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Hall of Fame slugger Hank Greenberg wrote, “My goal in baseball was always RBIs, to break (Lou) Gehrig’s record of 184 RBIs.” Did he come closer than he thought to doing so?

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 […]

When the lively ball era was launched in 1920 there were few players who displayed the combined ability of speed and power. If a player were to accumulate a lot of extra bases it would be with his bat and not his feet. Thus it was automatic that when we thought of extra bases it […]

A stained-glass window depicting Roberto Clemente in front of clouds in the shape of angel wings sits on display at the Roberto Clemente Museum in Pittsburgh. (Photo: Jacob Pomrenke)   Roberto Clemente is one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, exhibiting remarkable skills both in the field and at the plate. Likewise, […]

For a batter or pitcher, the best—or worst—of the “Three True Outcomes” is a home run or a strikeout.1 The rates of the both home runs and strikeouts have increased substantially over the years. To illustrate, let’s compare 1949 and 2019. In the National League in 1949, 42,711 at bats resulted in 935 homers and […]

In the 1970s, the very time when players and umpires gained wealth and power, baseball’s field managers’ status declined as they became wretched scapegoats to be sacrificed to the bloodlust of victory-starved fans. True, sacking the manager was a time-honored ploy; whenever rumblings of fan discontent erupted, a manager was bumped off as virgins in […]

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, […]

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 […]

In the baseball season of 1932, Jimmie Foxx—known then and now as Double X—made a concerted assault on Babe Ruth’s home-run record of 60 in a season. The Philadelphia A’s strong boy came up two short, ending his season with a total of 58. There is a persistent legend that Foxx would have broken Ruth’s […]

Much has been said about the Chicago Nationals’ “stonewall infield” of the 1880’s, both fact and fantasy. With Cap Anson at first base, Fred Pfeffer at second, Tommy Burns at short, and Ed Williamson at third, it was the most celebrated quartet of its day and an unbeatable combination for the Chicago champions of 1885 […]

Elmer Dean, center, the older brother of St. Louis Cardinals stars Dizzy and Paul Dean shows his new House of David teammates how he grips a curveball on May 5, 1935. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   The brothers Jay Hanna (“Dizzy,” also known as Jerome Herman) Dean and Paul Dee (“Daffy”) Dean are […]

By the fall of 1938 Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson was well aware of the marketing potential of Leroy “Satchel” Paige. The Monarchs had seen the talented pitcher on opposing teams over the years, and Wilkie (as Wilkinson was known to his players) had often taken advantage of Paige’s practice of assuring that he […]

A few days after Shohei Ohtani made his major league debut on March 29, 2018, Jay Jaffe wrote, “Ohtani is doing things that haven’t been done at the major league level in nearly a century. … and not since 1919 has a player served as both a starting pitcher and a position player with any […]

The 1922 All-American team (Rob Fitts Collection)   THE PLOT The Polo Grounds. New York’s National League champs were on the verge of beating the mighty Yankees for the second year in a row. The 1922 World Series was once again a series in one park, as each game for the past two years had […]

He loved kids and despised umpires. Since he was a genuinely nice guy, youngsters followed him like the Pied Piper Grasso’s vendetta against the men in blue was attributed to his resentment of  authority, courtesy of vicious beatings inflicted by World War II POW guards. Newton Michael Grasso was born on May 10, 1920, in Newark, […]

Gladys Goodding was more than just an artiste whose musical stylings entertained the Ebbets Field faithful from the early 1940s on. This cheerful, occasionally mischievous woman was a baseball pioneer. Hers was the first organ permanently situated in a big-league ballpark and she predated Eddie Layton, Jane Jarvis, Wilbur Snapp, and other ballyard organists. Her […]

October 16, 1958 Robert Hyland, General Manager, KMOX Radio In my opinion, there is no more effective way of strengthening mutual understanding among nations than through the people to people approach, and I am convinced that international sports engagements are playing a very important role in building international friendship and good will. For that reason, […]

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. My interest in the Black Sox Scandal began at summer’s end in 2002, and by the following June, I was sufficiently addicted to the subject that I simply had to visit […]

Seventy-three home runs in a single season would have been considered absurd only a few years ago, yet Barry Bonds accomplished this astounding feat in 2001. Bonds’ record-breaking season, eclipsing the mark of 70 set by Mark McGwire only four years earlier raises the question of which ballplayers truly own the greatest single-season home run performances […]

More than any other sport, baseball as we know it today is infatuated with numbers. Every movement, whether from defensive positions, the pitcher’s mound, or the batter’s box, is examined, analyzed, and quantified. As a result, we are treated to “quality starts,” “holds,” and batting averages with two-strike counts or on artificial turf in night […]

On September 28, 1947, the Bambino made an appearance before a game benefitting his Babe Ruth Foundation – later recognized as the first Old-Timers Day. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The story of Yankee Stadium cannot be told without telling the story of Babe Ruth. His home-field exploits during his playing days are well covered, but a […]

At approximately 3:15 p.m on Monday, October 8, 1956, Babe Pinelli’s right arm shot upward ending Game 5 of the World Series. Pinelli did more than punch out Brooklyn Dodgers pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell to conclude a 2-0 New York Yankees victory; his called third strike completed Don Larsen’s perfect game, the first in World Series […]

Moses and Welday Walker played with the Toledo club of the American Association in 1884 and thereby became the only recognized Negroes to make the major leagues until Jackie Robinson did it in 1947. But what about the rest of Organized Baseball, the fledgling minor leagues of the 19th Century? Was it just as difficult […]