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A standing-room crowd of 48,013 showed up at Camden Yards for Baltimore’s final home game of the 1998 season. When the gates opened, the scoreboard showed a lineup that was familiar to them. It included Cal Ripken, batting sixth and playing third base, the position he had occupied for the past three years. But unbeknownst […]

It was a brilliant day for a ballgame. The skies were clear and azure blue, the temperature in the low 80s. Wednesday, June 30, 1909, was the culmination of a glorious week of parties and galas in Pittsburgh celebrating the opening of owner Barney Dreyfuss’s million-dollar brainchild, Forbes Field, the new home of the Pittsburgh […]

On occasion, broadcasters have announced breaking news during live game telecasts. During Monday Night Football on December 8, 1980, ABC’s Howard Cosell announced an “unspeakable tragedy”: the shooting death of musician John Lennon. During the NBA Finals on June 17, 1994, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw showed viewers live footage of football legend O. J. Simpson […]

In front of a May 5, 1933, Ladies Day crowd of approximately 3,000 at the Baker Bowl, St. Louis Cardinals leadoff hitter Pepper Martin had a field day against the Philadelphia Phillies. In five at-bats, he contributed “Four Dashes of Pepper”1 – a home run, triple, double, and single – as he hit for the […]

On January 9, 1894, a meeting was held at the Sherman House Hotel in Chicago to reorganize the Illinois-Iowa League. During the proceedings the loop was expanded to include teams from Nebraska and Missouri. Dave Rowe was named president of what would be the third different league with the name Western Association. (The first existed […]

The Northern Independent League, formerly known as the Northern New York League, was expected to go from four to six teams in 1906 by expanding into two Canadian cities, Montreal and Ottawa.1 But when Montreal’s application was “turned down with a thud,” the league made a curious decision.2 It admitted Ottawa and began the season […]

There have been many famous husband-wife teams who shared a career, each partner making contributions to their success. George Burns and Gracie Allen. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Johnny Cash and June Carter. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Isis and Osiris and the six wives of King Henry VIII to name a few. In a male-dominated […]

If, like beauty, the assessment of baseball talent lies in the eye of the beholder, the wide divergence of opinion on the abilities of Deadball Era outfielder Bert Daniels can be rationalized. Opinions, naturally, may differ. With our subject, whether it was his batting, defense, or base running, Daniels was both praised and derided — […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

A run-scoring-machine leadoff hitter with great speed (408 career steals) and good power (235 homers), Johnny Damon had “good range defensively but … one of the worst outfield arms in the big leagues.” 1 Offensively, Damon had his best years with Kansas City in 2000 and Boston in 2004, and won World Series titles with […]

In October 1876, outfielder-first baseman John Glenn was perched atop the baseball world, a lineup regular for the Chicago White Stockings, champions of the inaugural season of the National League. A dozen years later, he lay semi-conscious on his deathbed in upstate New York, the object of nationwide opprobrium. Universal disdain of Glenn was reflected […]

Lou Finney was a tough man to strike out. A fast, feisty left-handed hitter with line-drive power, Finney made contact often enough and was versatile enough in the field to play an important role first for Connie Mack’s Depression-era Philadelphia Athletics and later for Joe Cronin’s World War II-era Boston Red Sox. A scrappy, curly-haired Alabaman […]

After graduating from Duke University in 1974, John Poff made it to the majors for 31 games in 1979 and 1980. He hit .218 in 91 plate appearances. The first baseman-outfielder retired after the winter of 1981-82. “My career in baseball was frustrating,” he later said. “I wanted and felt I deserved a lot more […]

Described by Sporting Life as “an all-around athlete of more than ordinary ability”i at age 20, Buck Washer nonetheless had an inflated sense of his value as a prospective professional baseball player. At 5’10” and a stout 175 pounds, the right-handed hurler played only four games in the high minors in addition to his sip-of-coffee […]

When you examine the life of Abner Doubleday you eventually have to come to the point expressed by classic detective Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Okay, so here are two facts about General Abner Doubleday’s life. First, his military career was lengthy and he “was the highest ranking officer in the […]

It is a sports cliché that records are made to be broken. But in baseball, changing times and modern playing strategies seem to have put certain major-league bests permanently out of reach. The holders of unapproachable all-time records include immortals like Cy Young, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Zip Zabel, … Zip Zabel? Indeed, just as […]

Entering the last day of the 1939 season New York Yankees’ righty Steve Sundra owned an unblemished 11-0 record, but a September 30 home run from Boston Red Sox rookie Ted Williams spoiled that. From 1900-60 Sundra’s .917 winning percentage ranked fifth among pitchers with 10 or more decisions in a single season. Combined with […]

On June 6, 1897, King Bailey of the Evansville Brewers and Pete Dowling faced each other in Central League action at Paducah, Kentucky. “The game was the finest ever witnessed. … Bailey was wholly invincible and was not once hit safe,” an Evansville paper reported. Dowling allowed only one hit in Evansville’s 1-0 win.1 Dowling […]

Generations ago it would have been difficult to determine which was the more unlikely — a fringe major-league ballplayer ascending to the governorship of his home state and later becoming one of its United States senators, or a Democrat being elected to such lofty posts in then rock-solid Republican New Hampshire. Whichever the case, Fred […]

Herb Stein is a baseball rarity in that his whole career was spent under the aegis of one organization, the Washington Nationals. (When he went to independent teams early in his career it was with the Nationals’ blessings.) He was born in New York City on December 3, 1917, and graduated from George Washington High […]

From 1984 to 1989, Walt Terrell was one of Major League Baseball’s most durable starting pitchers, averaging more than 32 starts and 210 innings per season. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound right-hander did not possess an overpowering fastball, but his credible sinker and change-up usually allowed him to keep his teams in games. During his 11-year career […]

From 1998 to 2010, Bengie Molina was a two-time consecutive Gold Glove Award catcher. Considered one of the slowest baserunners in his era, nevertheless in 2003 Molina was rated the best defensive catcher in the American League by Baseball America. He is the only player in baseball history to hit a home run but not […]

The career of Henry “Hunky” Hines spanned more than 20 years, from 1887 at the age of 19 through 1910 at the age of 42.1 His career took him from Minneapolis to St. Louis, and from Brooklyn to Oakland. When he was signed to play for the club in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903, the Davenport […]

Here are the SABR Bookshelf listings for Spring 2020. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004. An e-book file will also suffice; please send the e-book in PDF, EPUB […]