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Jackie Robinson playing in a spring training game vs. Havana Cubans. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   Separated by fewer than three miles, the Hotel Los Angeles near la Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and the Hotel Nacional in the city’s Vedado district were worlds apart. Sitting on a bluff overlooking El Malecón, Havana’s famed coastal roadway, the Nacional […]

You think umpires take too much abuse from players? Late last century they often had to fight their way off the field. Here’s a sampling of epithets and brawlgames.   UMPIRING IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY was often perilous. Virulent and sometimes violent abuse from players, fans, owners, and reporters was common. Although baseball fans […]

Appendix for Herm Krabbenhoft’s research on Babe Ruth’s RBI record.

INTRODUCTION Pitchers are a breed apart. On average, they are taller and heavier than most players; contrary to their fielding brethren, they do not play every day; even the most resilient of relievers have to sit out half of their team’s games or risk burning out their arms, and most starters will work only every […]

When a group of major-league baseball all-stars traveled to Japan in November 1979 for a series of games, it represented a shift, of sorts. Since the end of World War II, most baseball tours of Japan had been by single teams. A US all-star team had not played in Japan since the Eddie Lopat All-Stars […]

With its temperate Pacific Coast climate and rich baseball tradition, San Diego has long been a spawning ground for major-league talent, sending some 121 of her sons to the bigs. The second, and by far the greatest, of these San Diegans was Ted Williams, whose march to Cooperstown began with the 1939 Boston Red Sox. […]

Until my freshman year of college, the only books I’d read cover-to-cover were baseball almanacs and biographies of early and mid-twentieth century baseball players like Ed Delahanty and Satchel Paige. Throughout grade school, I spent my evenings flipping through onionskin pages full of baseball stats or studying the backs of baseball cards. An Indians fan, […]

“It is no bad thing to be a king.” — Homer   On a cool October afternoon in Boston in 1914, the Red Sox hosted the Yankees at three-year-old Fenway Park. On the mound for the Sox was rookie left hander George Herman Ruth, already referred to as “Babe” by teammates and press. Ruth was […]

Cover of the January 1929 issue of Yakyukai showing Ty Cobb with Keio players Takayoshi Okada and Saburo Miyatake (Coutesy of Robert Klevens, Prestige Collectibles)   On an off-day on the road in Cleveland, Tyrus Raymond Cobb, hailed for much of his career as the greatest player the game had ever known, announced his impending […]

Anyone unfortunate enough to attend a seminar or professional meeting is likely familiar with the game “Two Truths and a Lie.” The premise of the game is that in a roomful of more or less strangers, each person will make three statements about himself or herself, and that only two of those statements will be […]

Cupid Childs was one of the best-hitting major-league second basemen during the late nineteenth century, not to mention a better than average fielder who possessed great range on the diamond. Only four other second basemen in the history of major-league baseball have averaged more total chances per game than Childs. His all-around outstanding play made […]

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 […]

An industrial lot on the eastern edge of downtown Greenville, Texas, covered with heavy equipment, gives no sign of its grand history, except for one feature: a brick and concrete arch still stands with the welded metal inscription “Majors Stadium,” coated with a layer of primer paint, across the top. It takes an excellent imagination […]

The Eastern Championship Association (ECA) was formed in 1881 by baseball clubs from New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. Two teams from Philadelphia were among its members, including the first one with the nickname Phillies. The Association had an unsettled existence — reflecting the institutional instability that afflicted organized baseball in the final quarter of […]

This paper will provide a general comparison of actual pennant winners and Pythagorean pennant winners for the National and American Leagues from 1901 to 2020. In part, this is a presentation of data, but it is also an exercise in what might have been. With Pythagorean pennant winners, many teams that did not reach the […]

Sandy Koufax pitched 14 complete games in which he gave up two hits or fewer. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   In the run-up to the 1970 season, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn shared plans to continue minor-league trials with what became the designated hitter, begin another trial with livelier baseballs, and explore “bending” foul lines […]

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 […]

When the movers and shakers of the baseball world descended on the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas for the 2008 Winter Meetings, the sport and the country faced economic uncertainty not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic downturn that became known as the Financial Crisis or the Great Recession began rumbling […]

In the early 1960s, Seattle’s city fathers were confident their city was an attractive and growing market. Its cultural amenities in sports, however, were limited. Power-boat racing and University of Washington football were the major sports in town. The city had hosted professional baseball since 1903, but the teams were all in the minor leagues. […]

1960 San Francisco Giants Goodwill tour program featuring Willie Mays (Robert Fitts Collection)   The San Francisco Giants enjoyed a banner year in 1960. After almost five years of planning by the city’s mayor and Board of Supervisors and two years of problem-plagued construction, the Giants’ new ballpark, Candlestick Park, opened in time for the […]

In the early months of 1926, Ty Cobb recounts in his autobiography, My Life in Baseball, the great outfielder was obliged to submit to eye surgery at the Johns Hopkins Clinic in Baltimore: “the dust of a thousand ballfields was in my eyes.” Shortly before he was admitted, a poem appeared in one of the […]

After Hideki Matsui hit a home run against the Yomiuri Giants on March 28, nearly every major sports newspaper in Japan put his image on the front page. (Nippon Sports, March 29, 2004)   “The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming!” wrote Marty Kuehnert in the Japan Times. “If you haven’t heard, you’re not […]

Introduction and Context In 1973, when 24 teams existed in major-league baseball, the sport conducted its annual Winter Meetings in Houston, Texas, from December 3 to December 7. Several issues or topics dominated these meetings. A relatively complex managerial situation, featuring Ralph Houk, who had been the manager of the New York Yankees, and Dick […]

Roland Hemond has made lasting and unprecedented contributions to professional baseball with seven major-league teams. Born in 1929 to parents of French-Canadian heritage in Central Falls, Rhode Island, Hemond is one of the industry’s most respected and experienced executives. Hemond is also a member of one of baseball’s most distinguished multigenerational families. His wife, Margo, […]