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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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In the 1950s, as the population of the United States shifted, the footprint of major league baseball also changed. In 1952, there were 16 major-league teams centered in just 10 cities, but within a decade, existing teams had moved to Milwaukee, Baltimore, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities area. Following the […]

Bacone College in its early years when its name was Bacone Indian College. (Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society)   Although the 1967 Bacone Warriors had a track record of incredible success, winning 42 regular-season games and losing only two, the odds were stacked against this small school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, formed in 1880 to […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (McFarland & Co., Fall 2009).   In August of 1932, Gus Greenlee added permanent lights to the Pittsburgh Crawfords home field. (NOIRTECH RESEARCH INC.)   The Story of Greenlee Field Any story requires plot, characters, and setting. In […]

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 […]

Signage at Avista Stadium in Spokane. (Courtesy of Eric Vickrey)   Native American-themed team names and mascots were commonplace in professional baseball during the twentieth century. Images such as an Indian chief in a feathered headdress or warlike caricatures were often used in logos and advertisements. These depictions were often considered derogatory and misrepresented the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Is there widespread racial bias among umpires? In August 2007, a widely publicized academic study said the answer is yes. The truth might be more complicated.Is there widespread racial bias among umpires? In August 2007, a widely publicized academic study said the answer is yes. After taking a close look at the study, I’m not […]

Ford Frick, president of the National League in 1947, is not the first person who comes to mind concerning Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball, though he deserves more consideration than he has been given. While no other individual rivals the role played by Branch Rickey in breaking the game’s color barrier, other than […]

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 […]

Since the formation of the National League in 1876, many cities have failed to retain their major league teams. Fifteen such cities were represented in the majors before 1900. Most cities persevered in the minor leagues, but only Troy, New York suffered longer without professional baseball than Altoona, Pennsylvania, whose sole stint in the majors […]

This article was originally published in “From McGillicuddy to McGwire: Baseball in Florida and the Caribbean,” the 2000 SABR convention journal.   It was 1947, and Branch Rickey had two spring training problems, both of his own making. Bud Holman had one, but it loomed large for him. It took Rickey and Holman a while […]