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In every sport and at every level, the home team wins more games than the visiting team. While this is true in baseball, it is less the case than in other sports. Throughout baseball history, the home team has won approximately 54 percent of the games played. Nearly every aspect of the game has changed […]

  Duke Farrell as depicted with the Chicago White Stockings on an Old Judge baseball card, circa 1888–90. (Trading Card Database)   Welcome to nineteenth-century baseball research, where it is not uncommon for the newspapers to have conflicting box score data, and for the box score data to be in conflict with the written article […]

  When he stepped on the mound at Municipal Stadium to face the hometown Waterbury Giants on September 3, 1967, Dick Such of the York White Roses carried the burden of an 0–16 record. It was his last chance that season to snap his winless streak. The 6-foot-4 right-hander got off to a rocky start […]

The National League Expansion Committee visited Denver Mile High Stadium after a tour of the metropolitan area in several helicopters. Here, they huddle on the infield grass to exchange information. (Courtesy of Roger Kinney)   The year 1959 was a good one– a very important year for baseball in Colorado. It was the first time […]

  On May 2, 1963, the Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians completed a swap of starting pitchers. Southpaw Jack Kralick was headed to Cleveland while right-hander Jim Perry was on his way to the Twin Cities. Kralick (34–32, 3.64 ERA) and Perry (52–49, 3.87) had similar career numbers. Perry, however, had been used more out […]

“Television is not only just what the doctor ordered for Negro performers; television subtly has supplied ten-league boots to the Negro in his fight to win what the Constitution of this country guarantees as his birthright.” — Ed Sullivan1   Jackie Robinson appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 20, 1962. (Courtesy of Ed […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume III (1988). Roger Angell’s office at The New Yorker where he works as senior fiction editor and baseball reporter, has the rumpled busy look of a college professor’s study. Shelves are lined with baseball guides, SABR publications, autographed baseballs, odd wire sculptures of […]

Robert “Bob” Addy’s Canadian baseball success story begs a really big question. Why are we only hearing about him now? In the last 10 years, thanks to researcher Peter Morris, Addy’s Canadian roots have been highlighted, but this knowledge has taken its sweet time spreading to all corners of the baseball world.1 Now additional details […]

Knowing and living in the same household with my grandfather Bob Groom was an accident of fate but a gift of immeasurable value. His was and remains the strongest presence in my life. What I remember of him are the deeply felt, simple memories of a child, so discovering who he was to others took […]

The proliferation of professional baseball teams in 1884 provided an historic high-water mark for the sport’s surge of popularity in the early 1880s. Teams and leagues were launched on a wing and a prayer in May, only to crash in August and September. The Northwestern League and its entry from Stillwater, Minn., the team whose […]

  There is not a person alive in the industrialized world who has not been touched directly or indirectly by the wonders of medical science. Death-sentence diseases of the past, like cancer, now carry longer and longer commutation periods, thanks to advanced early detection and modern surgical techniques. The twentieth century discovery of insulin has […]

Buster Keaton’s journey as a physical athlete starring in silent cinema.

What makes these Detroit Tigers uniform numbers — 2, 5, 6, 16, and 23 — special? Nearly every Tigers fan knows the answer to this question — each of those uniform numbers has been retired, in honor of Charlie Gehringer (2), Hank Greenberg (5), Al Kaline (6), Hal Newhouser (16), and Willie Horton (23). Each of these […]

The old ball was perched on a low, dusty shelf in a not very distinguished antique shop in Philadelphia; I spotted the ball only by chance just as I was about to leave the store. Even though I was an impoverished college sophomore who had no business spending $40 on a used baseball, I figured […]

Observing the similarity between two celebrated dynasties — the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s — is hardly original, and hardly new. But the comparisons between the two teams are worth exploring in some detail. They were a ballclub well-known then and well-remembered today not just for their victories […]

Lefty George Mogridge entered Game Seven of the 1924 World Series in relief for the Washington Senators, after starter Curly Ogden was pulled in the first inning. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   Atop the right-field stands at Target Field in Minneapolis fly the pennants to celebrate league championships and world titles. The initial one is from […]

Unhappy with the team’s contract offer for 2003 and beyond, Philadelphia’s All-Star third baseman Scott Rolen was threatening to become a free agent at the end of the 2002 season. Taking those threats seriously, the Phillies chose to get what they could for Rolen and traded him to the Cardinals two days before the July […]

The importance of psychology in the development of baseball players has been recognized for many years. But there is not much information on how professional baseball organizations began to utilize the services of full-time mental training consultants during the 1980s. Harvey Dorfman is perhaps the most celebrated of these consultants. For over 27 years, Dorfman […]

August 3, 1988, was a scorching day on the north shore of Lake Ontario; in Imperial-averse Canada, the temperature reached a high of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Playing an evening game offered little relief from the heat for the Toronto Blue Jays and their visitors, the Minnesota Twins. When Jeff Musselman of the […]

After a World Series appearance in 1965 and finishing second to the Baltimore Orioles in 1966, there were many reasons to believe the Minnesota Twins had a good shot at the American League pennant in 1967. Decades later, this remains one of baseball greatest and most historic pennant races. On September 30, 1967, a Saturday […]

One Thousand, Nine Hundred, Ninety. Nineteen-Ninety-One. One-Nine-Nine-Five. Nineteen Hundred, Ninety-Six. One can find all these different numbers for Lou Gehrig’s lifetime Runs Batted In (RBIs), depending where one looks. Which, if any, of those numbers—1,990, 1,991, 1,995, or 1,996—is correct? THE PROBLEM The Howe News Bureau served as the official statistician for the American League […]

This article was originally published in “St. Louis’s Favorite Sport,” the 1992 SABR convention journal.   When Miller Huggins found he couldn’t own the Cardinals—or at least a good hunk of them—he opted for a job for which he had been recommended by Ban Johnson, the founder of the American League, and endorsed by J. […]

“Pitching is the art of instilling fear.”1 — Sandy Koufax In Major League Baseball, the difference between a winning team and a losing one can be mental preparation and psychological advantage. It is a game of streaks, slumps, and momentum. A team that can get inside its opponent’s head will find it much easier to […]

In order to bring the Astrodome to fruition, given the project’s incredible size and scope, Roy Hofheinz consulted with many of the leading architectural and engineering minds of his era. He was particularly concerned with making his original vision of a modern-day Roman Colosseum a reality. The processes associated with the design and eventual construction […]