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Once tabbed by Ty Cobb as “a sure 30-game winner in the major leagues,” Smoky Joe Williams is often mentioned by oldtimers as black baseball’s greatest pitcher, superior even to Cannonball Redding, Bill Foster, Frank Wickware, and Satchel Paige. (In the twilight of his career with the Homestead Grays, Williams bested Paige, 30 years his […]

Celebrating the Dodger Dog. (Courtesy Todd Anton)   “A hot dog at the park is better than a steak at the Ritz.” — Humphrey Bogart 1 “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” may mention peanuts and Cracker Jack, but the hot dog is the cleanup hitter of the baseball stadium lineup. The quintessential ballpark meal […]

Hall of Fame executive Ed Barrow secured his legacy during his years with the Yankees. He joined New York’s front office after the 1920 season as their first de facto general manager. The next year the team won its first pennant; during his 24-year tenure, from 1921 through 1944 (through 1947 he stayed on as […]

The 1976 renovation of Yankee Stadium removed the columns that obstructed views on the lower decks and the seats in center field that obstructed batters, but it also relegated the recognizable frieze to above the outfield wall. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   In the spring of 1976, the Yankees celebrated a grand reopening of Yankee Stadium.1 It […]

When eternal Dodgers hero Johnny Podres threw the first pitch to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Eddie Kasko on April 10, 1962, it marked the official opening of Dodger Stadium as the new home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 Less recognized and certainly less celebrated was how it represented the definitive end of what has come to […]

Early 1950s Japanese publication featuring Jackie Robinson. (Author’s collection)   There was a saying in Japan during the late 1950s: Kamisama, Hotokesama, Inaosama (God, Buddha, Inao). The 19-year-old Kazuhisa Inao was out there on the mound. The kid wasn’t that big, at least not by American standards – about 5-foot-9, 185 pounds. But he was […]

    In the old days when vaudeville was popular, a number of ball players had brief trials as actors or singers. In 1912-13, for example, Mike Donlin and Marty McHale teamed up to do an act where Donlin told jokes and McHale, who had developed his voice and his pitching arm at the University […]

Observing the similarity between two celebrated dynasties — the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s — is hardly original, and hardly new. But the comparisons between the two teams are worth exploring in some detail. They were a ballclub well-known then and well-remembered today not just for their victories […]

Forfeits were relatively commonplace in the early days of baseball. There was at least one forfeit in the major leagues every year from 1883 to 1907, including 13 in 1884. A review of the reasons for these forfeits reveals how ”bush league” the major leagues still were. In 1889, St. Louis’s American Association team failed […]

The Union Association of 1884 can seem puzzling. It is classified as a major league, yet it lasted but one season, with a low level of play, absurdly poor competitive balance within that low level, and an odd selection of cities, several of them changing over the course of the season. Some people question its […]

Was the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 a major league? Baseball authorities interested in the answer have been, and still are, divided in their opinions. Could a six-team independent league in 1913, generally regarded as no better than Class D, become an eight-team organization of major league quality a year later? The odds suggest […]

Even before the start of the 1879 National League campaign, several baseball clubs were reported to be contemplating post-season tours of the west. Despite the high cost associated with such undertakings, Chicago decided in April to make the trip and the Cincinnati club was also reported to be interested. With professional sports still in its […]

“There was always the wind.” — Dennis Tojo Bambauer, orphaned internee living in the Manzanar Children’s Village   EFT Storytellers on Manzanar Baseball Field. Left to right: Kerry Yo Nakagawa, Nisei Baseball Research Project; Pete Mitsui, founder of San Fernando Aces; Jeff Arnett, former director of education at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (Courtesy […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Winter 1987 (Vol. 6, No. 1). During the summer of 1895, John Peter Wagner — not yet known as “Honus” or “Hans,” nor yet as a shortstop — played at least 79 games for teams at Steubenville, Akron, and Mansfield, Ohio; Adrian, Michigan; and Warren, […]

Editor’s Note: A version of this article appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine, February 1993.   With Cool Papa Bell flying around the base paths, Josh Gibson drawing accolades as the black Babe Ruth, and Satchel Paige walking the bases loaded, telling his fielders to sit down, and striking out the side, Pittsburgh was once the center […]

Ben Yoshiwara, senior photo. (University High School, Chieftain yearbook, Los Angeles, California, 1940) On Sunday, December 7, 1941, at 2:00 PM, Los Angeles Nippons pitcher Ben Yoshiwara stood on the mound in Los Angeles, staring down a lineup of Paramount Studio Cubs.1 In the third inning, FBI agents arrived, and murmurs about the attack on […]

The annals of baseball prose include several memoirs and biographies from and about major-, minor-, and amateur-league umpires, well stocked with entertaining war stories from the diamond front, as well as numerous how-to-manuals for those pondering careers in this noble and unappreciated profession; and books inviting fans to offer their own interpretation of baseball’s knottier […]

Oscar Charleston is shown here in the uniform of the Santa Clara Leopardos, circa 1923. The 1923-24 Leopardos, for whom Charleston played, were considered the best Cuban team in history—a team so dominant that halfway through the season the league simply declared them champions and then reorganized. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   April […]

EVERY so often there comes a phenom who streaks across the baseball sky like the flash of a comet, leaving only the faintest of light in its wake. Among them are Mark Fidrych, “Super Joe” Charboneau, and Bob “Hurricane” Hazle. Remember to add the Washington Senators’ Joe Hardy to that list. Hardy, born Joe Boyd […]

Every so often there comes a phenom who streaks across the baseball sky like the flash of a comet, leaving only the faintest of light in its wake. Among them are Mark Fidrych, “Super Joe” Charboneau, and Bob “Hurricane” Hazle. Remember to add the Washington Senators’ Joe Hardy to that list. Hardy, born Joe Boyd […]

A game at Minneapolis’ Nicollet Park in 1954, the most hitter-friendly park of its era. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society)   Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, Forbes Field was not the first modern ballpark made of steel and concrete. That honor belongs to a minor-league stadium that now, like so many historic […]

On November 9, 1953, the United States Supreme Court issued a one paragraph opinion in Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc.1 The decision affirmed three lower federal court decisions that turned aside lawsuits challenging the Court’s 1922 ruling regarding the application of the nation’s antitrust laws to Organized Baseball.2 The concluding sentence succinctly declared that […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, No. 14 (1994).   My most desired time-machine dream game happened on August 2, 1930. On a hot, humid summer night in Kansas City, Missouri, two men, one with smoke and the other with fire, engaged in a wild, free-swinging 12-inning contest that would result […]

Before the first game of the 1911 World Series, legendary managers John McGraw (left) of the New York Giants and Connie Mack (right) of the Philadelphia Athletics are pictured shaking hands. Also shown are the pitching aces of the two teams, Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson (left) of the Giants and Charles Albert Bender (right) […]