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This article is based on the presentation I gave at SABR 48 in Pittsburgh in 2018 to address the issue of game length which has become a hot issue in recent years. In 2014, then-commissioner Bud Selig announced the formation of a committee to investigate the issue. Since taking office, current commissioner Rob Manfred has […]

On June 21, 1952, the Harrisburg, Pa., Senators of the Inter-State League announced plans to sign a female player to a contract. She was Mrs. Eleanor Engle, 24, a 132-pound stenographer at the State Capitol. She worked out with the club at shortstop the next day, but did not play in the game against Lancaster. […]

Histories of the Philadelphia Phillies portray the club’s admission to the National League (NL) as a straightforward and swift process. Early in 1883, League president Abraham G. Mills informed former star player and old friend Alfred J. Reach that the Worcester franchise was moving to Philadelphia. Mills asked Reach — now a successful business entrepreneur […]

The Harrisburg Giants joined the Eastern Colored League in 1924 with a powerful lineup centered around player-manager Oscar Charleston, a future Hall of Famer.1 But the Giants faced a problem: Pennsylvania’s blue laws prevented baseball from being played on Sundays, a significant hit to the team’s fiscal prospects.2 Yet a solution stood just 40 miles […]

In order for a baseball team to achieve its ultimate objective (winning the World Series), it must first, during the regular season, win the most games in its division (or, since 1994, have the best winning percentage among the second-place teams) and thereby proceed to postseason play. Moreover, the absolutely essential component for winning the […]

John McGraw, seen with Philadelphia Phillies manager Pat Moran, led the New York Giants to a record-setting 26-game winning streak in 1916. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, BAIN COLLECTION)   On a dreary Friday afternoon, September 29, 1916, 43-year-old John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants, stood in the third base coaching box at the Polo […]

Fred Kipp, Gil Hodges, Wally Yonamine, Vin Scully, Roy Campanella and Don Demeter at the October 18 reception at Chinzanso, Tokyo. (Rob Fitts Collection)   The Brooklyn Dodgers straggled into Idlewild Airport in Jamaica, Queens, on the morning of October 11, 1956. It had been a long, grueling season, ending the day before with a […]

As the 1959 Winter Meetings approached, both the nation and baseball were on a roll. For America, the postwar economy was firing on all cylinders. The Space Race against the Soviet Union was on, and a burly, proud nation was confident of ultimate victory. Television ratings toppers like Father Knows Best reflected a culture that […]

All baseball fans are familiar, if not from the movie, then from the grainy newsreel footage, with Lou Gehrig’s legendary speech at Yankee Stadium home plate on July 4, 1939. Yet that was not the first nor the last time a speech would have a dramatic impact at The House that Ruth Built. Baseball, football, […]

INTRODUCTION Someone should have told Charles H. Weeghman to be “careful of what you wish for,” because wishes sometimes come true. Weeghman found fame and fortune in turn-of-the-century Chicago with a chain of downtown quick-lunch restaurants. Like many of his contemporaries, he itched to be involved in the world of sports, and after a few […]

As the 1867 baseball season drew to a close, the sport was meeting and exceeding the goals that were anticipated by players and journalists alike. The anticipation that the “game of nines” would become the pastime of the United States had been predicted, and even perhaps prematurely proclaimed, for close to a decade. Now, with […]

Ted Kluszewski measures up Earl Averill Jr., 1961. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   R.C. Stevens of the 1960 Pirates made several stops in the minors and majors from 1952 through 1963. In an article in the Quad City Times, he remembered a homer against the Giants at Seals Stadium on May 5, 1958.1 He had also hit […]

In December 1936, the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League purchased a catcher from the Albany Senators. Bill Starr would leave his mark on San Diego baseball history: As a player, he had the honor of pinch-hitting for Ted Williams. As an owner, he signed the player who broke the Pacific Coast League […]

Examining the life span of a baseball stadium by profiling its first and last games is an interesting exercise—even more interesting when it becomes a number of different stadiums. This is the case with the Polo Groundses, four or five—depending on how one counts them—samely-named stadiums. Taking a look at ten different games over an […]

2000 AAABA Champion Maryland Orioles with General Manager Walter Youse (center) and Manager Dean Albany (standing far left second row). (GREG PAUL)   Emergence of Summer College Baseball For more than a century, summertime baseball has been a significant part of the lives of young Marylanders. Over the decades, this has evolved from pickup games […]

In 1935 the City of Detroit forged a bond to its sporting teams that is an integral part of the psychology of the city, even today.In 1935 the City of Detroit forged a bond to its sporting teams that is an integral part of the psychology of the city, even today. What makes Detroit a […]

The cover of a baseball comprises two strips of leather (identical dog bone–shaped geometrical figures called ovals of Cassini) stitched together with a single continuous red seam. The appearance of that seam during a pitch can provide information about the ball’s spin characteristics, which in turn might make the behavior of the pitch predictable. Therefore […]

Old Yankee Stadium played host to several athletic contests over its 85 years in existence. Even though the Stadium was built for baseball, it did host well over 100 football games over its long and storied history. The first football game played there took place on October 20, 1923. That game was between the University […]

This article presents those little known but important men who helped to launch so many players from the sandlots of Los Angeles to baseball stardom.  Southern California has long been fertile ground for major-league talent. Walter Johnson, Jackie Robinson, Bob Lemon, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, George Brett, Tony Gwynn, and Ozzie Smith all began their […]

The National League and the American Association entered their respective winter meetings — hereafter called the annual meetings1 — buoyed by the growing popularity and profits of the past 1886 season.2 The owners recognized that to further expand the popularity of baseball and, with the consequent rise in attendance, increase their profits, they had to […]

Warren Ballpark in Bisbee, Arizona, has hosted baseball games since it first opened in 1909. (Courtesy of Jacob Pomrenke)   Today, the term “Cactus League” refers to an annual rite of spring: affiliated professional baseball’s preseason in Arizona. But MLB’s Cactus League was not the first! In 1910, a league far removed from the slick […]