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The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series championship in 2006, their first season at the new Busch Stadium. (Kevin Ward/Flickr.com. Used by permission: CC BY-SA 2.0.)   Introduction The St. Louis Cardinals have achieved a level of success in Major League Baseball that has been outdone only by the New York Yankees. Through the […]

This article is part 1 of a planned multi-part series on the history of the Chicago Cubs franchise. This chapter covers the journey from the White Stockings to the Cubs from 1876 to 1919.   The 1885 National League champion Chicago White Stockings. 1-George Gore, 2-Silver Flint, 3-Cap Anson, 4-Sy Sutcliffe, 5-Mike Kelly, 6-Fred Pfeffer, […]

Pat Kelly played just three games in the majors as a catcher with the 1980 Toronto Blue Jays — but he has survived in professional baseball for 45 years. How has he done it? “He’s just a leader; he’s a player’s coach, which means he relates to the players like he’s a player,” said Zach […]

Miguel González enjoyed a long and prolific career as a major-league catcher and coach, and along with Adolfo Luque is considered to be one of the two true patriarchs of baseball in Cuba, where he was a player, manager, and owner in the Cuban League from 1910 through 1960. He was a coach on the […]

A dapper Bob Brown surveys his domain from the wooden steps of Athletic Park. The 5′ 9″ Brown was a dandy of sorts, wearing vests until the 1950s, long after they had gone out of style. (David Eskenazi Collection)   Bob Brown figured more money was to be made in baseball as an owner than […]

The St. Louis Cardinals teams that won back-to-back National League pennants in 1967 and 1968 included four future Hall of Famers (Orlando Cepeda, Lou Brock, Steve Carlton, and Bob Gibson), not to mention household names like Roger Maris, Tim McCarver, and Curt Flood. Therefore, it easy to overlook the contributions of players such as Ron […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

Left-hander Ron Perranoski’s sinking fastball, sharp-breaking curve and ability to thrive in critical situations made him one of baseball’s top relievers. Over 13 seasons (1961-1973) with four teams, mostly the Dodgers and Twins as well as the Tigers and Angels, he pitched in five postseasons and three World Series — earning championship rings with Los […]

Ray Collins might have been on his way to the Hall of Fame but for an abrupt and mysterious end to his career after only seven seasons. In 1913-14 he won a combined 39 games for the Red Sox, and his lifetime 2.51 ERA is impressive even for his low-scoring era. Collins was a good […]

When baseball fans first encountered Ed “Peanuts” Davis, also known as “Peanuts Nyasses,” they knew right away that he was not the typical athlete. He wore his baseball cap sideways, and when he was pitching, his windup sometimes featured “flapping of the arms and jerking of the legs.”1 In addition, he was a member of […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   In the early 1880s prosperous tobacco merchant John B. Day re-established the national pastime in New York – operating teams in both major-league circuits with great success. In 1884 Day’s New York Metropolitans were American Association pennant winners […]

Jim McDonnell, a backup catcher for the Cleveland Indians who got into 50 games from 1943 through 1945, left Organized Baseball after one season (1948) as a minor-league manager, and then figuratively disappeared. Though there is a file on him at the Baseball Hall of Fame, his post-baseball activities are uncharted. James William “Mack” McDonnell […]

Behind the scenes maneuvering resulted in Bud Lally being added to the National League’s staff of umpires for the second half of the 1896 season. In an era of rough and tumble baseball, Lally’s experience as a professional boxer was thought to be an asset. But his lack of knowledge and experience soon became apparent, […]

In the world of 1880s baseball, where Baldwin made an often tumultuous career, newspaper writers occasionally referred to him as “Clarence G.” in jest, but no one ever really though of him by any name other than Kid Baldwin. “Kid” was a nickname given in the nineteenth century to scrappy, feisty little athletes, and Kid […]

Contemporary accounts of Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss’ fielding almost universally used the word “slick” to describe his play. Ever since his final year in the majors, 1926, he’s largely been remembered as the man who pulled off the only unassisted triple play in World Series history but he was also an important member of […]

Twenty-four-year-old Milt Nielsen was surprised when his wife, Marilyn, handed him his father’s phone in late September 1949. “Some guy says he is calling from the Cleveland Indians,” she said.1 They had just returned home with their young son to Windom, Minnesota, after Milt finished a very successful season with the Oklahoma City Indians of […]

The cover of the March 20, 1978, annual baseball preview issue of Sports Illustrated featured a picture of Kansas City Royals rookie Clint Hurdle looking ready for action, with the caption “This Year’s Phenom” in bold yellow letters right next to his smiling face. Keeping with the “phenom” theme, the article described the 20-year-old Hurdle […]

In professional baseball from 1937 to 1950, Lou Novikoff batted .337 in the minors and .282 in parts of five major-league seasons. Ted Williams called him “a great natural hitter.”1 Novikoff also excelled in fast-pitch softball, as a hitter and a pitcher. A softball promoter gave him a colorful nickname, “The Mad Russian.” Novikoff was […]

Carl Boles is perhaps best known for being Willie Mays’s doppelganger – a dead ringer for the celebrated superstar. To teammates and opponents, Boles was a fleet center fielder, a solid hitter, and a player whose big-league career with the San Francisco Giants was derailed by a bad break. Boles played on in Japan and […]

This material was gathered and re-typed from the original newspaper stories by Bill Nowlin, in 2016, to accompany publication of the SABR book Boston’s First Nine: The 1871-75 Boston Red Stockings.   Some Newspaper Coverage of the 1874 European Tour of the Red Stockings and Athletics The bulk of the material presented here is comprised […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 18, in 1998. For additional commentary about this story, read “The Veracity of Veeck,” by Robert D. Warrington and Norman Macht in the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal and Warren Corbett’s SABR biography of Bill Veeck.   Baseball is a game in […]

Imagine two strangers stranded on a South Sea island from Taos, New Mexico, and Butte, Montana. They differ in age, race, income, and religion. Their common denominator is the Colorado Rockies major-league baseball club that did not exist until a quarter-century ago. For a long time, however, the prospect of such a team in the […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]