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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Catcher Wilson Ramos is one of many athletes who have undergone LASIK surgery during their professional careers. He had the surgery performed in 2016, according to published reports. (Trading Card Database)   Since the 1990s there have been increased reports of prominent athletes undergoing refractive surgery including laser assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). Some refractive […]

“Free-agent frenzy.”1 “Meat Market.”2 Negotiations dominated by “fast-talking, greedy little men.”3 Memories of the 1992 Winter Meetings in Louisville, Kentucky, were unvaryingly ugly. Over a tumultuous four days, baseball’s annual gathering had dissolved into nightmarish chaos and sent major-league executives running. Among the worst incidents, the Rev. Jesse Jackson denounced baseball’s “institutional racism,” threatening to […]

Between the years 1888 and 1891, the National League Philadelphia Phillies lost two prominent ballplayers on what promised to be contending teams. In an age when the life expectancy for American men was 46 to 53, it was surprising to see athletically-fit young men in their mid-twenties die before their expectant lifespan.1 This fate, however, […]

It has become almost as rare as the major-league Triple Crown, and even more so than its statistical opposite of a pitcher winning 20 games in a single season. Since 1980, there has been only one pitcher who lost 20 games in a single season—21 to be exact—and there is no reason to think baseball […]

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. When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1918, it was their fifth triumph in the fifteen years of the modern classic. The club had the best player in […]

Choices … Decisions: A player has already connected for one double, one triple, and one homer in the game and needs only a simple single in his next plate appearance to achieve the cherished cycle—one of baseball’s rarest accomplishments and one that will inscribe his name permanently in the record books. If he comes through […]

From 1920 to 1958, baseball fans across the Deep South and Southwest looked forward to the annual Dixie Series, a best-of-seven postseason matchup between the playoff champions of the Southern Association and the Texas League. In 1967, after an 8-year hiatus, owners in the Double-A Texas League and the newly created Southern League resurrected the […]

Dodger Stadium has been home to the Los Angeles Dodgers since 1962 (Courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers)   Baseball is at one and the same time an idyllic game for children and a gravely serious business for adults. A sport that can be played on a pastoral commons requires, in the world of commerce, […]

If the business of baseball seemed bleak following the previous season, the 1893-1894 offseason started from a different place in attitudes toward the business of baseball. Following the upheaval of recent seasons, Sporting Life proclaimed, “Both artistically and financially the season was the most successful since 1889.”1 Just as the negative outlook following the 1892 […]

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. “When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.” — Lord Kelvin “One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter […]

Cy Young said he didn’t have the speed he once had but could still “lob a hook up there.” (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   The reader probably knows that Cy Young is baseball’s all-time winningest pitcher with 511 victories and that his 22-year career ranks as one of the greatest in baseball history. […]

From left to right: Takehiko Bessho, Eddie Lopat, Joe DiMaggio, and Tetsuharu Kawakami. (Rob Fitts Collection)   In 1951 American troops still occupied Japan, but their mission had shifted. Rather than seeing the country as a former enemy to be subjugated, Japan was now viewed as an ally in the fight against communism. As the […]

On June 10, 1944, during the ninth inning of a 13-0 blowout, an event occurred that is known to many fans with at least a passing knowledge of baseball history: Joe Nuxhall, at a mere 15 years and 316 days of age, made his way into an actual regular-season major league game, becoming the youngest […]

Individually and collectively, baseball and advertising may be said to hold a mirror up to America. The image in the glass, however, is not always pretty. For the first century of its history, with very few early exceptions, “American” as defined by Organized Baseball, did not extend to those of African descent. As has been […]