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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.

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 […]

As the 1867 baseball season drew to a close, the sport was meeting and exceeding the goals that were anticipated by players and journalists alike. The anticipation that the “game of nines” would become the pastime of the United States had been predicted, and even perhaps prematurely proclaimed, for close to a decade. Now, with […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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

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, […]

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 […]

Sometimes research leads us to answers we never intended to find. The author found a black-and-white photograph taken in 1923 that included six members of the Detroit Tigers — including Harry Heilmann and Larry Woodall — standing in front of a dugout with their temperamental skipper, Ty Cobb. This pesky photo led him on a […]

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 […]

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 originally published in “St. Louis’s Favorite Sport,” the 1992 SABR convention journal.   Sixty years ago there were no millionaire ballplayers in St. Louis. No night baseball, no artificial turf, no exploding scoreboards, no plane travel, no West Coast baseball teams, no television, no helmets, no batting gloves, no blacks in the […]

Was the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 a major league? Baseball authorities interested in the answer have been, and still are, divided in their opinions. Could a six-team independent league in 1913, generally regarded as no better than Class D, become an eight-team organization of major league quality a year later? The odds suggest […]

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. However, the […]

A Biography of Buck Rodgers and his journey to Anaheim. 

Introduction For a number of years, the Research Club of the National Baseball Library, under the leadership first of the late Lee Allen and now of Cliff Kachline, has been involved in a continuing project designed to acquire completed biographical questionnaires for all major-league players, 1871 to the present.  Names of almost 11,000 men have […]

    Selecting an all-time baseball team is an extremely precarious pastime, fraught with difficulties and likely to induce mental anguish.  Therefore, we shall forego the best in favor of the jest.     We could be Poles apart in naming our all-time Ski team, but our squad prefers fastballs to snowballs and running bases to […]

This article was originally published in “Baseball in the Badger State,” the 2001 SABR convention journal.   Ask a baseball fan, what is the only city that has been the home of two different teams in the American League and two in the National League, all since 1900? Without thinking, many will say New York—which […]