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Triple Crown Winners: Champions of three different leagues for 1938. (Nikkei National Museum 2010-30-1-3-15 ab)   A curving pitch appears in slow motion from a hurler not in focus. The voice-over is somber, an older man, remembering. “We were born in Canada,” says Kaye Kaminishi. “We spoke English.” On screen, a batter pushes a bunt […]

SABR member Gordon H. Fleming has written a highly praised book about the 1908 National League pennant race called THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON. The book is excellent and the season he wrote about, hinging as it does on the unfortunate Fred Merkle base-running blunder, was certainly unforgettable. In 1884, 24 years earlier, there had been another […]

Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published in the SABR Deadball Era Research Committee’s February 2015 newsletter. This article expands upon a well-received presentation at SABR 44 in 2014 in Houston. Supporting documentation and other aspects of the research upon which this article is founded has been posted on the SABR website […]

This appendix is related to the article, “Honus Wagner: Baseball’s Prototypical Five-Tooler?” by Herm Krabbenhoft.  This appendix is related to the article, “Honus Wagner: Baseball’s Prototypical Five-Tooler?” by Herm Krabbenhoft.   Tables A-1 through A-8 provide the career performance results for each Hall of Famer whose career commenced before Willie Mays began his Big League […]

Ever the celebrity, Babe Ruth doffs his cap. (Library of Congress.)   Of any athlete from any sport who does double duty on the big screen and the ballyard/gridiron/basketball court, none has been written about, analyzed, and overanalyzed as much as Babe Ruth. Not Jim Brown. Not Michael Jordan. Not Willie, Mickey, or The Duke. […]

Whenever a Negro Leagues veteran is asked about James “Red” Moore, the response is almost automatically: “He could pick it!” Then the player adds anything else that he has to say. Such is the reputation that the Atlanta-born former baseball star earned during his career in the Negro Leagues. Described by Atlanta Daily World sports […]

In 1937 most of baseball’s headlines went to slugging exploits of Joe Medwick in the National League and to Lou Gehrig, Joe DiNaggio, Jimmy Foxx, and Hank Greenberg in the American League.   Little attention was paid to a bench-riding rookie of the Tigers named Rudy York, not at least until he worked his way into […]

Seventy-three home runs in a single season would have been considered absurd only a few years ago, yet Barry Bonds accomplished this astounding feat in 2001. Bonds’ record-breaking season, eclipsing the mark of 70 set by Mark McGwire only four years earlier raises the question of which ballplayers truly own the greatest single-season home run performances […]

Summertime 1934. Buffalo. Depression. Unemployment rate: 21.7%.1 Mood: troubled, despairing. Social services and a New Deal were responding as best they could, helping people manage from day to day, but two big local newspapers were looking ahead to the winter. The Buffalo Courier-Express sponsored the Christmas Toy Fund and publisher and editor Burrows Matthews was […]

The cover of the second issue of the Fawcett Publication of Jackie Robinson.   A new publication appeared on magazine racks as the first game of the 1949 World Series neared. It had a bright yellow cover with garish red letters at a jaunty angle spelling out Jackie Robinson’s name with a subdued subheading declaring him […]

In the early 1950s, minor league baseball was in a decline. Televisions were fairly new and air conditioning became more affordable, giving people reasons to stay home. More recreational activities became available. Going to a ballpark in the evening for entertainment and to cool off wasn’t as necessary as it had been in the past. […]

Next to a perfect game, the no-hitter may be the most alluring event in baseball, attracting the attention of researchers, historians, and fans alike. Historians are keen to understand every detail related to a no-hitter—easily done for recent games, but not for the games of the nineteenth century. We were told in the movie Field […]

Mark Belanger, winner of eight Gold Gloves in the last ten years, received more votes than any other player in SABR’s recent survey to determine the best fielders of the 1970s. The Baltimore shortstop received more than 90% of the nearly 400 votes cast for American League shortstop. Johnny Bench led all National League players. […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Babe Ruth was presented with flowers before a game during the 1934 baseball tour of Japan.   November 20, 1934; Shizuoka, Japan With a flick of his wrist, the boy received […]

President Warren G. Harding shaking hands with  New York Yankee Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium. April 25, 1923.  (Leslie Jones photo, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)   In the wake of the 1919-20 Black Sox scandal, baseball got lucky. Luck’s name was George Herman Ruth, who entered our vernacular in a long-ball way and […]

The San Francisco Giants – a party of more than 60, including players, management, and staff, plus embedded sportswriters – boarded their chartered Japan Airlines jet at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on the damp gray morning of Tuesday, March 31, 1970. Among the players, the prevailing mood was one of relief that their two-week ordeal in […]

This article details my research and summation of 1899 National League batter strikeouts. Batter strikeouts from this period are not documented and summarized in any common source by individual batters. The team totals of batter strikeouts do exist in season totals as well as in the era’s box scores. I was able to document individual […]

Of the major American sports, baseball is the only one that continues to enforce a segregation so complete that girls are directed to an “equivalent” sport. Yet generation after generation of women, from the late eighteenth century when baseball first arrived in the United States, to the USA Baseball National Team today, have refused to […]

There is some irony in the fact that baseball recordkeepers have been compiling annual leaders of most strikeouts by a batter. This is a negative category; yet, for years these tabulations have been carried right along with the annual leaders in home runs, batting, etc. A much more positive and meaningful listing would be the […]

The objective of the research described in this article is to identify those players who merit recognition as “.300 hitters” even though they did not end up with lifetime .300 batting averages. They are among the former members of the prestigious Career .300 Hitters Club—the Emeritus Members. “At some point in the 1880s,” says John […]

When Jim Bunning stepped to the mound in Shea Stadium on June 21, 1964, perhaps the last thing on his mind was pitching a perfect game. When Jim Bunning stepped to the mound in Shea Stadium on June 21, 1964, perhaps the last thing on his mind was pitching a perfect game. After all, no […]

One of baseball’s most exciting plays comes when a batter unexpectedly drops a bunt down the third base line. The third baseman charges in frantically and, with no margin for error, usually tries to barehand the ball. The batter is tearing down the first base line as fast as his legs will carry him, and […]

Willie Mays with the Minneapolis Millers in 1951. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The New York Giants purchased the Minneapolis Millers in 1946. It took five years for Minneapolis fans to fully process the impact. A charter member of the American Association in 1902, the Millers had a rich history that extended to the final decades of […]

This article was originally published in the 1991 SABR convention journal (New York City). In 2020, Bud Fowler was selected as SABR’s Overlooked 19th Century Base Ball Legend.   New York state made a significant contribution to black baseball in the 19th century. Not only did such great independent clubs as the Cuban Giants and […]