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The 2014 baseball season’s adoption of expanded instant replay review not only introduced another wrinkle into our national pastime, it opened the door into a brand new arena of statistical analysis over 50 years in the making. Thanks to the adoption of a manager’s challenge system—which MLB has confirmed will remain in place for the […]

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig formed the most feared batting twosome in the history of baseball. Batting third and fourth, they served as the heart of the great Yankee teams that won three World Series between 1927 and 1933. Despite their heroics, Ruth and Gehrig played a different type of baseball, led decidedly different lives, […]

One of America’s oldest commercialized sports spectaculars, major league baseball has adjusted repeatedly and dramatically to significant ideological and technological changes. Indeed, so cumulative have been these forces of change that each passing decade of baseball history reveals profound changes in the game’s social organization and in the behavior of the players. Thus, to scrutinize […]

From the mid-1970s until the Angels won the World Series in 2002, frequent stories of an Angels “curse” or “jinx” appeared in the local and national media. Typically blamed on a rumor that Anaheim Stadium was built on a Native American burial ground, the curse persists to the present day despite the fact that several […]

This article was originally published in “Unions to Royals: The Story of Professional Baseball in Kansas City,” the 1996 SABR convention journal.   In the wake of the Black Sox Scandal, baseball ownership searched for new leadership to salvage the game’s rapidly sinking reputation. When Chicagoan Albert Lasker proposed a new three- member commission, to […]

Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot tosses the ceremonial first ball prior to a World Series game in 1925. (COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES)   “It was a great day for water polo,” quipped New York Times sportswriter James R. Harrison.1 On Thursday, October 15, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals met in horrific weather conditions to […]

Early 1857 saw the first baseball convention, beginning a series that continues, in one form or another, to the winter meetings of today. What provoked it? Why did anyone bother to initiate such a gathering? The convention was called to fill a need. It was successful enough to merit a repeat the following year, while […]

A common trivia question among baseball fans is, “How many ways are there for a batter to reach first base?” According to Question 5 in the individual primary round of the trivia contest at the 2009 SABR 39 National Convention in Washington DC, there are eight different ways. The Wiki Answers web site lists 23. […]

On the southwest side of Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, lies a plain granite marker with a slightly misspelled inscription, the gravesite pathetically guarded by a twisted sweet-bay magnolia tree. Buried there in lot #549 is Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning, whose occupation at the time of his death on September 10, 1905, at age […]

November 19, 1984 issue of Shukan Baseball depicting stars of the Orioles and Yomiuri Giants (Robert Fitts Collection)   When the idea arose of a major-league team making a tour of Japan after the 1984 regular season, the grand vision – the hope – was that a true world series could finally take place. It […]

Few individuals saw more Astros history that Alan Ashby. An Astro for 20 of their first 50 seasons, he spent eleven on the Astrodome carpet, coordinating one of the more challenging pitching staffs of his time. After one year as their bullpen coach Ashby moved to the broadcast booth for another eight, culminating with Houston’s […]

Two weeks before the start of the 1974 season, Oakland Athletics owner Charles O. Finley signed Herb Washington as a “designated runner”—in the long, storied history of Major League Baseball, the first and only player whose sole responsibility was to run the bases. Baseball historians and fans have not treated “Hurricane Herb” Washington kindly over […]

A subject that animates baseball fans is ranking its greatest players, particularly regarding membership in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (HOF). In the past decade or two, Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has moved to the forefront of this discussion among analytically minded fans. Unlike many “traditional” stats (wins, losses, saves, runs, RBI), […]

South Florida is notoriously hot in the summer, but conditions heated up another notch in 1952 when the Miami Sun Sox and the Miami Beach Flamingos fought it out in one of the great pennant races of minor league baseball. The 1952 dash for the pennant involved two colorful managers: the contentious Johnny “Pepper” Martin […]

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. Who has the highest single season batting average in major league history? The modern fan would probably say that Rogers Hornsby’s .424 in 1924 is the highest. Old timers would point […]

This article was originally published in “The SABR Book on Umpires and Umpiring” (SABR, 2017), edited by Larry R. Gerlach and Bill Nowlin. Bernice Gera, center, makes a call at the Jim Finley umpire school in 1967. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   “Are you blind?” is a familiar cry for fans sitting in […]

It wasn’t so long ago that sports historians spent little if any time researching the young women who played baseball in previous generations. The best-known histories of the game barely gave them a mention.1 This is not surprising, since the common wisdom about female ballplayers was that most of them weren’t very good at it, […]

What was George Sisler thinking when he signed a contract to play professional baseball in Akron, Ohio, in January 1911 at the tender age of 17? After all, he had not consulted with his family or any other adult except for Jesse Goehler, who, acting as a representative of the Akron club, signed the future […]

The more Hall of Famers a team owns, the more championships it wins, right? Research suggests a far different picture. For one thing, those Famers may be finished.   ALTHOUGH MUCH IS WRITTEN about Hall of Fame players, little is written about the teams they have played on together. Fans who know the answer to […]

Dodger Stadium: Blue Heaven on Earth Edited by Bill Nowlin and Glen Sparks Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers Publication Date: July 1, 2024 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-960819-20-8, $9.99 ISBN (paperback): 978-1-960819-21-5, $29.95 8.5″ x 11″, 259 pages This SABR Digital Library book features dozens of game stories that highlight the rich history of Dodger […]