Review: The Seven-Tool Player
On John Klima’s 2009 book about Willie Mays and the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons and James S. Hirsch’s 2010 book, “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”
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On John Klima’s 2009 book about Willie Mays and the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons and James S. Hirsch’s 2010 book, “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”
In 1948, the St. Louis Cardinals farm system was a model for other big-league teams. When one of the Cardinals’ 21 farm teams was struck by tragedy in July 1948, organized baseball rallied around the organization. On July 24, 1948, a bus carrying the Duluth Dukes, a Cardinals’ affiliate in the Class C Northern League, […]
Sandy Alomar Jr.’s career has been marred by frequent injuries, and one could argue that he has not lived up to the expectations most people had for him back when he was one of the most promising young catchers in the game. But no one was disappointed in him on the night of July 8, […]
Chicago is a city of icons. A hotbed of popular culture, the Windy City owns a curriculum vitae rarely paralleled concerning characters, real and fictional, responsible for defining the American experience. Al Capone rose to kingpin status in Chicago’s underworld during Prohibition in the 1920s. His was a household name, a celebrity status recognizable nearly […]
One of baseball’s most highly regarded accomplishments by an individual player is hitting for the cycle: collecting at least one of each of the four types of safe hits (single, double, triple, and home run) in the same game. But shouldn’t there be some long-lasting special recognition when a player gets four extra-base hits in […]
Introduction and context The 1988 Winter Meetings were held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, from Sunday, December 4, until Wednesday, December 7. These meetings came at the tail end of the collusion cases, as teams were beginning to open their wallets and spend money again, and a lot of teams were looking […]
“Most of what I learned about style I learned from Roberto Clemente.” — John Sayles, filmmaker A ballplayer’s life is rarely if ever finely crafted finish-work carpentry; rather it is almost always rough framing, with all the gaps and gouges exposed to critics and admirers alike. Polishing and puttying and sanding the rough edges […]
During a professional baseball career of 18 seasons spread out over a span of 23 years, Guy Terrell Bush only spent one full season and part of another in Pittsburgh. But with bloody fists and a heart filled with frustration, he left a few marks in the baseball history books while wearing Pirates flannel. In […]
Records of home runs hit by batters have been a part of baseball information and statistics essentially from the beginning of the National League in 1876. It is true that this information was not of overwhelming interest to the public until the advent of Babe Ruth and the launching of the lively ball era in […]
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 […]
The SABR 19th Century Committee recently polled its members to determine the top ten players of the pre-1900 era not in the Hall of Fame. Heading the list in a three-way tie were Jimmy Ryan, Harry Stovey, and George Van Haltren. My favorite is Ryan, the great Chicago outfielder. A brief review of his life […]
There are two main objectives for the hitter. The first is to not make an out and the second is to hit for distance. Long-ball hitting is normally measured by slugging average. Not making an out can be expressed in terms of on base average (OBA), where: OBA = Hits + Walks […]
Some sportswriters in the 1960s worried that Willie Mays was actually hurting the Giants. One magazine headline asked, “Is Willie really worth $105,000?” (SABR-Rucker Archive) If we didn’t have proof, we probably wouldn’t believe it. If there hadn’t been hundreds of magazines published in the 1960s about baseball, a large percentage of them containing articles […]
Willie Mays and Willie McCovey played together for 14 seasons, including in McCovey’s 1969 MVP campaign. (SABR-Rucker Archive) Willie Mays and Willie McCovey formed one of the greatest one-two power combinations in baseball history. The pair were teammates on the San Francisco Giants from 1959 to 1972. During that stretch, they won the 1962 National […]
This is a study of the relationship between major league player ethnicity and both overall participation and fielding position — from 1947, Jackie Robinson’s debut year, to 2018.1 I use the term “ethnicity” as an umbrella term encompassing the concept of “race” because the presence of Hispanics as a separate grouping invalidates a simple racial […]
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 […]
Merle Harmon interviews Herb Score. The 1955 American League Rookie of the Year winner later joined the baseball broadcasting fraternity after his career ended prematurely. (COURTESY OF MERLE HARMON) He was a sports broadcaster and former college football player from the Midwest. Tall and gray haired, he sported a crooked nose as a football […]
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 […]
Nearly all accounts of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies’ epic collapse, which would etch itself deep in the city’s historical psyche, focus on the Phillies’ 10-game losing streak that started on September 21, when they had a 6½-game lead with only 12 games remaining, and ended with them having lost eight games in the standings in […]
Though war clouds were gathering, it dropped peacefully out of the sky of Japan, seven years before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and eleven years before atomic blasts destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It landed softly on the other side of the fence in right center field at a ballpark in Sendai, a city on the […]
The cover of The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson, illustration by Steve Carter & jacket design by Todd Radom. (Courtesy of Penguin Random House) Consider this quote from eminent baseball historian Donald Honig’s 1985 book Baseball America: “For those who cared to pay attention, Robinson’s style of play should have been both threat and […]
Baseball milestones are as well known to fans as their own birthdays and addresses. True baseball fans know that 714-511-4256 is not a phone number, but Babe Ruth’s home run total, the career wins of Cy Young, and Pete Rose’s hit tally. Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak of 56 games is a sacred number, 2632 will […]
On July 12, 1966, National League All-Star manager Walter Alston wrote out a lineup card with arguably the greatest outfield ever to appear in a baseball game — on any team, in any league, in any era. Leading off was center fielder Willie Mays, batting second was right fielder Roberto Clemente, and hitting third was […]
Jackie Robinson and young fan, Stephen Rozansky in 1951 at the Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown. Inspiring youth remains a goal of today’s Jackie Robinson Foundation. “After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.” – Jackie […]
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