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On January 1, 1971, the chairman of the board of the Baltimore Orioles, Jerold C. Hoffberger, with the approval of Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn, accepted an invitation from Yomiuri Shimbum President Mitsuo Mutai to play an 18-game, 25-day schedule versus Japanese Central and Pacific League teams in October 1971. Ten games would be versus […]

“Television is not only just what the doctor ordered for Negro performers; television subtly has supplied ten-league boots to the Negro in his fight to win what the Constitution of this country guarantees as his birthright.” — Ed Sullivan1   Jackie Robinson appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 20, 1962. (Courtesy of Ed […]

Bordering Hoboken — which dubs itself the “birthplace of baseball” because of the legendary 1846 game between the Knickerbockers and the New Yorks at Elysian Fields — Jersey City stands on the edges of the Hudson River and Newark Bay, somewhat obscured by the baseball notoriety of its neighbor to the northeast and the epic […]

The 1966 season was the culmination of several good seasons for the Orioles, a pattern that began with the 1960 team and the famous “Kiddie Corps” that made an unexpected great run at the AL pennant. From 1961 through 1965, they finished 3rd, 7th, 4th, 3rd, and 3rd — a solid run after the first […]

Jackie Robinson slides to home plate in an attempt to avoid the tag during a game between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field on May 13, 1956. Catcher is Ray Katt. Batter is Clem Labine. It was one of the times he didn’t make it. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME […]

“Heroes get remembered. But legends never die.” So says an apparition of Babe Ruth in The Sandlot. Statues affirm their permanence. Capturing a ballplayer’s essence creates a bond with passersby who stop to absorb the player’s importance to the game and admire the sculptor’s handiwork framing a moment. Ruth’s likeness adorns Oriole Park as a […]

April 6, 1987, was a slow news day. President Reagan spoke to the Canadian Parliament, hardly a reason to stop the presses. Republican former quarterback Jack Kemp announced his candidacy to succeed Reagan in 1988. The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 2,400 for the first time. It was Opening Day for 16 of the 26 […]

The word “daring” is associated with Chico Ruiz’s game-winning steal of home on September 21, 1964. “Insane” and “mad” are among the labels, too. But was he really so wrong? An analysis of the famous play in the National League pennant race.   “We’re playing Cincinnati. Two outs in the sixth inning, and we’re locked […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Journalism History, Vol. 32, No. 1, Spring 2006.   Had baseball card collecting been popular in the 1920s, fans of the nascent Negro leagues likely would have coveted the cards of Andrew “Rube” Foster, C.I. Taylor, Ed Bolden, and John Blount. Because these men were team owners and […]

Nelson Rockefeller stands with Jackie Robinson, who served as a special assistant on community affairs for the New York Governor in the 1960s.   Between 1960 and 1968, Jackie Robinson was widely regarded as the most famous Black Republican in the country. Following his announced retirement from baseball in January 1957, and in remarkably short […]

A star among stars, Jackie Robinson had an excellent batting record in six career All-Star appearances. The influx of Robinson and other African-American stalwarts for the National League helped reverse the course of the series. Prior to integration, the American League won nine of the first 13 contests. Surprisingly, Robinson played in neither the 1947 […]

Publicity photo of Jackie Robinson as an ABC broadcaster for Major League Championship Baseball. Jackie Robinson’s TV credits include being an ABC color commentator for MLB games in 1965. In addition to the appearance on What’s My Line?, Robinson also made the went on talk shows to be interviewed by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, and […]

Jackie Robinson with the Kansas City Monarchs, October 23, 1945 (COURTESY OF RACHEL ROBINSON AND THE ESTATE OF JACKIE ROBINSON)   A brief and often forgotten chapter in the legendary life of Jackie Robinson was the five months he spent as the Negro Leagues batting star for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945. This era […]

“It takes courage to be a pioneer”1   The Hero Two Doors Down, written by Sharon Robinson, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi and Mary Claire Cruz. (Courtesy of Scholastic Publishers)   There is a lovely scene in Ken Burns’ documentary series Jackie Robinson in which Robinson’s daughter, Sharon, remembers […]

This article was honored as a 2018 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award winner.   A National League players’ strike, instigated by some of the St. Louis Cardinals, against the presence in the league of Jackie Robinson, Negro first baseman, has been averted temporarily and perhaps permanently quashed. That’s the lede of Stanley Woodward’s story in the […]

In the fall of 1944, Jackie Robinson’s life was at a crossroads. A few days after Thanksgiving, he was honorably discharged from the US Army, where he’d made headlines for refusing to move to the back of a military bus. Dismissed from his barracks at Fort Hood, Texas, he found himself with no job, no […]

Asked what it was like to face Sandy Koufax, Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks said, “It was frightenin’.” (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Sandy Koufax faced 512 different batters during his Hall of Fame career, from Dick Groat (145 plate appearances, or PA), to Vinegar Bend Mizell (one PA, along with 63 other batters). Along the […]

  Actor Chadwick Boseman portrayed Jackie Robinson in “42: The True Story of An American Legend,” released in 2013.   Jackie Robinson was one of the most complicated men to ever play the game, and so it is no surprise that fictional representations of him largely fail to fully capture this nuanced hero. His is […]

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 […]

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives” – Jackie Robinson As people and events recede into the mists of the past, people and events that have resonated in our own times become as remote to the next generation as ancient history is to ours, and our task is […]

Jackie laughed. “Baseball isn’t all about home runs,” he said. “It’s a team sport. You have to trust the other players as much as you trust yourself.”1   A Big Day For Baseball (2019), written by Mary Pope Osborne and illustrated by Sal Murdocca. (Courtesy of Penguin Random House)   When Jackie Robinson debuted for […]

The First starred David Alan Grier, as Jackie Robinson, along with costar David Huddleston as Branch Rickey. (Courtesy of David Chapman)   “You know what would be a great musical? The story of Jackie Robinson.” So said film critic Joel Siegel to writer Martin Charnin at a chance meeting at their business manager’s midtown office […]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave baseball new life when he issued his “Green Light Letter” during World War II. He knew how important the game was to the country and how much encouraging the game to continue could boost American morale. His letter not only helped major-league baseball survive but helped the game on so […]

Shigeo Nagashima of the Yomiuri Giants and Boog Powell. (Robert Fitts Collection)   Matsutaro Shoriki spent four decades dreaming of an international World Series matching the champion team of American baseball and that of the Japanese. He created Japan’s greatest team, sponsored by his newspaper and known over the years as either the Tokyo or […]