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The Union Club of Morrisania, located in the modern day Bronx, claimed their first championship in 1867. (NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY)   This article will present a chronology of the 1868 championship season, with particular focus on the pitchers and catchers for the contending teams. It will also discuss the importance of the battery, the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

As 1945 dawned, World War II was winding down toward its conclusion – even if that wasn’t apparent as the year began. After repelling the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge, Allied troops were moving through Europe, making their way toward Berlin – and presenting the question of how to defeat the Japanese in […]

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 […]

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 […]

Anyone researching National and American League playing managers soon realizes that unlike Gertrude Stein’s rose (“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”), a manager who also played may or may not have been a playing manager. Three examples will make this clear: On September 23, 1930 in a less- than-inspired move the […]

On June 10, 1944, during the ninth inning of a 13-0 blowout, an event occurred that is known to many fans with at least a passing knowledge of baseball history: Joe Nuxhall, at a mere 15 years and 316 days of age, made his way into an actual regular-season major league game, becoming the youngest […]

At the close of play on July 17, 1915, the American League’s Chicago White Sox led the league by 1½ games, the Federal League’s Chicago Whales had a half-game lead, and the National League’s Chicago Cubs were tied for first. The feat of one city having three first-place teams has not since been repeated, since […]

Hall of Fame slugger Hank Greenberg wrote, “My goal in baseball was always RBIs, to break (Lou) Gehrig’s record of 184 RBIs.” Did he come closer than he thought to doing so?

Moving into 1909, change was in the wind. All ballparks had been, up to that point, made of wood, but Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, and St. Louis’ rebuilt Sportsman’s Park opened that year as baseball’s first steel-and-concrete facilities.1 More umpires were hired so that the majority of big-league games would now feature two […]

When Mark McGwire handily surpassed Roger Maris’s single-season home run record during his incredible 1998 season, it raised a good bit of discussion about where his stellar season ranked among the game’s greatest individual performances. Indeed, rankings of this kind are frequent, as the Baseball Research Journal articles by Bill Szepanski, in 1996, and Joe […]

This story tells the tragic tale of Michael “Doc” Powers, a catcher who played primarily for the Philadelphia Athletics and whose baseball career was cut short by his untimely death. Misconceptions about what caused his demise abound, but can be laid to rest by this article. Ultimately, “Doc Powers Day” was organized by the American […]

Driving along the oft-congested Chicago expressways in 2005, one might occasionally pass a wayside billboard that featured a White Sox player in full uniform with a random-seeming catchphrase. If you drove the same route, you saw it every day and during those rush-hour traffic jams, the image lasted longer, leaving a lingering impression. The seeds […]

On John Klima’s 2009 book about Willie Mays and the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons and James S. Hirsch’s 2010 book, “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”

Few pieces published in a SABR journal have had a greater impact than “A Baseball Myth Exploded: The Truth About Bill Veeck and the ’43 Phillies,” the cover story in the 1998 edition of The National Pastime.1 The article, authored by David Jordan, Larry Gerlach, and John Rossi, challenged legendary baseball executive Bill Veeck’s claim […]

What we have in this special edition of the Baseball Research Journal are four snapshots of events and personalities from the wide world of “baseball-and-the-law”: Roger Abrams on arbitration and the 1975 Andy Messersmith reserve-clause case; Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court’s 1922 decision in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional […]

Introduction In September 2005 the confirmation hearings of John Roberts as the nominee for chief justice of the United States included an unexpected but telling nod to the national pastime when Roberts observed, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; […]

The Sporting News neatly summarized the April 15, 1968, game played at the Astrodome between the New York Mets and the Houston Astros in a classic headline: “24 Innings, Six Hours, One Run.”1 Surely fans who attended this Monday night game could not have anticipated that they were going to witness a total of 158 […]

All the poetry and folklore of “Tinker to Evers to Chance” notwithstanding, the great Chicago Cubs teams of 1906–10 won their four pennants and two World Series by way of outstanding pitching. The glories of Mordecai “Three Fingered” Brown, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester, and Orval Overall have been widely recognized, and rightfully so. Sadly ignored, […]