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It was just the top of the first, and Willie Mays hit four home runs before Mickey Mantle could even step to the plate. Decades before it invaded the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby sprouted in the fertile soil of Hollywood. Home Run Derby was filmed at L.A.’s Wrigley Field, former home of the Pacific […]

The 1966 season was the culmination of several good seasons for the Orioles, a pattern that began with the 1960 team and the famous “Kiddie Corps” that made an unexpected great run at the AL pennant. From 1961 through 1965, they finished 3rd, 7th, 4th, 3rd, and 3rd — a solid run after the first […]

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. In early 2007 major league baseball marked the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers, bringing an end to a sixty-year ban on black players in the major […]

The Society launched a research project in 1976 to gather information about — what is now a rather rare baseball occurrence — the inside-the-park home run (IPH). Some of the questions raised at the outset of this project v re rather basic in nature. How many inside-the-park homers are being hit at the present time […]

    To include all of the many and varied statistics of baseball, references in the record books must be brief. Thus, much factual information that would help vivify a playing performance must, of necessity, be omitted. Of all the topical subdivisions in the record book, one of the most enigmatic is:  “No-Hit Games-Less Than […]

Ty Cobb is usually thought of as the very embodiment of the Deadball Era hitter; the “Punch and Judy” counterpoint to the post-1920 Ruthian power game.1 This common misconception is underscored in a number of ways. First, it is supported by the types of players who have surpassed Cobb’s career records. Lou Brock bested his […]

  The career of left-handed reliever Ron Perranoski (1961–73) mainly featured successes in two cities: Los Angeles and Minneapolis[-St.Paul].1 Unlike Hall of Fame reliever Mariano Rivera, who spent his entire career with the Yankees (1995–2013), typically relievers pitch for more than one team. The seven other HOF relievers through 2024 each toiled for at least […]

Small-market teams often complain about the unfairness of baseball’s financial structure, contending that teams in large markets have disproportionate access to money to spend on players, giving them an unfair competitive advantage. Big-market teams disagree. But when it comes to the movies, there can be no argument. At the cinema, big-city teams such as the […]

This article was selected as a finalist for a 2017 SABR Analytics Conference Research Award. In the immediate aftermath of the exciting Game Seven between the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants in 2014, the baseball world fixated on one question: should Alex Gordon have been sent home with two outs in the bottom […]

The yardstick for enshrinement in Cooperstown is generally determined by a player’s ability to dominate a decade. Dale Murphy more than met that standard. Crippled by recurring knee problems that required mid-career surgery, Murphy retired with 398 home runs—one fewer than first-ballot inductee Al Kaline and 16 more than 2009 inductee Jim Rice. When he […]

IN 1954, the Washington Senators were an abominable team They finished the season ensconced in sixth place in the American League, with a 66—88 record. The previous year, they were a fifth-place ballclub, completing the campaign at 76—76. In 1952, they also ended up in fifth place, with a 78—76 mark. In mid-decade, Ernest Barcella, […]

After the 1970 season, two brothers, Eldon and Harlan Mills, unveiled a new approach to baseball statistics: Player Win Averages. Eldon was a retired Air Force colonel and an expert in computer programming and data processing, while Harlan was a professor and mathematics consultant to IBM. What they did was develop a model for calculating […]

Gavy Cravath led the National League in home runs six times in seven seasons. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   What more is there to say about Clifford Carlton “Gavy” “Cactus” Cravath, the enigmatic Deadball Era slugger relegated to the dustbin of baseball history by George Herman Ruth? How about this: He was likely the first player to […]

After a 90-loss, ninth-place season in 1966, the Boston Red Sox entered spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, with a new manager and a new outlook.Spring training 1967 was quite different from spring training 1966 for the Boston Red Sox. We can remember 1966 as the year when Earl Wilson was turned away from the […]

In the summer of 1948, two of the nation’s premier major-league pitching prospects were Georgia boys—Willard Nixon of Lindale and Hugh Radcliffe of Thomaston. Both were multisport stars with a special talent for baseball. Both were big, strong, righthanded pitchers who had dominated opposing batters wherever they had pitched. Both attracted the attention of almost […]

This article was honored with a SABR Analytics Conference Research Award in 2016.   In 1976, for the first time in thirty-three seasons, total stolen bases exceeded total home runs in Major League Baseball.1 A consistent turn towards more frequent basestealing had already become evident on the field, as teams collectively stole over 1,000 more […]

When Calvin Griffith sold the Minnesota Twins in 1984, he bowed out of baseball as the last of the family owners whose franchise represented their principal business and source of wealth. Griffith spent practically his entire life in baseball, spending his young adulthood working in one capacity or another for the Washington Nationals organization that […]

“Josh missed immortality and a chance to endorse breakfast food by being born on the wrong side of the social structure.” — Jimmy Powers, New York Daily News, 19371 Josh Gibson was the most dominant power hitter in the Negro Leagues from 1930 through 1946. His production was so prodigious that his Hall of Fame […]

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, […]

Roy Mack affixes his signature to an agreement selling the Athletics to the Philadelphia syndicate on October 17, 1954—a commitment Roy would betray just a day later in a backroom deal with Arnold Johnson. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Bill Renna was playing winter ball for the 1953–54 San Juan Senators, managed by […]

  The major league baseball clubs of Cleveland and Cincinnati have much in common. They call the same state home. Both have established a proud tradition that dates back to the nineteenth century, and have enjoyed success and endured failure. They are mid-market teams who can afford to compete when managing resources wisely, but can’t […]

If you had asked fans prior to the 1969 baseball season which scenario was more likely—man landing on the moon or the New York Mets wining the world championship—they would probably have been hard-pressed to choose, both being equally improbable. Casey Stengel, original Mets manager and overseer of the ugliest launching of a franchise in […]

It’s the top of the 10th inning, and there is one out in this hotly contested All-Star Game. A runner is on third by way of the triple, another on first via the intentional walk, but now the pitcher has this batter on the ropes with a 2–2 count. The crowd is evenly split between […]

Defining baseball’s best all-around players begins with Branch Rickey. The maverick executive instrumental in integrating baseball, Rickey was also a pioneering sabermetrician. He invented the category “five-tool players” for the rare talents who excelled at hitting for average, hitting for power, running, fielding, and throwing.1 Since Rickey tagged Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle as the […]