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The New York Mets stopped being the laughingstocks of baseball and became unlikely World Series champions on the afternoon of October 16, 1969. After the Mets joined the National League in 1962, they spent most of the decade known as a bunch of lovable losers. All that ended on a pleasant fall afternoon with temperatures […]

In 1988 the movie Bull Durham helped popularize the image of affiliated minor-league baseball as the repository of wild and crazy fun, sufficiently removed from Major League Baseball’s corporate image and structure to expose the players’ and teams’ authentic natures. The lesser-known independent minor leagues, however, such as the CanAm League, Frontier League, and Atlantic […]

On the afternoon of June 10, 1944, just 3,510 individuals came out to Crosley Field for a contest between the Cincinnati Reds and the league-leading St. Louis Cardinals, who were working toward a third straight pennant. Cincinnati was tied for second place, percentage points behind the Pittsburgh Pirates and 3½ games behind St. Louis. The […]

The visiting Washington Nationals (37-27) were enjoying an unexpected inaugural season, leading the NL East by 1 game. The Angels (37-26) were also leading their AL West Division, by 2½ games. Rookie pitcher Ervin Santana (1-1, 4.15 ERA) was making his third big-league start for the Angels. He had been roughed up a bit in […]

The Western Massachusetts city of Holyoke went 64 years between professional baseball teams. As pro baseball returned to Seattle and Toronto in the form of the major-league Mariners and Blue Jays in 1977, the minors also re-emerged in Holyoke in the form of the Holyoke Millers of the Double-A Eastern League. Going into the 1977 […]

Budding media mogul Ted Turner, who had obtained the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves games on his television station, WTCG, in 1973, purchased the franchise in 1976 and attempted to engineer an immediate reversal of its faltering fortunes. Turner dipped into the brand-new free-agent market and signed one of its trailblazers, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher […]

In 1975 Dave Parker became the Pittsburgh Pirates’ starting right fielder and began a half-decade reign as baseball’s best outfielder. His loudest declaration of onrushing superstardom came on May 9 against the defending National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers, when he bashed out run-producing extra-base hits in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings and drove […]

As members of the Society for American Baseball Research descended on the Sheraton West Palm Beach Hotel for SABR’s 30th annual convention, the Chicago Cubs came to town in a “circus-like” atmosphere to face off against the Florida Marlins. The South Florida Chapter of SABR was busy preparing for the first-ever SABR convention in Florida, […]

“Things just kept happening, unexpected things, rare things, exciting things, dramatic things,” wrote John Wilson of the Houston Chronicle after the Astros doubleheader split with the visiting San Diego Padres that involved everything from dramatic home runs, controversial plays at home plate, and game-interrupting disputes to stellar defensive plays and even occasionally good pitching.1 “It […]

On May 5, 1943, the Chicago Tribune was chock-full of news. For a cost of 3 cents, one could absorb 48 pages from the Trib, self-described as the “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” With the United States nearing its 17th month as a combatant in World War II, the bulk of the front page centered on military […]

Being a left-handed pitcher at Fenway Park can be difficult. After all, the Green Monster stands as an awe-inspiring, 37-foot-high target for any right-handed batter who dares to take advantage of the short distance to left field. In fact, before the 2002 season, it had been nine years since a Boston Red Sox lefty had […]

Baseball has experienced a dramatic increase of strikeouts over the last few decades. Pitchers are throwing harder than ever, and batters have drifted toward an “all or nothing” approach.1 This table shows the percentage of major-league plate appearances that ended in a strikeout over the years. In 1985 about one out of every seven plate […]

The Chicago Cubs led the National League in home runs in 1986, and their game against the San Francisco Giants on July 19 was one of six times during the season in which they hit four round-trippers. Their home-run outburst was the difference in a comeback win against the first-place Giants. All-Star second baseman Ryne […]

After nine years in the major leagues, Tommy Dowd’s tenth and last season of big-league baseball was with the Boston Americans in the very first year of the new franchise, 1901. This was the team that became the Red Sox. Dowd was, in fact, the first player to ever play for the team, the leadoff […]

Frank Truesdale was the classic journeyman player. Generally a weak hitting switch hitter, he was also something of a stone hand around second base, his usual position. Truesdale possessed enough talent to latch on to several major league teams, yet not enough to stick around long.   Lacking in physical prowess, Truesdale stood 5’ 8” and […]

When Jackie Robinson debuted with the Montreal Royals on April 18, 1946, he became the first Black player to appear in what was then known as Organized Baseball in nearly 47 years. Canadians feel a special connection to Robinson because of his year spent in Montreal. What many Canadians don’t know is that they have […]

The Cleveland Indians paid Pat Donahue $200 for a tip that led to the signing of Bob Feller in 1935. They later gave him another $200 to forestall him from making any claims for additional compensation. Donahue saw Rapid Robert while umpiring a semipro game in Des Moines. Before he moved on to umpiring, and […]

Immortalized in the movie Field of Dreams, Archibald “Moonlight” Graham stands as the embodiment of the soul of a baseball player. His dream to simply play in at least one major-league baseball game and forever etch his name into the annals of baseball history is one shared by baseball players and fans alike. Graham took […]

If one wished to find the spiritual reincarnation of prototypical renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci within the all-time register of major league baseball players, they would do well to consider one William Grover Slayback. Slayback, who walked with the gods of baseball during the summer of 1972 while pitching for the Detroit Tigers, would most […]

Of the eight major leaguers[fn]Gary Bedingfield, Behind the Wire: Baseball Players Who Were POWs in World War II. www.baseballinwartime.com/pow.htm.[/fn] who were prisoners of war in World War II, only one also played in a World Series. He was Mickey Grasso, who played in four September games for the 1954 Indians and was behind the plate […]

It doesn’t take long to make a lasting impression that sticks with someone throughout his professional baseball career. Some of the things Derek Bell said over the course of his career surprised many and outraged others. This did not seem to faze Bell in the slightest. “What can I say?” Bell would ask. “I just […]

Paul Hardy was a defensive-minded catcher who played in the Negro leagues for nearly three decades, from 1931 to 1959. He stood 5-feet-10 and weighed just 162 pounds — a slight build for a backstop — but he developed a reputation for durability and regularly caught both ends of doubleheaders during his career. Nicknamed “Piccolo,” […]

Ameal Brooks played for semipro and Negro League teams from the late 1920s to 1950. He was known primarily for his work as a versatile catcher and outfielder, his clouting abilities at the plate, and an affinity for alcohol, which may explain his habit of jumping from team to team, sometimes in midseason. For more […]

SABR Bibliography Committee Research Guide No. 10: Baseball in History Journals (1980-88) Editor’s note: This guide was first published by the SABR Bibliography Committee in 1989. To download the original in PDF form, click here. By Jim SumnerApril 1989 This guide consists of all the articles I could find on baseball history published in history […]