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“The greatest pitcher I have ever seen,” whispered John McGraw as he shoved his way through a jostling home­ bound crowd after watching “Cannonball” Jackman strike out eighteen batters in nine innings. That whisper spread from ear to ear and finally developed into a roar, for certainly the famed former New York Giants pilot should […]

In 1935 the City of Detroit forged a bond to its sporting teams that is an integral part of the psychology of the city, even today.In 1935 the City of Detroit forged a bond to its sporting teams that is an integral part of the psychology of the city, even today. What makes Detroit a […]

Friday, August 10, 1883, promised excitement for baseball fans in Toledo. The Toledo Blue Stockings of the Northwest League played host to the three-time world champion Chicago White Stockings, and thou­ sands jammed League Park at Monroe and 13th Streets to see the greatest team in baseball and its star player-manager, Cap Anson. What the […]

The dominant characteristics of the Texas Rangers’ early history were inept management, pitiful baseball, and terrible attendance. The team proved incapable of coming up with a workable plan and sticking with it. This premise was stated well by a presumably neutral observer, veteran Chicago sports columnist Bernie Lincicome: “Texas has been a franchise governed by […]

The telegram was brash and a bit disrespectful. Simply stated, it read “DEAR MOOSE: TOLD YOU SO. JOE PEP”. 1 The New York Yankees needed pitching help—specifically a boost to their rotation—following the 1962 season. They set their sights on Stan Williams, a right-handed twirler for the Los Angeles Dodgers who had won 14, 15, […]

In December 1936, the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League purchased a catcher from the Albany Senators. Bill Starr would leave his mark on San Diego baseball history: As a player, he had the honor of pinch-hitting for Ted Williams. As an owner, he signed the player who broke the Pacific Coast League […]

Nineteen twenty-one was a remarkable baseball season, one that signaled that a seismic shift in how the game was played was underway. Baseball was moving from low-scoring contests dominated by pitching to a power game with more hits, runs, and home runs. It was the year that New York City rose to the top of […]

Ed Barrow (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The Toronto franchise of the International League was one of the strongest and had one of the longest tenures—from 1895 (when the league was called the Eastern League) until 1967. Ed Barrow had a lengthy, esteemed career as a baseball executive that ultimately landed him in the National Baseball Hall […]

Advertising billed The Great American Pastime as a comedy that would “keep us all in stitches.”   Following the Second World War, the baseball genre film enjoyed considerable popularity with Hollywood filmmakers hoping to recapture the commercial success of The Pride of the Yankees (1942). As that film re-told Lou Gehrig’s life story, many of […]

 Minor-League Winter Meeting The prospect of war cast a long shadow over the National Association meeting for 1941. Europe and Asia had been mired in conflict for more than two years by this time, and just days after the meetings concluded, the United States would be forced to enter the second worldwide war of the […]

Choices … Decisions: A player has already connected for one double, one triple, and one homer in the game and needs only a simple single in his next plate appearance to achieve the cherished cycle—one of baseball’s rarest accomplishments and one that will inscribe his name permanently in the record books. If he comes through […]

The baseball community met at the Galt House hotel in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, December 3-9, 1992. Reportedly, 1,800 to 1,900 people registered for the annual meeting, with vendors increasing the size of the meeting to about 2,500. By most accounts, the 1992 Winter Meeting was especially eventful, highlighted by a number of prominent free-agent signings […]

L to R: Mookie Betts, Janet Marie Smith, and David Price tour the outfield construction work at Dodger Stadium. (Photograph by Jon SooHoo / Los Angeles Dodgers)   Besides her work on the renovations of Dodger Stadium, Janet Marie Smith is well known for her work in building Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 […]

A group of boys hung over their dorm’s balcony railing, hardly believing that their hero was playing catch in the courtyard below with some of their schoolmates. The tall, rangy man throwing the ball to some of the older students was barely in his twenties, moving with the strong but casual grace common to athletes.1 […]

Fred Girard Haney touched all the bases in a 65-year baseball career that led him from athletic stardom in high school to the general manager’s office of the Los Angeles Angels.

  With Connie Mack’s election as president of the Athletics in January 1937, the Mack family now controlled all of the senior leadership positions in the club’s front office. From left: Earle, Connie, and Roy Mack in 1937. (Courtesy of Robert D. Warrington)   The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954. In […]

1946 In 1946, 22 major leaguers—11 of whom were under contract to either the New York Giants or the Brooklyn Dodgers—bolted to Mexico in search of greener (baseball) fields.1 This article looks at the fate and fortunes of eight members from the 1945 New York Giants who left their New York counterparts to suit up […]

  The 2014 Little League World Series left baseball fans everywhere awestruck. With her 70-mph fastball, a 13-year-old girl by the name of Mo’ne Davis pitched a complete-game shutout to lead her team, the Taney Dragons, to a 4-0 victory. In doing so, she was the first girl ever to pitch a winning game in […]

By 1951 the Browns were decidedly moribund. They had been last in the American League in attendance every year since 1946 and the usual question one asked before the start of the season was whether they might finish in seventh or eighth place. Underfinanced, Charles and William DeWitt wanted out of what they saw as […]

  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 […]