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On the evening of September 22, 1965, more than 12,000 fans at Milwaukee County Stadium were treated to an exciting baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves.  The hometown faithful witnessed the removal of Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax from the game in the third inning, followed by an inside-the-park four-base blow […]

Alex Gordon was held at third instead of sent home with the potential tying run in Game Seven of the 2014 World Series. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   No sooner had Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez popped up for the last out in the 2014 World Series, the pundits, second-guessers, arm-chair managers, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.

Milwaukee Braves The Braves finished the regular season on a hot streak, winning ten of their last 12 games to capture the NL pennant, thereby erasing the memories of their late-season collapse in 1956. They were the best hitting team in the league, leading in runs scored (772) and home runs (199), and finishing second […]

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 […]

He neither slugged like Aaron nor pitched like Spahn, but Lou Perini made his own indelible mark on baseball history. In fact, one can argue that few men ever made a greater impact on the game without playing professionally than the construction giant who moved the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee. For a half-century from […]

Jimmy Rattlesnake (courtesy Wetaskiwin & County Sports Hall of Fame)   His pitches offered enough venom to rattle the most seasoned of hitters. And he did it all with a grin that was as warm in welcoming opponents to the batter’s box as it was in sending them back to the dugout after another futile […]

A Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews baseball card from Topps. (Courtesy of Topps)   Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews shared a baseball card in the 1959 Topps set. The horizontal card, with a green-and-yellow background, showed the sluggers admiring their bats under the words FENCE BUSTERS. That they were. Aaron and Mathews combined for a […]

Forfeits were relatively commonplace in the early days of baseball. There was at least one forfeit in the major leagues every year from 1883 to 1907, including 13 in 1884. A review of the reasons for these forfeits reveals how ”bush league” the major leagues still were. In 1889, St. Louis’s American Association team failed […]

The players on the train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals back to Union Station should have been vibrant and fun-loving as it rolled through the Land of Lincoln on October 2, 1949. The Redbirds had thumped the Chicago Cubs, 13-5, at Wrigley Field in the season finale that afternoon. Thanks to a thrilling pennant race, […]

Most baseball fans, and nonfans for that matter, would consider Beaneaters to be among the most interesting major-league team nicknames with longevity (i.e., multiyear usage as opposed to short-term fad). In 1883 the Boston NL team became unofficially recognized by various sportswriters as the Beaneaters, though like most major-league teams they were generally referred to […]

A Biography of Buck Rodgers and his journey to Anaheim. 

All headlines are from the next day’s edition of the Milwaukee Sentinel, unless otherwise noted. April 16. BRAVES ON THEIR WAY, 4-1.Spahn’s Pitching, Logan’s Home Run Highlight Opener. The Braves opened the 1957 season in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon in front of 23,674 spectators in Wrigley Field. Thirty-six-year-old Warren Spahn tossed a complete game, holding […]

Who’s the batter? Nowadays, fans attending a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park can just look at the player—his name and assigned number are on the back of his uniform, and his name is displayed prominently on a huge scoreboard. However, a hundred years or so ago, Tigers fans attending a baseball game at Navin […]

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 […]

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 […]

    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 […]

Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan, 1907-1958 (Volume 1) Edited by Robert K. Fitts, Bill Nowlin, and James Forr Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers Foreword by Allan H. “Bud” Selig Publication Date: December 14, 2022 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-970159-89-9, $9.99 ISBN (paperback): 978-1-970159-90-5, $32.95 8.5″ x 11″, 288 pages To celebrate the 150th anniversary […]

The Stars Shone on Philadelphia: The 1934 Negro National League Champions Edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers Publication Date: August 23, 2023 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-960819-04-8, $9.99 ISBN (paperback): 978-1-960819-05-5, $24.95 8.5″ x 11″, 240 pages In 1934, Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars joined the new Negro National […]