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November 26, 1958 cover of Shukan Baseball depicting Stan Musial and Shigeo Nagashima (Robert Fitts Collection)   Game Seven of the 1958 Japan Series featured a winner-take-all finish to a classic contest between two storied franchises. In the bottom of the ninth, with a six-run lead, 21-year-old Kazuhisa Inao stared down at Shigeo Nagashima, ready […]

There can be little doubt that compared to pitching and hitting, fielding is the most vastly under-analyzed part of the game. There is very good reason to hope that the greatest advances in our understanding of the game through statistics will come in the area of fielding measures.

Two of America’s most important sports figures were dissimilar men, who impacted the development of the national pastime in Philadelphia and set new standards for the emerging sporting goods industry. Al Reach was a pioneering second baseman for the original Philadelphia Athletics of the 1860s, and was possibly the game’s first professional ballplayer. Later, he […]

In the early years of the American League, Boston fans had a lot to smile about—World Series victories in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918—but after that, everything changed for the worse. Not only was Babe Ruth infamously sold, but the Red Sox began a string of losing seasons. Faced with teams that seldom left […]

Whitey Lockman and Willie Mays made Giants manager Leo Durocher a happy man. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   The ties linking superstars and managers follow patterns often beginning as mentee-mentor before changing into relationships of equals, then deference to the player based on his status, and, finally, awkwardness as the star’s skills (but not […]

As the 1875 baseball season approached, William Hulbert, the president of the Chicago White Stockings, was livid. Chicago’s entry in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) had attempted, prior to the end of the 1874 season, to sign their star shortstop, Davy Force, for the next year. Such a move violated the […]

As major league baseball grew throughout the late nineteenth century, a limited number of players earned national recognition for their on-the-field prowess. From that small group emerged an even smaller number who also had charisma and became the equivalent of today’s rock stars. Especially noteworthy was Paterson’s Mike “King” Kelly, considered by some to be […]

One hundred years ago on Thursday, September 2, 1880, teams representing two of Boston’s prominent department stores, Jordan Marsh and Company and R. H. White and Company, played a game of baseball at Nantasket Bay on the oceanside of Hull, Massachusetts. This game would have held no historic value and would long since have been […]

It was a hot summer day in 1897 when hundreds of fans of the Federalsburg Club in Maryland gathered for a game. This small town of barely a thousand people was proud of their team. Little did they know that three of the young teenagers taking the field for them that day would soon be […]

The 1936 Black Panthers. Charlie Culver is the first on the left, sitting. (Jerry Cohen, Ebbets Field Flannels)   The reception that Jackie Robinson received in Montréal is well known. A few years later, the Provincial League became a prime destination for Negro League veterans. Many factors can explain how that came to be, but […]

When the movers and shakers of the baseball world descended on the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas for the 2008 Winter Meetings, the sport and the country faced economic uncertainty not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic downturn that became known as the Financial Crisis or the Great Recession began rumbling […]

  Like 9/11, the sinking of the Titanic clings to American memory, slicing across sex, race, age, geographical, and class divides. Generations later, mental snapshots of the disaster develop at the briefest mention. An iceberg on a moonless night. The Law of the Sea: women and children first. The fortunate watching from insufficient lifeboats while […]

If Bob Sheppard, longtime public address announcer for the New York Yankees, was class personified, Tex Rickards, who held a similar slot with Dem Bums, reflected the spirit of the “woiking” class Brooklynite.1 And while Robert Merrill, the classy Metropolitan Opera baritone, often sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at Yankee Stadium, at Ebbets Field the […]

Had Michael Brantley stayed healthy, the 2022 World Series could have avoided becoming the first Fall Classic since 1950 to have no African American players. As it was, the Astros outfielder and lone African American on either team’s roster suffered a season-ending shoulder injury that kept him out of postseason play.1 The only other African […]

The 1963 baseball winter meetings were alive with discussion of important issues, including the permissible size of catcher’s mitts and the color of baseball bats. The clubs also made time to once again reconfigure the minor-league structure and adopt an amendment designed to assist the player-development efforts of expansion teams. The minor leagues kicked off […]

During the first years of the twentieth century many of the most celebrated—and marketable— major leaguers supplemented their incomes by headlining in vaudeville or touring in legitimate plays during the off-season. A few even appeared in motion pictures: a new medium that was revolutionizing the way in which Americans passed their leisure hours. And so, […]

Recognized as one of the top umpires in Cuba for the past five seasons, Elber Ibarra Santiesteban has the satisfaction (or the luck, as he puts it) of never having called a play that would not let him sleep that night.1 Born in Tacajó, a settlement in the current municipality of Báguano, within the province […]

In anticipation of hosting SABR 40, the Magnolia Chapter has selected an All-Time Georgia-born All-Star team. Any major-league player born in the state of Georgia was theoretically eligible; no residency requirement was stipulated. In order to make the process more efficient, the author screened the master list of players to eliminate most “cup of coffee” […]

Early days with the Montreal Royals. March 6, 1946. (Courtesy of Rachel Robinson and the Estate of Jackie Robinson)   On Tuesday, October 23, 1945, 15 of Montreal’s sportswriters and broadcasters were invited to a press conference at the home of the Montreal Royals, Delorimier Stadium, and were promised “a major announcement.” The Triple-A International […]

Baseball is at one and the same time an idyllic game for children and a gravely serious business for adults. A sport that can be played on a pastoral commons requires, in the world of commerce, space to which some can be admitted and from which others can be excluded—in short, what lawyers call real […]

Although on the surface Miller Huggins and Jacob Ruppert seemed worlds apart, the two men had striking similarities. They were the architects of the New York Yankees’ dominance in the 1920s. (BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY)   Jacob Ruppert believed that hiring Miller Huggins as his manager after the 1917 season was the first and most important […]

The 1860 Excelsior Club. Star pitcher James Creighton is third from left. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   The Excelsior club of Brooklyn toured Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in 1860, only two years after the formation of the National Association of Base Ball Players. The Nationals of Washington carried the baseball gospel […]

ABSTRACT Minor league baseball has undergone a resurgence, exemplified by record-setting attendance and a growing number of new ballparks. Much research has focused on factors that drive attendance. Chief among those factors is promotions, with numerous studies showing that giveaways and sponsored off-the-field activities at games can increase gate receipts. The quality of the team […]

1960 San Francisco Giants Goodwill tour program featuring Willie Mays (Robert Fitts Collection)   The San Francisco Giants enjoyed a banner year in 1960. After almost five years of planning by the city’s mayor and Board of Supervisors and two years of problem-plagued construction, the Giants’ new ballpark, Candlestick Park, opened in time for the […]