Search Results

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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), […]

Jerry Sullivan as a teenager.   The city of Baltimore has hosted a number of historic baseball events. Although this story barely qualifies as such, it is nevertheless an interesting aside involving Jerry Sullivan, a 32-year-old, 3-foot-11 stage actor who appeared in an Eastern League game in Baltimore in 1905. Forty-six years later, the St. […]

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 […]

Lowell Park in Cotuit. (Courtesy of Cotuit Athletic Association)   At a time when financial and off-field issues often seem to overshadow, if not overwhelm, the on-field ones in the world of baseball, the Cape Cod Baseball League seems different. The nonprofit stands out as a shining example of an operation that has stayed true […]

In 1513, explorer Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida, according to fable in search of the Fountain of Youth. Ever since, Florida’s menu of sun, fun, beaches, and citrus has symbolized renewal and regeneration, an “enchanted reality,” per state historian Gary Mormino, ripe for second chances amidst a constantly shifting dreamscape.1 Since the early […]

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 […]

“Crack! The ball hits the bat. Smack! That ball hits Edith Houghton’s waiting glove at short who quickly throws to first to get the batter and all in a twinkling of an eye. These women play the game in a manner that would no doubt delight the heart of many a manager who ever saw […]

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 […]

One of the many things that make baseball great is the ability to both objectively and subjectively compare which players are the best. These comparisons range anywhere from scholarly research1 to radio talk show discussions to barroom arguments. In comparing players, many times researchers have developed new statistics in an attempt to find one all-encompassing […]

Major League Baseball implemented a package of rule changes for the 2023 season designed to address complaints that the game had become tedious to watch.1 Those complaints centered on pace of play and lack of action, with fans and media noting fewer balls in play and stolen bases and more strikeouts and home runs.2 Some […]

Carl Mays is unfortunately remembered for two incidents. To some, he is remembered as the man who threw the pitch that felled Ray Chapman. To others, he is remembered as the man who lost a suspicious game during the 1921 World Series. He should be remembered for much more. Mays’s career accomplishments from 1915 through […]

Background Baseball was going through a time of transition as the 1968 Winter Meetings approached. Most dramatically, the major leagues were about to add four new teams beginning in 1969, and had recently held two expansion drafts to stock the new clubs. On Monday, October 14, the National League held its draft for the Montreal […]

1. Introduction Rule 9.02 of the official MLB rulebook states, “Any umpire’s decision which involves judgment, such as, but not limited to, whether a batted ball is fair or foul, whether a pitch is a strike or a ball, or whether a runner is safe or out, is final. No player, manager, coach, or substitute […]

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 […]