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Mislabeling all winter baseball played in California as “California Winter League” ignores the uneven color lines that existed in that time and place.

At SABR’s 2006 convention one speaker analyzed the commissioners of baseball and rated Judge Landis the best of all. In the question-and-answer session that followed, a member of the audience challenged the speaker: “How can you stand here in the year 2006 and praise Landis, who was so instrumental in keeping blacks out of Major […]

John Tortes Meyers (left) of the New York Giants and Charles Albert Bender of the Philadelphia Athletics (right) pose before the first game of the 1911 World Series, deemed the “Indian versus Indian” series by sports writers. Like other Native American players of the era they were given the nickname “Chief.” (Bain Collection, Library of […]

This essay, which was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game, is modified only slightly from the keynote speech delivered at the 12th Annual Seymour Medal Conference, in Cleveland, April 27–29, 2007. The presentation theme of the conference was “How Did […]

The New York Times heralded the approaching start of the base-ball season in March 1871 by announcing that “the ball-fields of the metropolis will again become the scene of interesting contests—unless the weather should prove unusually inauspicious.”1 In Cleveland and Chicago, base-ball clubs and their fans also kept an impatient eye on the weather and […]

The 1949 Drummondville Cubs, Quebec Provincial League champions. Left to right: Gerry Cotnoir, Roy Zimmerman, Roger Bréard, Quincy Trouppe, Len Hooker, Sal Maglie, Conrado Perez, Roberto Vargas, Joe Promowicz (Prom), Joe luminelli, Danny Gardella, Stan Bréard, Vic Power, Ernie Sawyer. (Collection of Daniel Papillon)   George Gmelch, then playing for the Drummondville Royals, recalled a […]

The morning of October 4, 1905, broke as had many other early autumn days over the prior four decades: with baseball teams locked in the throes of a pennant race. This season it was Charles Comiskey’s White Stockings of Chicago pitted against Connie Mack’s Athletics of Philadelphia in the nascent American League, and unlike some […]

Five former Yankees players and staff shared their thoughts on working in the renovated Yankee Stadium. I chose them because of the wide-ranging and different perspectives they had working and playing in the Stadium during their careers in baseball. Some of these players and staff were on teams that won the World Series and others […]

In the 1970s, the very time when players and umpires gained wealth and power, baseball’s field managers’ status declined as they became wretched scapegoats to be sacrificed to the bloodlust of victory-starved fans. True, sacking the manager was a time-honored ploy; whenever rumblings of fan discontent erupted, a manager was bumped off as virgins in […]

In a blog post of March 23, 2008 (“Do Players Turn ‘Clutch’ When Chasing a Personal Goal?” sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com), I speculated about the anomaly, discovered by Bill James, that there are more 20-game winners than 19-game winners in the major leagues. That is the only case, between 0 and 30, where a higher-win season happens more […]

He was forever young on his baseball card—6-foot-2, with a square jaw, and a passing resemblance to Mickey Mantle. He was 24, and I was in the third grade. It was the summer of 1963. I never minded that he set a record for strikeouts in a single season that year, which is how many […]

The Havana Sugar Kings played in the International League between 1954 and 1960. It was a short existence, but a memorable one. The Sugar Kings began with hopes of a major league franchise, experienced a shooting during a home game and a political revolution, won the International League’s Governor’s Cup and the Junior World Series, […]

“Television is not only just what the doctor ordered for Negro performers; television subtly has supplied ten-league boots to the Negro in his fight to win what the Constitution of this country guarantees as his birthright.” — Ed Sullivan1   Jackie Robinson appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 20, 1962. (Courtesy of Ed […]

Nolan Ryan celebrates his 7th no-hitter on May 1, 1991. (MLB.COM)   A pitcher usually needs good command and quality stuff to toss a no-hitter.1 Stellar fielding and a dollop of good luck doesn’t hurt, either. A bad-hop single or a flare off the end of the bat that falls for a hit is all […]

The Oakland A’s were the pride of the American League West as winter turned to spring in 1972. The 1971 A’s had become just the second team to win the Western title, after the Minnesota Twins claimed the honor in the first two seasons following the adoption of divisional play in 1969. But the A’s […]

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 greatest pitcher I have ever seen,” whispered John McGraw as he shoved his way through a jostling home­ bound crowd after watching “Cannonball” Jackman strike out eighteen batters in nine innings. That whisper spread from ear to ear and finally developed into a roar, for certainly the famed former New York Giants pilot should […]

Walter O’Malley, center, shown with Jersey City officials, announced that, in 1956 through 1958, the Dodgers would play seven games each season in Jersey City and would have the option to continue the agreement for three years beyond that.   INTRODUCTION  The Dodgers are playing the Yankees at Yankee Stadium in Game 7 of the […]

On Larry Tye’s 2009 biography of Paige and Timothy M. Gay’s 2010 book on the barnstorming tours of Paige, Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller.

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem during a 2016 preseason game to protest police violence against black people in America, all hell broke loose. Voices of praise and condemnation rained down. Passion often trumped reason. The “conversation” remains heated, while complicated criminal justice problems remain unsolved. Is […]

The 1934 All-Americans outside Nagoya Castle (Yoko Suzuki Collection)   Katsusuke Nagasaki’s breath billowed as he loitered outside the Yomiuri newspaper’s Tokyo offices. The morning of February 22, 1935 was chilly. But that was good; nobody would look twice at his bulky overcoat. Matsutaro Shoriki, the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun, was late. Nagasaki strolled […]