Search Results

As a young boy growing up in York, Pennsylvania, Harold Wynegar Jr. emulated Mickey Mantle. “I patterned myself after Mantle,” Wynegar said as a minor leaguer in 1975. “He was a switch-hitter, so I started switch-hitting when I was 9. I’m not saying I’m going to be another Mickey Mantle. He’s one of the biggest […]

A publicity still of Lou Gehrig in Tarzan garb.   As the 1937 baseball season came to a close, Lou Gehrig was still at the top of his game. Lou had a .351 batting average that year, with 37 home runs and 158 RBIs. He was fourth in voting for the American League’s Most Valuable […]

Other pennant races have been undecided longer, had more participants, and perhaps other cities have been as involved with their teams as was St. Louis in 1922, but for the lasting effect it had on the future of a franchise, probably no race could match the impact of the one between the New York Yankees […]

Following the demise of the Canadian League after the 1915 season and departure of the Montreal Royals of the International League in 1917, baseball promoter Joe Page dreamt of a baseball league that would cover Quebec, Ontario and even further west.1 That the Canadian Pacific company, his employer, would provide transportation for these teams probably played […]

Anyone unfortunate enough to attend a seminar or professional meeting is likely familiar with the game “Two Truths and a Lie.” The premise of the game is that in a roomful of more or less strangers, each person will make three statements about himself or herself, and that only two of those statements will be […]

Some of the great pitching duels in baseball history have received little publicity because more than 30 extra-inning contests ended in 0-0 ties. Extra-inning tie games are rare these days since most games now can be suspended and finished at a future date, but in the old days natural elements usually put an end to […]

Bob Meusel and Babe Ruth at Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, October 16, 1922. (Courtesy of Stew Thornley)   Babe Ruth was drawn to Minnesota by baseball, but – as was the case with Ted Williams, who later challenged Ruth for the title of greatest hitter ever – the outdoors and nonbaseball opportunities in the state also […]

This is the third special pictorial issue of The National Pastime, following those devoted to “The Nineteenth Century” (1984) and “The Dead Ball Era” (1986). With this offering we bring SABR’s pictorial history of baseball from 1920, where we left on; to 1946. ‘The Big-Bang Era” on display in these pages was a remarkable period, […]

Pete Rose’s move from left field to third base in early May 1975 often receives credit as a pivotal moment in the success of the 1975 Reds — and with good reason. That’s when the team began to win consistently, surging to the National League West Division title. Pete Rose roamed around the diamond during […]

The 2003 Winter Meetings were held from December 12 to 15 at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans. This was the fifth time the Winter Meetings were held in The Big Easy, with the most recent having been in 1997. Economic conditions in the United States were improving as lower interest rates, the child-tax credit, […]

The strikeout is one of the few outcomes ascribed to a pitcher’s control, as indicated by metrics such as Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA). However, overall pitcher success is typically attributed to generating swinging strikes1—without considering the ability to induce called strikes. Although discussions around called strikes from the pitcher’s […]

Granted, numerous screen biopics have charted the lives of ballplayers from Hall of Famers to major leaguers with unusual, marketable life stories.1 One legend – Lou Gehrig – has been portrayed twice, in 1942’s The Pride of the Yankees and A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story, a 1977 made-for-television movie. Another – […]

Instead of using shovels, Judge Roy Hofheinz and other officials fire six-shooters at the ceremonial ground-breaking. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS)   “Houston Astrodome or Bust” —Tagline for Bad News Bears in Breaking Training   The Astrodome was born in spectacle, a very Texan sort of spectacle, tied to the state’s historical heritage and […]

Since the 1967 season Reading, Pennsylvania, has been the home of the AA minor league affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.1 Now entering its 55th year, this affiliation between the major league Phillies and the “Reading Phillies” or “R-Phils” (changed a few years ago to the “Reading Fightin’ Phils,” but now commonly referred to as either […]

On October 14, 1965, the Minnesota Twins lost a heartbreaking World Series Game Seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2–0. While the disappointment was palpable, there was every reason to believe the Twins would soon be back in the Series. The team had won the pennant convincingly with a record of 102-60, […]

Thief River Falls Ladies Baseball Team Champions of Northern Minnesota 1893. (Courtesy of Pennington County Historical Society)   Despite the fact that the great American pastime has been almost exclusively identified as a male sport, women have played baseball in Minnesota for over 100 years. In the early years, from the late nineteenth century through […]

Professional athletes naturally experience hot and cold streaks. However, there’s been a debate going on for some time now as to whether professional athletes experience streaks more frequently than we would expect given the players’ season statistics. This is also known as having “the hot hand.” For example, if a player is a 75 percent […]

A Hot Stove League question was the impetus for this study. “Why have batting averages declined since the 1920-1940 era?” A popular answer was the rise of relief pitching. Formerly, the argument runs, batters during their fourth and fifth game appearances faced a tiring pitcher, whose stuff and delivery they had had a chance to […]

Defiance College in northwestern Ohio has fielded a baseball team since 1905. Like most small colleges, Defiance places academics ahead of athletics, and the baseball team generally loses more games than it wins.1 The 1961 baseball season, however, was a shining exception. That season the Defiance College baseball team was invited to the National Association […]

AT 4:09 A.M. on Easter morning, April 19, 1981, just 51 minutes before sunrise, a hardy group of 17 freezing souls huddled in the 28-degree pre-dawn chill of McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I. They had just seen their beloved PawSox close out the thirty-second inning of a 2-2 tie against the Rochester Red Wings. When […]

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. Introduction In his December 29, 2005 internet blog, John Thorn, the noted baseball author and SABR member, mentioned that the shotgun that killed Ty Cobb’s father in 1905 had been part […]

Four members of the 1935 Detroit Tigers were later elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three of them were among the finest players of their era, while the fourth was a very good player whose election was the subject of debate. All were instrumental in the Tigers’ winning the 1935 championship, their first.Four members […]

Introduction and Context In 1938, the major leagues returned to New York City for the winter meetings, while the minor leagues held their meetings in New Orleans for the first time since 1916. The minor leagues sought to promote uniformity, and with the nation’s economy beginning to emerge from the Great Depression, several minor leagues […]

Catcher Wilson Ramos is one of many athletes who have undergone LASIK surgery during their professional careers. He had the surgery performed in 2016, according to published reports. (Trading Card Database)   Since the 1990s there have been increased reports of prominent athletes undergoing refractive surgery including laser assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). Some refractive […]