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Journal Articles
A Depression Ball Game: Buffalo Bisons vs. Muny All-Stars, 1934
Summertime 1934. Buffalo. Depression. Unemployment rate: 21.7%.1 Mood: troubled, despairing. Social services and a New Deal were responding as best they could, helping people manage from day to day, but two big local newspapers were looking ahead to the winter. The Buffalo Courier-Express sponsored the Christmas Toy Fund and publisher and editor Burrows Matthews was […]
Nine Baseball Scrapbooks
My father used to say, “Son, you were talkin’ when you should have been listenin’ … “ When I looked inside the large, heavy cardboard suitcase from the 1930s and saw that it was crammed with undated newspaper clippings, my old man’s wisdom slammed home like a fastball in the ribs. In 1994, I was asked […]
Assessing Hall of Fame Worthiness: Flaws in JAWS
This paper explores potential areas of improvement in the JAWS statistic and proposes an alternative for evaluating candidates for the Hall of Fame. In 2004, Jay Jaffe created the Jaffe WAR Score system (JAWS) based on Baseball Reference’s bWAR.1 Its stated purpose is “to improve the Hall of Fame’s standards, or at least to maintain […]
Just Like a Big Leaguer: The Chicago Tribune Amateur Baseball Contest of 1915
In 1915, the Chicago Tribune announced a contest to find the three best amateur baseball players in Chicago. The prize for the three youngsters would be a chance to join each of Chicago’s major league teams, the American League White Sox, the National League Cubs, and the Federal League Whales. The contest’s origins, execution, and ultimate success […]
The Strange, Extremely Brief Days of Minor League Baseball in Roseville, California
On August 4, 1948, the Roseville Press-Tribune trumpeted the arrival of a new professional baseball team. The Far West League’s financially failing Pittsburg Diamonds were moving ninety miles northeast along what was then US Highway 40 to Roseville, just outside Sacramento.1 The late-season move was bold; although Roseville today ranks among California’s fastest growing cities […]
1976 Winter Meetings: Changing Demographics and Broadcast Challenges
What a difference a year makes. When an estimated 1,200 baseball owners, executives, and club representative convened at the Los Angeles Hilton in December 1976 to conduct the 75th annual Winter Meetings, professional baseball had experienced dramatic and history-altering changes in the preceding 12 months. Sportswriter Joseph Durso suggested that the meeting “couldn’t have come […]
Yankee Old-Timers Day: A Long-Running Tradition
The 2007 Old-Timers Day included Whitey Ford (16), Yogi Berra (8), Reggie Jackson (44), Don Mattingly (23), Ron Guidry (49), Moose Skowron (14), Don Larsen (18), Graig Nettles (9), Bobby Murcer (1), Goose Gossage (54), Paul O’Neill (21), Scott Brosius (18), Joe Pepitone (25), and Chris Chambliss (10). (Jerry Coli/Dreamstime) The original Yankee Stadium, […]
Ace: The Jake Jones Story
“One thing I can’t go for is any “hero” stuff. I know I am no hero. All right, I flew 39 missions—I know too many others who flew 100 and more. . . .Just because I happen to be in baseball, it seems to be big news. Well, I’m not kidding myself and I am […]
Dames in the Dirt: Women’s Baseball Before 1945
Thief River Falls Ladies Baseball Team Champions of Northern Minnesota 1893. (Courtesy of Pennington County Historical Society) Despite the fact that the great American pastime has been almost exclusively identified as a male sport, women have played baseball in Minnesota for over 100 years. In the early years, from the late nineteenth century through […]
Which Great Teams Were Just Lucky?
A team’s season record is massively influenced by luck. Suppose you take a coin and flip it 162 times to simulate a season. Each time it lands heads, that’s a win, and when it lands tails, that’s a loss. You’d expect, on average, to get 81 wins and 81 losses. But for any individual season, […]
What’s in a Name? Examining Reactions to Major League Baseball’s Change From the Disabled List to the Injured List via Twitter
Mickey Mantle is carried off on a stretcher after injuring his knee during the 1951 World Series at Yankee Stadium. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY) A batter takes a fastball to the ribs. An outfielder crashes into the wall trying to make a circus catch. A baserunner steps on the side of first […]
Robert ‘Bob’ Addy: And Now You Know the Rest of the Story
Robert “Bob” Addy’s Canadian baseball success story begs a really big question. Why are we only hearing about him now? In the last 10 years, thanks to researcher Peter Morris, Addy’s Canadian roots have been highlighted, but this knowledge has taken its sweet time spreading to all corners of the baseball world.1 Now additional details […]
Dodgers Win World Series in 2020 COVID Season
Social distancing restrictions were still in place for COVID-19 for this game at Dodger Stadium on May 29, 2021. (Photograph by Scott Carter.) The Los Angeles Dodgers began the 2020 regular season – finally – on July 23. A worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with prolonged negotiations on how the games could safely be played, […]
1903 Winter Meetings: Married Life Begins For American, National Leagues
It could be compared, in a way, to a romance novel — first they hate each other, then they start to learn more about each other to where they like each other, and finally they fall in love and get married. Unlike the two protagonists in this popular style of fiction, though, the National and […]
A Fan’s-Eye View of the 1906 World Series
This article was originally published in “Baseball in Chicago,” the 1986 SABR convention journal. You and I embark on a wondrous journey as we are magically whisked away to a long-ago time and place. We stand on the corner of State and Madison. The familiar iron-facade entrance of Carson, Pirie, Scott’s is behind us […]
‘He Never Was Much with the Stick’: The Story of Silent Bill Hopke
One of baseball’s most exciting plays comes when a batter unexpectedly drops a bunt down the third base line. The third baseman charges in frantically and, with no margin for error, usually tries to barehand the ball. The batter is tearing down the first base line as fast as his legs will carry him, and […]
Willie Mays Night at Shea Stadium
Willie Mays with the New York Mets (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) Willie Mays returned to New York in a trade on May 11, 1972.1 “It’s a wonderful feeling to be coming back here,” said the longtime Giants superstar, who left with the team for California after after the 1957 season. “I’ve always […]
The Many Flavors of DIPS: A History and an Overview
How much control, if any, does a pitcher have over whether a batted ball in play falls in for a hit? What if something that had traditionally been regarded as the pitcher’s responsibility was simply the residue of luck? Asking himself these questions,1 Voros McCracken, a paralegal who participated in a Rotisserie league in his […]
Using Career Value Index to Evaluate Hall of Fame Credentials of Negro League Players
A subject that animates baseball fans is ranking its greatest players, particularly regarding membership in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (HOF). In the past decade or two, Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has moved to the forefront of this discussion among analytically minded fans. Unlike many “traditional” stats (wins, losses, saves, runs, RBI), […]
Babe Ruth and Eiji Sawamura
This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Babe Ruth was presented with flowers before a game during the 1934 baseball tour of Japan. November 20, 1934; Shizuoka, Japan With a flick of his wrist, the boy received […]
Catcher Duke Farrell’s Record Performance: Game Notes from May 11, 1897
Duke Farrell as depicted with the Chicago White Stockings on an Old Judge baseball card, circa 1888–90. (Trading Card Database) Welcome to nineteenth-century baseball research, where it is not uncommon for the newspapers to have conflicting box score data, and for the box score data to be in conflict with the written article […]