Several authors have given readers a glimpse of Sandy Koufax’s life and career. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Beneath the orderly reporting of baseball accomplishments that Sandy Koufax compiled in nine-inning ballgames over 162-game seasons and several World Series is a much less well-structured human narrative about the man. Terms such as “the […]

Once upon a time, A.J. Liebling, consummate Manhattanite and writer for The New Yorker, dubbed Chicago America’s Second City.1 But in relation to New York-centric baseball movies, this AAA-league rating is extremely generous. Across the decades, baseball films with Chicago references have been relatively scarce. For every on-screen image of Wrigley Field, there are scores […]

  Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, right, shakes hands with Ralph Kiner during the 1975 Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Ralph Kiner was in his eighth season as a Mets announcer in 1969. Kiner, along with Bob Murphy and Lindsey Nelson, broadcast the Mets their first day as […]

Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Til Huston realized early in their partnership that New York wouldn’t tolerate anything less than a championship team. Ruppert had a championship in mind when he hired Miller Huggins to manage the club in 1918. According to Ruppert: “Huggins had vision. Getting him was the first and most important step […]

Ottawa Rapidz center fielder Jared Lemieux watches the ball after a hit. (Courtesy of Jared Lemieux)   The word “rapids” refers to stretches of river that are fast-flowing, rocky, and turbulent. They’re a test of endurance, but some people enjoy them. “Rapidz” made a good name, then, for the Ottawa baseball team that lasted one […]

Bonnie McCarroll riding Morning Glory, Tex Austin’s Rodeo, Yankee Stadium. (Courtesy of National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.)   The same year in which the House That Ruth Built began to house baseball games, it also hosted events of a very different sort. That summer, workers laid down 100,000 square feet of mats made from […]

Roger Kahn coined the phrase “The Era” to represent New York City baseball from 1947 through 1957.1 During this era the Yankees won nine AL pennants and seven World Series, the Dodgers won six NL pennants and one world championship, and the Giants won two NL pennants and one World Series. While this success certainly […]

“Everybody thinks it’s just whatever glove you have on your hand, but it becomes part of you, part of your body.” — Craig Biggio1   The phrase “flashing the leather” is a common saying in baseball. These words are used to acknowledge an excellent play made in the field by a defensive player. Of course, […]

Baseball aficionados often argue that certain records will never be broken. A classic example is Cal Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive-games-played streak. However, for the most part, the arguments given to support an assertion that a particular record will never be broken are subjective and not analytically rigorous. The primary purpose of this paper is to examine […]

As tensions between owners, general managers, and players mounted, the winter meetings of 1993 featured battles over the commissioner’s chair, the free-agent process, revenue sharing, and the salary cap. These points of contention collided over four months of meetings that began in early November, when the general managers met in Naples, Florida. The National Association […]

Analysis of front page coverage of Boston’s largest-circulation newspaper demonstrates the degree to which the Impossible Dream season of 1967 was an entirely unexpected phenomenon.Every springtime, Boston Red Sox fans hope for a pennant and the chance to win the World Series. It wasn’t always this way. There were fallow periods in Red Sox history […]

A natural on the radio, Jackie Robinson spent a fair amount of time behind the microphone. (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)   One of the more impressive aspects of his trailblazing life is that Jackie Robinson had a wide and varied interest in the world, and his career reflected that. As early as college, […]

BACKGROUND In 2008 the Fresno State Bulldogs beat the heavily favored Georgia Bulldogs in the NCAA College Baseball World Series. That Fresno State squad finished with a 47–31 record, the most losses ever for an NCAA baseball champion. The Bulldogs were the fourth seed in their regional with Long Beach State as the top seed. […]

Even though Minneapolis had been home to a professional club for most of the previous 20 years, it would not be until 1896 that it won its first pennant. The closest any club had been to a flag was in the 1890 Western Association, when Minneapolis finished a game back of Kansas City. After not […]

The excitement was electric, as crowds filled Yankee Stadium to capacity on October 10, 1923. For the third consecutive year, the Fall Classic was an all-New York affair, pitting the dominant National League Giants against the upstart Yankees, representing the American League. The latter fittingly christened their magnificent new ballyard in the Bronx by going […]

Introduction and Context Baseball’s 1943 winter meetings were held in New York City from November 29 to December 3. The minor leagues and the major leagues took care of their business at the New Yorker Hotel, marking the first time in 24 years that both the majors and minors sat down together in New York. […]