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Umpires, the unsung heroes of baseball, predictably received less than an appropriate share of the publicity generated by the 75th anniversary of the World Series in 1978. Although the men in blue are both essential and conspicuous participants in the National Pastime, they continue to be regarded generally as necessary evils by fans and as […]

The foul poles at Dodger Stadium were in foul territory, there were only two drinking fountains (one in each dugout), and no one had installed electrical outlets in the clubhouses.1 Besides fixing those design issues after the 1962 opening season, no real renovations to the ballpark were made until 1975 when new, space-age plastic-colored seats […]

Growing up in New England, it was an article of faith that the 1967 Red Sox won the American League pennant with the help of divine intervention — that it was an “Impossible Dream.” With the passage of time, this depiction has become less satisfying, if for no other reasons than that it gives short […]

In Mark Armour’s SABR biography of Jim Brosnan he observes that Brosnan “wrote the first honest portrayal of the life of a ballplayer,” and that “Fifty years on, Brosnan’s books (The Long Season and The Pennant Race) remain the gold standard for baseball memoirs.” Brosnan allowed fans to gain a degree of understanding about the […]

Preemptive Measures by the Senior League Before the 1902 season ended, the National League presidents met to strategize their approach to the burgeoning American League. The year-old AL already had four teams in National League cities (Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, and Chicago) and was threatening a move to the NL stronghold of New York. For […]

A note from the editors of the 2011 TNP.

I wish that someone had told me when I was 15 years old that Willie Stargell was starting a five-year tear that would transform him from a good home run hitter to one of baseball’s superstars. If they had, I would have taken more mental snapshots of the man who was not yet  “Pops.” While […]

Shifty. That’s a good word for Walter Dilbeck, the huckster who launched the Global Baseball League in 1966. And launched it again in 1968. And crashed it in 1969. The barely believable saga of Dilbeck and his self-styled third major league involves 11 Hall of Famers, a former vice president of the United States, a […]

Collage of Clemente Stamp Materials by Juan López-Bonilla. Background: Uncut panel of 20-cent 1984 United States Clemente stamp. Foreground, from left to right: Poster commemorating the 1984 stamp release, the Puerto Rican newspaper “El Mundo” article from 1982 denoting the design selection, the design sketch for landscape version of stamp, the signature of designer, and […]

Stan Musial doubled, then scored by sliding past catcher Ernie Lombardi on Walker Cooper’s sixth-inning single at Braves Field on September 16, 1942. The Cardinals won, 6-2. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   One of the most celebrated facets of Cardinals historical lore is Stan Musial’s remarkable home/away symmetry of career base hits: 1,815 at home and 1,815 […]

The main subjects considered by the magnates during the National League winter meetings of 1900-1901 were: (1) the ever-increasing threat of competition posed by the fledgling American League; (2) possible recognition of a revived American Association as a counterbalance to the AL, and (3) player contract modifications proposed by the latest incarnation of the players […]

The major-league portion of the 1907 winter meetings were held by both leagues on the same days, Tuesday through Thursday, December 10-12. It was the second year they’d met simultaneously. The National League met in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria while the American League met in Chicago. New York was the home of […]

The white sand beaches and warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico provide a pleasant distraction to the residents and tourists of Pensacola. A sense of optimism swept the Pensacola community in 1939 as the economy took a turn for the better with the ending of the Great Depression. During that summer, another form of […]

This is a study of the relationship between major league player ethnicity and both overall participation and fielding position — from 1947, Jackie Robinson’s debut year, to 2018.1 I use the term “ethnicity” as an umbrella term encompassing the concept of “race” because the presence of Hispanics as a separate grouping invalidates a simple racial […]

The Fall Meeting — November 16-17, 1894 The first conclave after the 1894 season convened in Parlor F of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City.1There were no hot-button issues facing the magnates, but there were still critical details that required the group’s collective attention.The largest single administrative action came in reappointing the Board […]

Henry Aaron hit home runs in most of the major-league cities during his illustrious 23-year career. He homered 755 times by the time his playing days ended in 1976, surpassing the legendary Babe Ruth in 1974. Yet one city that wasn’t on his major-league schedule, New Orleans, became the site of three unique Aaron home […]

Editor’s note: An abridged version of this interview was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s October 2020 newsletter.   David Crawford Jones is a former chairman of the Deadball Era Committee and the editor of Deadball Stars of the American League, published by Potomac Books in 2006. With a master’s degree in U.S. History […]

The purpose of a Hall of Fame is to celebrate the greats and preserve history. But only 1.3 percent of major league players make it to Cooperstown1—and that percentage is considerably lower for recent generations. About half of Major League Baseball’s clubs maintain team Halls of Fame, honoring players who may have fallen short of […]

Topps commemorated Ryan Zimmerman’s 11th career walk-off with a collectible card in 2018. (THE TOPPS COMPANY)   “The pressure is on him, man. It’s not on me. I’m supposed to get out.” — Ryan Zimmerman1 Baseball games are filled with moments of great theater. What do we expect before the curtain rises? Perhaps a great […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (McFarland & Co., Fall 2008). Premise By the late 1930s, and particularly during the years of US involvement in World War II, segregation in sport and society was a topic of increasing public interest. Nationalism had at least […]

The objective of the research described in this article is to identify those players who merit recognition as “.300 hitters” even though they did not end up with lifetime .300 batting averages. They are among the former members of the prestigious Career .300 Hitters Club—the Emeritus Members. “At some point in the 1880s,” says John […]