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People of a certain age know where they were when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt died, and Bobby Thomson swung. “The most famous sports moment of all time,” Jon Miller termed Thomson’s October 3, 1951, pennant-winning blast. We still recall the Shot Heard ’Round the World: Russ Hodges five times crying, “The Giants […]

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

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 […]

When quintessential baseball buff Douglas Heeren first approached me about a player named Ducky Holmes, I failed to grasp the depth of the subject. Pointing out my misidentification of Ducky in a team photo in my book about baseball in Northwest Iowa, Heeren simply wanted to set the record straight.1 A young man from rural […]

Photos taken during and after the Telling’s Strollers amateur games in 1914 illustrate how popular the games were in Cleveland, with fans bringing handheld signs just like they do today. (Library of Congress)   Cleveland was baseball crazy in 1914. It was no more evident than on an unusually warm, late September Sunday afternoon when […]

A circa 1912 portrait of Chief Bender probably taken for advertising purposes when he was a sporting goods salesman/consultant at Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia. The shotguns in the background have price tags dangling from strings attached to their trigger guards. The gold pendant hanging from a fob on Bender’s waist was given to players by the Athletics’ club for winning the 1911 World Series. […]

In early February 1985, Alan Wiggins became the newest big-money player for the 1984 National League champion San Diego Padres. With the help of his San Diego-based agent, Tony Attanasio, and Padres general manager Jack McKeon, Wiggins, just 26 years old, signed a guaranteed four-year, $2.5 million contract, making him one of the highest paid […]

NOTE: This is the final installment of a three-part series addressing the founding of the Philadelphia National League Baseball Club.1 Click here to read Part One (1881 Eastern Championship Association) and click here to read Part Two (1882 League Alliance).   Traditional histories of the Philadelphia Phillies portray the club’s entry into the National League […]

In the COVID-19-shortened Major League Baseball (MLB) season of 2020, an extra innings rule was introduced to shorten game length. The goals were to reduce pitcher usage and minimize player exposure during the pandemic. Under this rule, the player who precedes the first batter in the inning in the batting order starts on second base […]

The 1954 major league baseball season ended leaving a lot of questions about the 1955 campaign unanswered — especially for the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees. In 1954 the Yankees, led by 64-year-old Casey Stengel, won 103 games (the only time in Casey’s career that he would win 100 games) yet finished eight […]

A young Henry Aaron with the 1952 Eau Claire Bears. Top row from left to right: Chester Morgan, Richard Engquist, Elmer Toth, Gordon Roach, Wes Covington, Robert MccConnell, Kenneth Reitmeier. Middle row: Henry Aaron, Donald Auten, Chuck Doehler, Bill Adair, Lantz Blaney, George Kornack, Julie Bowers. Bottom row: Bill Conroy, Johnny Goryl, Robert Brown, Don […]

If you had asked fans prior to the 1969 baseball season which scenario was more likely—man landing on the moon or the New York Mets wining the world championship—they would probably have been hard-pressed to choose, both being equally improbable. Casey Stengel, original Mets manager and overseer of the ugliest launching of a franchise in […]

This article was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s February 2026 newsletter. Kansas was a wild place in the 19th Century. When the time came for statehood, its status as a Slave State or a Free State was to be determined by a vote of its inhabitants, so advocates from the North and South […]

The 1985 Winter Meetings had showcased a then-record 62 free agents, but the 1986 free-agent class shattered that mark as 82 players filed for free agency by the deadline.1 Despite the uptick in the number of free agents, however, for the second year in a row none of them signed with a new club at […]

For decades, baseball fans have debated who was the better center fielder, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were both born in 1931 and reached the majors almost simultaneously in 1951, competing against each other as rookies in the World Series. Together with Duke Snider, they appeared in […]

He loved kids and despised umpires. Since he was a genuinely nice guy, youngsters followed him like the Pied Piper Grasso’s vendetta against the men in blue was attributed to his resentment of  authority, courtesy of vicious beatings inflicted by World War II POW guards. Newton Michael Grasso was born on May 10, 1920, in Newark, […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 23 (1994).   Red Smith once wrote: “Ninety feet between bases is the nearest to perfection that man has yet achieved.”1 Technically, this statement is incorrect: there has never been 90 feet between bases. In fact, in the nineteenth century, the distance between bases […]

  After being traded to Montreal, Dennis Martinez pitched the highlight of his career, a perfect game on July 28, 1991, at Dodger Stadium. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Dennis Martinez had just lost a heartbreaker of a game, 1–0, tossing 10 innings against the United States, losing to future major-leaguer Rich Wortham. […]

There is a lengthy tradition of Red Sox booster clubs, ranging from the Royal Rooters to the Winter League and the Red Sox Half Century Club. The most venerable of all, though, is the BoSox Club, founded in early 1967.There is a lengthy tradition of Red Sox booster clubs, ranging from the Royal Rooters to […]

The 1955 crop of baseball “bonus babies” included Massachusetts native Tom Gastall, born on June 13, 1932, in Fall River, to Thomas and Concetta Gastall. (A “bonus baby” rule was first implemented by the major leagues in 1947, intended to restrict the inflated offers made by wealthy club owners seeking to monopolize the best young […]