Search Results

In Philadelphia, Mundell’s Solar Tips moved back and forth among the various levels of baseball during the 1880s and 1890s. Their history is illustrative of the more open and entrepreneurial baseball world that ended long ago. John Mundell Jr. founded the Solar Tips baseball team in 1879. The first players were workers in the factory […]

Baseball Magazine put Stan Musial on its cover in September 1948. The Cardinals superstar was putting the finishing touches on his greatest season in the big leagues. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Every renowned artist has his or her most famous creation, their pièce de résistance, that singularly most remarkable composition that stands out in an already […]

If a modern fan could be transported back to a baseball game in 1908, to the strains of the new tune “Take Me out to the Ball Game,” he or she would feel right at home. The rules, the two major leagues, and many of the teams were similar then to what they are today. […]

Baseball history is littered with heroic performances by great teams that ran rampshod over their competition, as well as teams that overachieved. Less remembered are the underachievers— teams that, at least on paper, appeared great, but failed to achieve their full potential.

South Florida is notoriously hot in the summer, but conditions heated up another notch in 1952 when the Miami Sun Sox and the Miami Beach Flamingos fought it out in one of the great pennant races of minor league baseball. The 1952 dash for the pennant involved two colorful managers: the contentious Johnny “Pepper” Martin […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume V (1990).   On October 15, 1988, with a runner on first, Kirk Gibson of the Los Angeles Dodgers jerked a slider from the Oakland A’s Dennis Eckersley into the stands for a 5-4 victory. Newspaper reports noted that it was the first […]

By the fall of 1978 modern free agency was entering its third year, and teams were beginning to come to terms with both its existence and its potential, though ownership still hoped to roll it back dramatically. Front offices were figuring out the mechanics of pursuing free agents, how to fit them into their payroll […]

  Doug Glanville in his new baseball memoir notes that many players, “rewarded with huge contracts because of their offensive prowess, . . . have developed a kind of attention deficit disorder when it comes to defense. . . . If you put up tremendous offensive numbers year after year, the game will cut you […]

Major-league baseball was coming off a momentous season in 1991. Both the National and American League pennant winners (the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, respectively) had finished in last place in their division in 1990 before roaring back to life in 1991. The season culminated with a thrilling World Series, during which five of the […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989). With his 1988 film adaptation of Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out, novelist-filmmaker John Sayles has crafted the most authentic baseball film released to date. His respect for Asinof’s work, and for the look, language, and rhythm of dead ball era baseball […]

When you ask a Miami Marlins fan today, “Who is Mr. Marlin?” without hesitation you will get the response, “Jeff Conine,” who starred with the team for eight seasons. However, old-timers, who harken back to the days when minor league baseball ruled Miami, will give you a different answer: Woody Smith, a sure-handed third baseman […]

It has become almost as rare as the major-league Triple Crown, and even more so than its statistical opposite of a pitcher winning 20 games in a single season. Since 1980, there has been only one pitcher who lost 20 games in a single season—21 to be exact—and there is no reason to think baseball […]

The renovation of Yankee Stadium created Monument Park as a permanent home to monuments to Lou Gehrig, Miller Huggins, and Babe Ruth, as well as plaques to general manager Ed Barrow and others that previously sat in fair territory. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)   Here’s a thought exercise: Get a piece of paper and a […]

During the 1940s National League baseball was largely dominated by the Cardinals and the Dodgers. St. Louis won four pennants in the decade while finishing second five times. Brooklyn took three flags and were runner-ups three as well. Besides a horrendous 1944 season, “dem Bums” were third the rest of the time. It was the […]

Harold Harris Chase was born February 13, 1883 at Los Gatos, Calif., a small town about ten miles south of San Jose.   The fact that years after his death certain baseball reference books listed him as Hal H. Chase or Harold Homer Chase only serves to emphasize the shroud of mystery that surrounded this strange, […]

Introduction It was decided both major leagues would hold their annual winter meetings in New York City in December 1910. Although it would not be a joint meeting, this would be of great convenience to the writers and help centralize interest in the meetings.1 The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (the minor leagues) had […]

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees have one of the fiercest rivalries in American sports. It is a rivalry borne out of regional differences that date back to Colonial America. The rivalry goes beyond sports—New York and Boston were early economic rivals, eventually becoming a cultural rivalry between New York and New England. […]

With the influx of Japanese players to the majors, interest in Japanese baseball has risen. One outgrowth of this interest is the question posed by the title of this article. I want to present a thorough examination of Oh’s qualifications for Cooperstown, and then report the findings together with my conclusions. The evidence is divided […]

The Philadelphia area is the birthplace of the United States flag as well as America’s first modern bank, zoo, electronic computer, volunteer fire company, farmers’ market, trade union, magazine, stock exchange, and professional surgery.  It is where the Declaration of Independence was signed, it was the nation’s first capital, and is the home of the […]

When Calvin Griffith sold the Minnesota Twins in 1984, he bowed out of baseball as the last of the family owners whose franchise represented their principal business and source of wealth. Griffith spent practically his entire life in baseball, spending his young adulthood working in one capacity or another for the Washington Nationals organization that […]

What’s My Line? was a popular primetime game show which ran on CBS-TV from 1950 through 1967, with a daytime syndicated version lasting from 1968 to 1975. Its format was simple and clever: a quartet of panelists questioned individuals to determine their often unusual or unlikely occupations, which ranged from the offbeat (safety pin maker, […]

Several years ago when the Texas Rangers explored the idea of moving their spring training headquarters from Port Charlotte, Florida, one option they briefly considered was building a spring training complex in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Of course, for the move to be feasible, at least three other teams would have to be […]

Roomie – that’s Monte Irvin. He and I room together when the ball club’s on the road. Many’s the time I’ve hollered for him to get me out of what I’m in. Like the time we were posing for the team picture and a guy came up to me and said “Willie, I’m Jumble from […]