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Joe Black helped lead the Brooklyn Dodgers to the 1952 pennant, going 15-4 with 15 saves, and a 2.15 ERA. He won the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. “Let’s put it this way,” Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen told reporters, “Where would […]

One of the most important games hurled by Clement Walter Labine took place at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on October 9, 1956. The day before, Don Larsen had pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 2-0, in the fifth game of the World Series. Dodgers manager Walter Alston […]

Silvio García was a shortstop and pitcher who played in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Canada, and his native Cuba, as well as the American Negro League and organized minor leagues, from 1931 to 1954. Known for his powerful right-handed line-drive swing and rifle arm, he won two batting championships in the Cuban […]

 “LaMarque was probably the most unassuming of all the Monarch players. … He didn’t stand out. And he liked it like that. Lefty quietly went about his business.”  – Ray Doswell, curator, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum1   Jim LaMarque, who like so many southpaws was nicknamed Lefty, said he almost quit in 1942, his first year […]

The first of two players in franchise history to wear double-zero on the back of his Cleveland Indians uniform, Paul Dade in 1977 explained his unique decision: “I went through the free-agent draft last winter [1976-77] and was selected by only two clubs, Oakland and Cleveland, and Oakland wasn’t really interested in me. Nobody really […]

John Milner idolized Hank Aaron, lockered next to Willie Mays, and on his best days could hit home runs with as much authority as either man. While injuries and inconsistency prevented Milner from becoming an elite slugger, he carved out a 12-year career for the Mets, Pirates, and Expos, helping each of those clubs reach […]

Before committing suicide under mysterious circumstances in the spring of 1907, Chick Stahl forged a reputation as one of the best center fielders in the game over the course of a 10-year major-league career. A lifetime .305 batter, the left-handed Stahl could also hit with power, and often ranked among the league leaders in extra-base […]

After six seasons in the minor leagues, Charlie Metro stepped to the plate at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis wearing for the first time in a regular-season game the uniform of the Detroit Tigers. It was May 4, 1943, a Tuesday afternoon as America approached its 18th month at war. The next day, the radio […]

As of September 2020, when this story was originally published, the two oldest living major leaguers were Eddie Robinson and George Elder, both veterans of WWII. Robinson served in the Navy but because of a leg operation was never in a combat zone. Elder served as a Marine artilleryman in the Pacific theatre. He served […]

On the evening of September 21, 1964, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Art Mahaffey was pitching a gem of a baseball game. In the top of the sixth inning it was a scoreless duel in between Mahaffey and the Cincinnati Reds’ John Tsitouris at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. With two outs, 25-year-old Reds rookie Chico Ruiz […]

The National League boasted some of the hardest-throwing and most intimidating starting pitchers in baseball history during the 1960s, from Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale to Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Jim Bunning. But one pitcher has faded from our collective memory of the great ones from that era: Jim Maloney. Troubled by chronic shoulder […]

The long and the short of it is that Zack Taylor was the manager who sent 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to the plate to pinch-hit for the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers in 1951.  But Taylor was not simply a straight man in an owner’s stunt, for he spent 58 years in professional baseball […]

A decent hitter with some extra-base power and a defensive standout at both catcher and first base, Jack Kerins1 spent his seven-season major league playing career entirely in the American Association. He also put in two brief stints as an interim club manager. When throwing arm miseries brought Kerins’ playing days to a close, he […]

“I watched him go. He never came back…It made me realize how fragile life really is.”[1] – Bob Bailor Righty pitcher Mark “Dutch” Weems displayed promise as a Baltimore Orioles farmhand in the early 1970s. After turning pro in 1969, he reached Class AAA as early as 1971. He was playing winter ball in Venezuela […]

The Homestead Grays were a dominant force in Negro League baseball from 1926 to 1948. While the faces and muscles of this franchise were Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, the heart and soul of the Homestead Grays was feisty player-manager Vic Harris, who was known and admired by teammates and opponents alike […]

A journeyman outfielder during his 12 major-league seasons, Dave May was called by The Sporting News “a good man to have on a team.”1 The stocky 5-foot-10½, 186-pound left-handed hitter played in 1,252 games for Baltimore, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Texas, and Pittsburgh, posting a .251 average with 96 home runs and 422 runs batted in. Best […]

Sam Williams was born in a small, poor town in segregated Alabama, served his country in World War II, played in the last Negro League World Series, and then pitched for minor-league teams from California to Canada and from Mexico to the Dominican Republic. “It didn’t matter who I pitched against, I was going to […]

But for a bucket kick, Bill Werber might reside in the Hall of Fame rather than be remembered as a good major-league ballplayer of the 1930s who helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to National League pennants in 1939 and 1940 and to the world’s championship in 1940. It happened in 1934, toward the end of […]

Reginald Martinez Jackson was born on May 18, 1946, in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, a largely white suburb north of Philadelphia’s central city. His father, Martinez Jackson, ran a dry-cleaning and tailoring business. As a grown man, Reggie claimed he still knew how to cuff a pair of slacks.1 His father was a veteran of World War […]

“But coming down through that would heighten my sense because I could dig I would soon be standing in that line to get in, with my old man. But lines of all black people! Dressed up like they would for going to the game, in those bright lost summers. Full of noise and identification slapped […]

“What followed that year [2005] – after the new Nats brought baseball back to the District ending a 33-year drought – was an unexpectedly fun joyride, a 100-win pace through half a season that helped Washington re-embrace the sport that abandoned it.” – Barry Svrluga, Washington Post1     Baseball is a game of numbers, […]

SABR Bibliography Committee Research Guide No. 9: Library Collections on the History of Baseball Editor’s note: This guide was first published by the SABR Bibliography Committee in 1988. To download the original in PDF form, click here. By Patricia PalmerDecember 1988 Baseball has enjoyed a rich and colorful history in America, reflected in a variety […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]

On April 12, 1955, the former Philadelphia Athletics, having moved that winter to Kansas City, opened their first season at Municipal Stadium: A’s 6, Tigers 2, before a standing-room crowd of 32,147. Flanked by franchise progenitor Connie Mack, former President Harry Truman tossed the team’s first ball in Missouri’s first American League (AL) opener since […]