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Many casual baseball fans and serious sabermetricians alike hold the belief that the home run was not a terribly important part of the game until the arrival of Babe Ruth in the outfield of the New York Yankees in 1920. Just the year before, Ruth had hit 29 homers to slip past Ned Williamson’s single […]

IN THE six seasons following the transfer of the St. Louis Browns’ franchise to Baltimore, the pattern of losing that had been established in the Midwest was not broken. From 1954 through 1959, the Orioles attained a winning percentage as high as .500 only once (in 1957) and never finished in the first division of […]

In the six seasons following the transfer of the St. Louis Browns’ franchise to Baltimore, the pattern of losing that had been established in the Midwest was not broken. From 1954 through 1959, the Orioles attained a winning percentage as high as .500 only once (in 1957) and never finished in the first division of […]

The baseball media have made a lot of noise the past two seasons about how baseball’s home run explosion possibly reached its zenith in the 2000 season, since the number of home runs per game in the 2001 and 2002 seasons was lower than in 2000. Even the number of runs scored per game was […]

Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) in Arlington, Virginia, is the most famous burial ground in the United States, if not the world. It is a standard item on tourists’ must-see lists when visiting the Washington, D.C. area on vacation as it is the final resting place for presidents, generals, and Supreme Court justices. In addition, there […]

Bobby Thomson’s home run in the bottom of the ninth in the third game of the 1951 National League playoff is generally considered baseball’s greatest walk-off home run. Broadcaster Russ Hodges captured Thomson’s shot and froze it in time, echoing it through baseball’s ages. After the ball soared over Dodgers outfielder Andy Pafko’s forlorn face, […]

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT As the twenty-first century began, the commissioner’s office and many team owners were concerned about competitive imbalance. After free agency began in the 1970s, some teams were able to use their financial heft to gain a competitive edge, especially those with lucrative local radio and television contracts; the New York Yankees, for […]

1931 Homestead Grays. Standing (L–R): Cum Posey, owner; Bill Evans, SS-OF; Jasper Washington, 1B-3B; Ambrose Reid, OF-INF; Smokey Joe Williams, P; Josh Gibson, C; George Scales, 2B; Oscar Charleston, 1B; Charlie Williams, office. Kneeling (L–R): George Britt, P-C-OF-INF; Lefty Williams, P; Jud Wilson, 3B; Vic Harris, OF; Ted Radcliffe, P-C; Tex Burnett, C; Ted Page, […]

This appendix accompanies Bryan Soderholm-Difatte’s article “The 1914 Stallings Platoon” in the Fall 2014 Baseball Research Journal. Methodology for Determining Starting Line-Up Platoons A position “platoon” is defined as two (or sometimes three) players being used in the starting line-up at the same position by their manager on a regular basis depending primarily on whether […]

Ebbets Field has been gone for nearly half a cen­tury, but the place still has a remarkable grip on our consciousness. Two recent books have been devoted to the lovable old ballpark in Flatbush. Yet even these in-depth works don’t shine much light on what happened after the Dodgers left Brooklyn. They touch briefly on some […]

Social distancing restrictions were still in place for COVID-19 for this game at Dodger Stadium on May 29, 2021. (Photograph by Scott Carter.)   The Los Angeles Dodgers began the 2020 regular season – finally – on July 23. A worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with prolonged negotiations on how the games could safely be played, […]

A great deal has been written about the faceoff between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds in the best-of-nine 1919 World Series. Probably no other baseball World Series has drawn more attention from commentators and historians. However, the vast majority of words written about the Series relate to what has become commonly known […]

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. Each season, baseball fans and journalists alike identify which players are in the final years of their contracts because a lot rides on how the players produce in their “contract year.” […]

The 114th annual Baseball Winter Meetings were held in Nashville at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center from December 7 to 10, 2015. The 700,000-square-foot resort had played host to baseball on six previous occasions (1983, 1989, 1998, 2002, 2007, and 2012) and the festive holiday ambiance eloquently blended into the background as the […]

The problem of measuring batting skill is as old as baseball itself. The earliest statisticians were content to count the hits and runs scored by each batter, but the unfairness of this simple method to the stars of weak teams soon prompted invention of the batting average. Since then statistics have proliferated to the point […]

Editor’s Note: On this page, Parts One and Two, which were published separately in the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 issues of the Baseball Research Journal, are combined into one article as the author intended. Sandy Koufax (SABR-Rucker Archive)   American Jews have long had a love affair with baseball. They have played baseball since […]

“Josh missed immortality and a chance to endorse breakfast food by being born on the wrong side of the social structure.” — Jimmy Powers, New York Daily News, 19371 Josh Gibson was the most dominant power hitter in the Negro Leagues from 1930 through 1946. His production was so prodigious that his Hall of Fame […]

The dominant characteristics of the Texas Rangers’ early history were inept management, pitiful baseball, and terrible attendance. The team proved incapable of coming up with a workable plan and sticking with it. This premise was stated well by a presumably neutral observer, veteran Chicago sports columnist Bernie Lincicome: “Texas has been a franchise governed by […]

In December 1941, the outbreak of the Second World War elicited drastic changes throughout nearly all sectors of American society while the nation struggled in an unprecedented mobilization toward global conflict. This was particularly true in the realm of major league baseball, where over 90% of all active players at the outset of the war […]

The creation of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs in February, 1876, brought stability and strong leadership to organized baseball. The eight-team National League promised a respectable game for its patrons, with no play on Sundays, no liquor sales on the grounds, and no gambling.1 To insure roster stability and salary control, the […]

Ken Griffey Jr. is one of the all-time greats who never played on a championship team. (SEATTLE MARINERS)   Success comes in many forms—from individual exploits to team accomplishments and everything in between. Audiences watch teams and players winning titles or toppling records and live vicariously through these experiences. Baseball fans may value determination and […]

Like other circular-shaped, multipurpose stadiums of the so-called Cookie-Cutter Era (1961-1971),1 the Astrodome hosted both major-league baseball and National Football League teams. However, having earned the nickname “Eighth Wonder of the World” as the first domed stadium of its time, the Astrodome also attracted headliner events in many other sports. These include the UCLA-University of […]

Jimmy Piersall’s death on June 3, 2017, provided an occasion to recall his rookie season of 1952 that he began playing a new position—shortstop—for the Boston Red Sox, continued with AA Birmingham, and ended in a mental hospital. His is the inspiring story of a young man overcoming a serious health problem to craft a […]

The 2018 season was certainly an interesting one in the American League East. The Boston Red Sox put forward a historically strong championship team and the New York Yankees followed up their 2017 ALCS campaign with a wild-card finish. However, off the field and in the conference room, the excitement of the division began well […]