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The only known photo of the Nippon Baseball Club, taken in approximately 1918. (THE SYDNEY SUN)   In 1919, Japanese migrants living in Sydney donated a silver cup to the New South Wales (NSW) Baseball Association “[i]n appreciation of the friendship and good feeling accorded the Nippon [Baseball] Club since it joined the Association.”1 The […]

Baseball, more than any other sport, has had a central role in American life and regularly finds itself in court. As a result there are now more than 10,000 published judicial decisions regarding baseball.1 While many writers have examined these decisions from a national or holistic perspective, this article will discuss many of those cases […]

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey talk happily after a contract signing meeting in the offices of the Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field on January 25, 1950. (SABR/The Rucker Archive)   In 1947, concerned about the firestorm that could erupt once he went public with his plan to break baseball’s color barrier by hiring Jackie Robinson, […]

Montreal Expos’ manager Gene Mauch and New York Mets’ manager Gil Hodges post prior to the first game in franchise history, Shea Stadium, April 8, 1969. The Expos won, 11-10. (Courtesy of the McCord Museum, Montreal)   Gerry Snyder, Charles Bronfman, and John McHale. Three of the biggest names in Montreal Expos history. Without Snyder’s […]

Winning percentages represent the fundamental metric of team success. Regardless of a team’s specific strengths and weaknesses, its winning percentage—or equivalently, its won-lost record in a fixed-length season—is the ultimate distillation of all other individual and team statistics into a single measure of success or failure. Winning percentages determine which teams advance to the postseason […]

In the 1912 season Rube Marquard, the left-handed pitcher of the National League (NL) New York Giants, won nineteen consecutive games and it was thought at the time to be one game shy of the record. The record was thought to be twenty, set by John Perkins “Pat” Luby, a right-handed pitcher for the NL […]

“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 […]

Although Al Kaline obviously deserved the many accolades he received as an exceptional athlete with admirable personal characteristics, misconceptions have long existed regarding the severity of challenges he faced in his youth and during his 22-year professional baseball career. This article will address a litany of circumstances that he encountered and explain how he overcame […]

Hanlan’s Point illuminated in 1928, not for baseball, but for opera. (City of Toronto Archives)   As soon as it became possible to play ballgames at night, baseball purists scoffed at the idea. In 1915, the Toronto Daily Star declared that night baseball had always been, and would always be, a dismal failure. “When it […]

The end of the Brotherhood war restored the status quo ante: two major leagues, the National League and the American Association, atop the sport’s pyramid. Yet, the principals of both leagues spent more of 1891 continuing war rather than securing an enduring peace. The restoration of the two-league system proved untenable for the longer term. […]

They played six days a week, May through August, under the punishing South Georgia sun and in swamp-like humidity. They traveled by rail, seemingly always on the go. They were off on Sundays, their only day of rest before another round of games and trains. Some played for hometown pride and some played for the […]

Vinland baseball team circa 1920. (Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas)   Before sport became an integral aspect of Americana, early iterations of games catering to the working class were quite violent. In the eighteenth century, prizefighting, cockfights, and bear baiting, accompanied by drinking and gambling, were common recreational activities. Pious Americans in Protestant […]

The center of the baseball world had been New York City, but after the Civil War came a time of tremendous growth in the game. The National Association of Base Ball Players had been formed in 1858 and the number of member teams skyrocketed from 80 in 1860 to 202 in 1866, and more than […]

Once a very sparsely settled farming community, Holyoke, Massachusetts’s geographic location on the banks of the Connecticut River was ideal for development, utilizing its ample source of hydroelectric power.1 A group of four wealthy executives from Boston, about 90 miles to the east, believed the South Hadley Falls of the river was large and powerful […]

Pitching in relief in the final innings of a 12-2 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics on August 10, 1927, sore-armed Boston right hander “Ted” Wingfield notched the final strikeout of his major league career and the only strikeout he recorded in 74½ innings of pitching that season. Wingfield’s one strikeout in 74½ in­nings, or .12 […]

The result of the prior year’s conflict between the two major circuits ended with the demise of the American Association.1 It was also the death of a favorable two-league balance for all concerned. Specifically, that meant the interleague rivalry both on the diamond and through the turnstiles that previously produced the ballplayers’ edge in the […]

Upon the conclusion of the 1889 season, attention in baseball shifted to preparations for the coming war between the owners and players. The Brotherhood, its complaints heard but basically unaddressed, positioned itself for a break with the principals of the National League and the American Association. Although the Association was clearly affected by the events […]

  Doug Glanville in his new baseball memoir notes that many players, “rewarded with huge contracts because of their offensive prowess, . . . have developed a kind of attention deficit disorder when it comes to defense. . . . If you put up tremendous offensive numbers year after year, the game will cut you […]

In 1922, the New York Yankees played the New York Giants in the World Series; the majors produced three .400 hitters; Rogers Hornsby won the Triple Crown; and Organized Baseball reached the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Baseball had long been a popular pastime on the Shore. Almost every town supported a team, and competition among […]

The Houston Astrodome was the first fully enclosed, air-conditioned major-league ballpark. It was formally unveiled in an exhibition game that pitted the Houston Astros against the American League champion New York Yankees on April 9, 1965. Unlike previous sports venues, the Astrodome was built to be a massive all-purpose, climate-controlled facility that would serve as […]

Shigeo Nagashima of the Yomiuri Giants and Boog Powell. (Robert Fitts Collection)   Matsutaro Shoriki spent four decades dreaming of an international World Series matching the champion team of American baseball and that of the Japanese. He created Japan’s greatest team, sponsored by his newspaper and known over the years as either the Tokyo or […]

As major league baseball grew throughout the late nineteenth century, a limited number of players earned national recognition for their on-the-field prowess. From that small group emerged an even smaller number who also had charisma and became the equivalent of today’s rock stars. Especially noteworthy was Paterson’s Mike “King” Kelly, considered by some to be […]

Of the major league teams that trace their history before 1960, most started out with several short-term unofficial nicknames or even no nickname at all. Although several reputable sources provide a history of these nicknames, there are numerous contradictions between the available sources, and sometimes even when these sources agree, they conflict with the original […]