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In 1887, for the only time in major league history, a strikeout required four strikes. Giving hitters an extra strike obviously would increase offensive production. However, an interesting (and unanswered) question is the size of the increases across various performance measures. This article presents the first statistical analysis of this issue, made possible by the […]

COLLABORATOR’S NOTE: Between his big-league broadcasting debut with the 1953 St. Louis Browns and his current work as the radio voice of the Houston Astros, Milo Hamilton worked for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He came to Atlanta with the Braves in 1966 and stayed for ten seasons. […]

Like the 1987 world champion Minnesota Twins, the 1909 St. Paul Gophers featured a home-grown first baseman, a hard-nosed leader nicknamed “Rat,” and an outstanding center fielder from Chicago. Unlike the Twins, the Gophers were cruelly prevented from playing major league baseball because of the prevailing apartheid of the time. In the face of almost […]

On August 29, 1966, the Beatles played what would be their final live concert ever at Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. The event provided much enjoyment for the concertgoers as the band, still wearing matching suits and their mop-top hairstyles, played a setlist of hits and other music they had recorded over […]

As the major-league ownership gathered in Chicago, Illinois from December 8 through 10, 1931, the Great Depression was a silent partner to the discussions. Unemployment rose dramatically in 1931, topping out at 16 percent and showing no signs of relenting. Attendance dropped at almost every ballpark during the 1931 season, and overall attendance for the […]

When the 1941 major-league baseball season ended, the Chicago White Sox were in a familiar spot: for the third straight year and the fifth time in six seasons, the White Sox had finished in the American League’s first division under manager Jimmy Dykes. While the team’s first pennant since 1919 still seemed a long way […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 34 (2005).   It is common to hear players, both batters and pitchers, comment on the value of being able to “make adjustments” during a game. For example, pitchers speak of “setting a batter up” by a certain sequence of pitches, which may take […]

Although calculations have been made, computer simulations have been analyzed, and the coefficients of restitution and drag of baseballs in flight have been measured in laboratories, the actual relationship between number of home runs hit and stadium elevation has not been empirically observed over a wide range of elevations in order to compare with predicted […]

Statcast will be 25 years old in 2040. The oldest Millennials will be 59 and the oldest Generation Z’s will be 43. These generations were raised on technology and, according to the Pew Research Center, over 81 % of them actively use and engage in social media in 2021.1 Their shopping and media consumption habits […]

For the past two years I have pored over approximately 2,000 media guides, from the  1960s through 2007, to find material for this article. In addition to learning about players’ off-season jobs, marital status, children, fathers, brothers, hobbies, and other oddities, I found out a great deal about media guides themselves. Let others devour reams […]

This article was originally published in “The SABR Book on Umpires and Umpiring” (SABR, 2017), edited by Larry R. Gerlach and Bill Nowlin.   Umpires “Bullet” Rogan, Robert Boone, and Hurley McNair, Ruppert Stadium, May 2, 1940. (NOIR-TECH RESEARCH)   “What about our Negro baseball umpires? They are cussed, discussed, made the subject of all […]

Across the decades, professional actors and athletes have shared a special camaraderie. Both are paid entertainers, performing for the pleasure of the masses. So not surprisingly, many thespians are vocal supporters of their favorite ball teams. Back in the day, for example, Tallulah Bankhead was a famed New York Giants fan-atic. (“There have been only […]

  At its 1876 founding, the National League presented the nascent professional baseball community with a business model radically different from that of its predecessor: the National Association of 1871–75. The key difference was membership restrictions that were widely criticized as arbitrary and elitist, and were not yet proven to be effective. Perhaps the foremost […]

As baseball’s powers-that-be prepared for the 1920 season, the national pastime was in complete turmoil behind the scenes. The American League was in the midst of a civil war over a series of controversial decisions made by its founder and president, Ban Johnson. There were steady rumors that the recent World Series between the Chicago […]

Stars of Soul of the Game, Mykelti Williamson (l.), Blair Underwood (c.), and Delroy Lindo (r.) at an event honoring the film at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. (Courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)   Soul of the Game premiered on April 20, 1996, on the Home Box Office (HBO) cable network. The docudrama […]

“The main quality a great third base coach must have is a fast runner.” — Rocky Bridges, California Angels coach “It’s frustrating. Your job is not to get in the way of a rally.” — Rich Donnelly, Dodgers third base coach after Game One of the 2006 NLDS   Most readers will remember what was […]

Vinland baseball team circa 1920. (Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas)   Before sport became an integral aspect of Americana, early iterations of games catering to the working class were quite violent. In the eighteenth century, prizefighting, cockfights, and bear baiting, accompanied by drinking and gambling, were common recreational activities. Pious Americans in Protestant […]

Parkway Field, with the iconic Ralston Purina grain silos visible past the right field wall, was the site of benefit game between the Bustin’ Babes and Larrupin’ Lous in 1928. Ruth and Gehrig are flanked by some of the top local amateur ballplayers from Epps Cola and Beck’s Lunch who comprised their teams. (Used with […]

Coming off their fourth National League pennant of the decade and seventh overall, the Boston Beaneaters were not considered a lock for the 1898 championship. Baseball touts and prognosticators were divided as to whether the club was up to a repeat, or if Baltimore, which had upset Boston in the Temple Cup, or New York, […]

Appendix 2 in Herm Krabbenhoft’s research on Hank Greenberg.

  On June 24, 1972, Bernice Gera became the first woman to umpire a professional baseball game. Immediately after the game ended, she quit. She fought baseball for five years for the chance to umpire a professional game. Why fight so long for an umpiring career, just to give it up after one game? We […]

The Big Red Machine reached its destiny when Cesar Geronimo closed his glove around Carl Yastrzemski’s fly ball on October 22, 1975 at Fenway Park to end the World Series. In that moment of ecstasy and exhaustion the Cincinnati Reds became world champions, finally grasping the ring that had eluded their reach in the first […]

Pitching in relief in the final innings of a 12-2 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics on August 10, 1927, sore-armed Boston right hander “Ted” Wingfield notched the final strikeout of his major league career and the only strikeout he recorded in 74½ innings of pitching that season. Wingfield’s one strikeout in 74½ in­nings, or .12 […]

The use by Baltimore of two non-pitchers on the mound in a 24-10 loss to Toronto on June 26, 1978, served as a reminder that there have been a sizeable number of regular players who have taken a fling at pitching. If the pitching staff is depleted or overworked, the manager may go this route […]