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Sandy Koufax posted a career 57-15 won-loss record at Dodger Stadium and a 1.37 ERA. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Sandy Koufax’s baseball career is a tale of two cities, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. It is a tale about a career that contained two disparate time periods, the worst of times and the best of times. For […]

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 […]

“Josh missed immortality and a chance to endorse breakfast food by being born on the wrong side of the social structure.” — Jimmy Powers, New York Daily News, 19371 Josh Gibson was the most dominant power hitter in the Negro Leagues from 1930 through 1946. His production was so prodigious that his Hall of Fame […]

Richard Nixon may have been the greatest baseball student to occupy the presidency. In 1936 Nixon, 23, saw his first big-league game. “I don’t remember much about it,” he said, “except that the date was July 4, the Washington Senators lost a doubleheader at Griffith Stadium, and a rookie named DiMaggio put one in the […]

The more Hall of Famers a team owns, the more championships it wins, right? Research suggests a far different picture. For one thing, those Famers may be finished.   ALTHOUGH MUCH IS WRITTEN about Hall of Fame players, little is written about the teams they have played on together. Fans who know the answer to […]

The National League Expansion Committee visited Denver Mile High Stadium after a tour of the metropolitan area in several helicopters. Here, they huddle on the infield grass to exchange information. (Courtesy of Roger Kinney)   The year 1959 was a good one– a very important year for baseball in Colorado. It was the first time […]

Since the dawn of free agency, there has been increasing affection paid to players who spend their entire career with the same team. From the ballpark statues of Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn to the retired numbers of Robin Yount and George Brett, baseball fans in recent years have celebrated star players who rose through […]

At 3:38 on the afternoon of April 19, 1890, Albert Johnson was on top of the world. When Boston’s Matt Kilroy threw the first pitch to Brooklyn left fielder Emmet Seery, a revolution in American sports began.1 The 30-year-old Johnson, who had spent his working life making a fortune in street railway lines in Louisville, […]

Of the major league teams that trace their history before 1960, most started out with several short-term unofficial nicknames or even no nickname at all. Although several reputable sources provide a history of these nicknames, there are numerous contradictions between the available sources, and sometimes even when these sources agree, they conflict with the original […]

On the morning of May 11, 1953, the fair citizens of Waco, Texas woke up to a muggy day. Many prepared themselves for the beginning of the work week by downing their daily cup of coffee and reading the latest edition of the Waco Tribune–Herald. Sprawled across the front page were reports of intense tornadoes […]

Like raging dinosaurs in some prehistoric swamp, the Milwaukee Braves’ Warren Spahn and the San Francisco Giants’ Juan Marichal slugged it out for four hours, 10 minutes, and 16 innings, all through the night of July 2 and into the early minutes of July 3, 1963. Spahn, 42, personified an aging Tyrannosaurus rex defending his […]

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 7 (McFarland & Co., 2014). The long relationship between Negro League baseball and Yankee Stadium that provided the Black leagues with both income and prestige began in 1930 when a millionaire lent his prized major league ballpark to a man who […]

The National League and the American Association entered their respective winter meetings — hereafter called the annual meetings1 — buoyed by the growing popularity and profits of the past 1886 season.2 The owners recognized that to further expand the popularity of baseball and, with the consequent rise in attendance, increase their profits, they had to […]

In 1938 the Baltimore Elite Giants had taken part in the Negro National League II playoffs and were looking forward to the 1939 season under a new manager. George Scales had led the team in 1938, when the Elite Giants finished third in the seven-team league, with a NNL II record of 26-23 but winning […]

As a baseball executive, Lou Gorman worked for more than a third of a century with scouts. He’d been a farm director for the Orioles and Royals, director of player development with Kansas City, and GM or assistant GM with the Mariners, Mets, and Red Sox. The Providence, Rhode Island, native was once a minor […]

The 53rd major-league All-Star Game was the first midsummer classic played outside of the United States, and this landmark game paid tribute to both the global nature of the sport and the proud history of professional baseball in Montreal.1 The two-day celebration had a distinctly international flair that went well beyond the public-address announcements in […]

Before a paid attendance of only 13,194 fans, the Baltimore Orioles took on the Washington Senators in the 71st game of the season, a night contest at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in the nation’s capital. Earl Weaver’s Birds were in first place, on their way to a 1970 world championship, while Ted Williams’s Senators were […]

Pennant fever for Baltimore Oriole fans was unusually high as the 1966 season began because the newest Oriole, Frank Robinson, had excelled for the Cincinnati Reds the previous 10 seasons. His teammates admired his leadership qualities, hitting, and overall play during spring training, beginning on March 7, and many fans considered Robinson to be the […]

Frank Robinson would not want to be remembered as a racial pioneer. He would prefer to be immortalized as a baseball player who conducted his craft to the best of his ability in the field and at the plate. Robinson knew from a young age that he would face his share of obstacles in life. […]

While the North’s Civil War victory and the 13th Amendment ended slavery in 1865, ensuring political and civil rights for blacks remained an unsettled question. During the war, a new generation of black leaders emerged to succeed old abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Among them was Octavius Catto, a Renaissance man who […]