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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.

“I don’t give a damn about O’Malley.” Hank Greenberg was furious. The 6-foot-4 Hall of Famer towered over Commissioner Ford Frick, who had just told him what he did not want to hear: Before Greenberg could put an American League expansion team in Los Angeles, he would have to pay tribute to Dodgers owner Walter […]

Roland Hemond has worked in Organized Baseball since 1951, when he was hired by the Hartford Chiefs, the Boston Braves’ farm club (Class A-Eastern League) for a $28.00-a-week entry-level job. Along the way, Hemond has worked as an executive in the front offices of the Boston/Milwaukee Braves, Los Angeles/California Angels, Chicago White Sox (twice), in […]

The Hollywood Stars baseball club, which was a member of the Pacific Coast League from 1926 to 1935 and again from 1938 to 1957, was “a fun deal” that gave me “the best years of my life,” according to Robert H. Cobb, its last president. The club was truly a civic venture which was both […]

Major League Baseball held its 25th annual All-Star Game at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on July 8, 1958. The game was broadcast nationally on NBC Radio and TV. Ernie Harwell and Bob Neal were the radio announcers while Mel Allen and Al Helfer handled the television broadcast. MLB had recently signed a five-year contract with […]

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT As the twenty-first century began, the commissioner’s office and many team owners were concerned about competitive imbalance. After free agency began in the 1970s, some teams were able to use their financial heft to gain a competitive edge, especially those with lucrative local radio and television contracts; the New York Yankees, for […]

Though they lacked such modern tools as an amateur draft that drew from high-school, college, and amateur team rosters, and free agency for veteran players, Roy Hamey and John Quinn put together a winning team in Philadelphia using the means at their disposal.The 1964 Phillies were the handiwork of two general managers, Roy Hamey and […]

Carlos Bernier was 26 years old when he broke the Pittsburgh Pirates’ color line on April 22, 1953, nearly one year before Curt Roberts played his first game with the Pirates.1 The controversial and temperamental outfielder was one of two Bucs, with Lino Donoso, a Cuban pitcher, who encouraged Roberto Clemente to refrain from emotional […]

This article originally appeared in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s February 2017 newsletter. In early 1961, nearly 44 years after the event, Al Laney recalled Ernie Shore’s unique pitching achievement against the Washington Senators with a memorable opening line in the New York Herald Tribune: “On a Saturday in the summer of 1917 at Fenway […]

This article was originally published in “St. Louis’s Favorite Sport,” the 1992 SABR convention journal.   “They’re making me feel famous and I love it!” — Chet Laabs in July After suffering through one of the most dismal decades in baseball history in the 1930s, the St. Louis Browns began to turn things around in […]

WORLD WAR II decimated minor league baseball. Then, like the legendary phoenix rising from the ashes, the 1945 low of 12 leagues soared to an impressive 52 leagues in 1947. They ranged from Triple-A to Class D and covered the length and breadth of the United States plus towns in Canada and Mexico. Old leagues […]

We all know that baseball games lack an arbitrary end. No clock means that the participants determine not only when the game will end but also when it will not end. There are thousands of instances when the offense fails and the game ends, maybe dramatically and maybe not, with a strikeout, a fly ball, […]

Sometimes research leads us to answers we never intended to find. My quest began in 2010 when I set out to review the history of an unlucky baseball pitcher named Sylvester “Syl” Johnson. This man had the honor to work with one of the most notorious baseball men in history, Tyrus Raymond Cobb. He was […]

Roland Hemond joined the Los Angeles Angels’ on the ground floor in 1961, remaining with the Halos until 1970. Here is Hemond in 1961 with prospects Dan Ardell (l) and Tom Satriano (Courtesy of Angels Baseball)   Responding to six decades of demographic change, the National and American leagues moved to expand as the 1960s […]

Pete Rose’s move from left field to third base in early May 1975 often receives credit as a pivotal moment in the success of the 1975 Reds — and with good reason. That’s when the team began to win consistently, surging to the National League West Division title. Pete Rose roamed around the diamond during […]

Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Hanley Ramirez, and Dustin Pedroia – names you likely would not expect to read about in a book about the 2004 Boston Red Sox. After all, these men were key players in the 2007 World Series championship. Lester, Papelbon, and Pedroia were on the team, while Ramirez was traded to the […]

The 2014 major-league season ended with the San Francisco Giants winning their third World Series in five seasons, beating the Kansas City Royals in a dramatic seven-game series on the shoulders of a staggeringly dominant performance by their 25-year-old southpaw, Madison Bumgarner. The Giants had established themselves as the decade’s model franchise, the Royals emerged […]

Seattle Pilots spring training program from 1970. The franchise began spring training as the Pilots but officially became the Milwaukee Brewers on April 1 (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)   “Dewey was in a dream world. He had no money. I swear to God, the whole franchise was being run on a Visa card.” The […]

In a game where cryptic communication is of paramount importance in assuring success, why would the offense allow the defense free access to their “stop” and “go” signals as conveyed by their third base coach? No sooner had Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez popped up for the last out in the 2014 World Series, […]

This article was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s November 2023 newsletter.   Ed Reulbach is remembered principally for three things: for his five-year run of pitching success for the Chicago Cubs between 1905 and 1909; for his then unprecedented one-hit game in the 1906 World Series; and for shutting out the Brooklyn Superbas […]

Every two years, the nation’s capital sees senators leave town and new senators arrive to take their place. After a while, the suits all begin to look the same; only the bodies filling them out are different. The dance of those coming and going is typically confined to Capitol Hill. But between October 1960 and […]

One of the most unusual baseball games in Amer­ican League history took place at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, on May 18, 1912. Nominally a contest between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Detroit Tigers, the men who suited up for the Tigers that day were locally recruited ballplayers, while the real Tigers players bought tickets to sit […]

One would guess that several factors influence a player’s ability to score runs, including speed, his position in the lineup, the batting ability of other players in his lineup, and his own power. Players who combine these factors could be expected to score a high percentage of the times that they reach base. Rare players […]

Excerpts from Cecil O. Monroe’s “The Rise of Baseball,” detailing the events between 1857 through 1870 that shaped baseball in Minnesota.