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This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume V (1990).   On October 15, 1988, with a runner on first, Kirk Gibson of the Los Angeles Dodgers jerked a slider from the Oakland A’s Dennis Eckersley into the stands for a 5-4 victory. Newspaper reports noted that it was the first […]

Seldom are the occasions when a team emerges as back-to-back champions in the National League. Rarer still when that team’s manager could call upon a well-heeled mound corps that includes three future Hall of Famers. These were the well-earned privileges of Walter Alston as his Los Angeles Dodgers entered as 8–5 favorites against the Baltimore […]

Jackie Mitchell with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library).   On April 2, 1931 history was made in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That same day a mystery was also born. Seventeen-year-old Jackie Mitchell took the mound against the New York Yankees, striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig before walking Tony Lazzeri. […]

The Illinois-Indiana-Iowa baseball league started its ninth consecutive season of play in May 1909. While the league was better known then as the Three-I or Three-Eye league, the name was actually a misnomer. The eight teams in the league that year were located only in Illinois and Iowa. (This would not be the last time […]

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact (unlike the bird). Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it […]

San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Willie Mays influenced the lives of two other Giants, Bobby and Barry Bonds, both of whom who had significant careers of their own. He was Bobby’s teammate with the Giants, while taking on the role of godfather for Barry as a youngster. When Barry later became a Giant, Mays continued […]

[I]n my book the most exciting play in baseball is a three-bagger. […] You used to see a fair number of them in the old days, but now they’re the rarest plays in baseball. For sheer excitement, I don’t think anything can beat when you see that guy go tearing around the bases and come […]

A no-hitter turns a pitcher into an instant celebrity in the baseball world. Regardless of what he did before or what he does after, he’ll always be a member of an elite group, a fraternal brotherhood that links Cy Young and Nolan Ryan with the likes of Jose Jimenez, Mike Warren, and Bobo Holloman. What […]

This article was originally published in “Baseball in Chicago,” the 1986 SABR convention journal.   You and I embark on a wondrous journey as we are magically whisked away to a long-ago time and place. We stand on the corner of State and Madison. The familiar iron-facade entrance of Carson, Pirie, Scott’s is behind us […]

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees have one of the fiercest rivalries in American sports. It is a rivalry borne out of regional differences that date back to Colonial America. The rivalry goes beyond sports—New York and Boston were early economic rivals, eventually becoming a cultural rivalry between New York and New England. […]

One day in May 1973, on one large field out in the San Fernando Valley, four baseball games were played simultaneously. In those games, three future Hall of Famers were on the field, with seven other future major leaguers also taking part.

Jackie laughed. “Baseball isn’t all about home runs,” he said. “It’s a team sport. You have to trust the other players as much as you trust yourself.”1   A Big Day For Baseball (2019), written by Mary Pope Osborne and illustrated by Sal Murdocca. (Courtesy of Penguin Random House)   When Jackie Robinson debuted for […]

When I approached Robin Roberts in 1992 about writing a book on the famous Whiz Kids team that won the 1950 pennant on the last day of the season, he was immediately all in.  Since I’d never written a baseball book (although heaven knows I’d read enough of them), I felt a little like the […]

Perry Barber was just the second woman to umpire at Yankee Stadium, in 1985. (Courtesy of Perry Barber)   On Sunday, September 9, 1973, Ronnie Bromm became the lone member of the most exclusive club on the planet: Women Who Have Umpired at Yankee Stadium. She held that title all by herself for a long […]

Referral to the glossary of statistical terms in the first edition (1989) of Total Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer allows one to easily find not only the meaning and utility of numerous baseball statistics but also the persons credited with inventing them.1 For example: Assist average. Assists divided by games played. Stat created […]

Willie Mays and Willie McCovey played together for 14 seasons, including in McCovey’s 1969 MVP campaign. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Willie Mays and Willie McCovey formed one of the greatest one-two power combinations in baseball history. The pair were teammates on the San Francisco Giants from 1959 to 1972. During that stretch, they won the 1962 National […]

Cupid Childs was one of the best-hitting major-league second basemen during the late nineteenth century, not to mention a better than average fielder who possessed great range on the diamond. Only four other second basemen in the history of major-league baseball have averaged more total chances per game than Childs. His all-around outstanding play made […]

  Smile. Tilt your head. Lean back. A little more. You’ve got it. Right there. Beautiful! Snap! With each pose, each shutter click, Marla Collins crossed the line from Chicago Cubs ballgirl to Playboy model. Both paying roles relied on sexuality: one teased and implied, the other overt. And before you hyperventilate about “pornography,” know […]

In 1969, his first season as manager of the Washington Senators, Ted Williams worked wonders. He gave instant celebrity status to a team formerly mocked and ignored, even in its own city. With essentially the same roster as the 1968 team that finished 65-96, the worst record in Major League Baseball, Williams’ Senators won 86 […]

Hank Greenberg (1911-1986) Apart from Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg hit more home runs from the right side of home plate in one season than any player in baseball history. In 1938 he belted 58 home runs, just two short of Babe Ruth’s record, and a total which tied Foxx’s output in 1932. Such awesome power […]