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Eighty-six years. Decades of near-misses and long-shot losses that kept a World Series win out of reach of the Boston Red Sox. Years turned into decades and – occasionally – a near-miss tantalized the team and fans. What could possibly have been the reason for all the misfortune? Waiting until next year became an old, […]

The Chicago Cubs’ latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 […]

George Shuba greets Jackie Robinson at home plate on April 18, 1946. (Courtesy of Greg Gulas, Carrie Anderson, Mike Shuba)   INTRODUCTION In 1946 as a member of the Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson played his first game in Organized Baseball at Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium. It was a memorable occasion as Jersey City gave him […]

In a companion article, “The Authorized Correction of Errors in Runs Scored in the Official Records (1920–44) for Detroit Tigers Players“, I described my findings on the accuracy of Major League Baseball’s official runs-scored statistics for each Detroit Tigers player from 1920 through 1944. I discovered and corrected 57 runs-scored errors affecting 37 players, including […]

What makes these Detroit Tigers uniform numbers — 2, 5, 6, 16, and 23 — special? Nearly every Tigers fan knows the answer to this question — each of those uniform numbers has been retired, in honor of Charlie Gehringer (2), Hank Greenberg (5), Al Kaline (6), Hal Newhouser (16), and Willie Horton (23). Each of these […]

Babe Ruth meets Yale baseball player George H.W. Bush in 1948. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   George Herbert Walker Bush began the first year of his term as the 41st President of the United States of America on January 20, 1989. Then, just seventy-three days later (on April 3, 1989), he carried out […]

Red Lucas had three strong points as a National League player in the 1920s and 1930s. He had excellent control as a pitcher, the best for any hurler in his era; he completed most of the games he started, having the best record in the NL since 1920; and he was a very good hitter, […]

The American national pastime of bat-and-ball games, played under various names since the colonial era, was formalized to a previously unprecedented degree by the end of the Civil War (1861–65) under the name of “base ball,” as the version played in the Greater New York City (GNYC) area. the Register of Interclub Matches (RIM1) lists […]

Using machine learning, AlphaGo taught itself the game of Go, and in 2016 beat 18-time world champion Lee Sedol. Pictured here is Go professional Michael Redmond providing a play-by-play commentary on the AlphaGo/Sedol match. (DEEPMIND)   Baseball is a sport steeped in tradition, but there are relatively new and rapidly developing technologies that are already […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989). “In the vast range of baseball novels boys’ books written by men like John Tunis to adult novels written by men like Bernard Malamud, women for the most part have been either complaisant wives or stupid bimbos — or perhaps sexual […]

Mets Music When the New York Mets debuted in 1962, so did a song. More than a sonic icon, “Meet the Mets” is a member of the pantheon of Mets hallmarks occupied by Shea Stadium, Mr. Met, and the mantra “Ya Gotta Believe!” As any devotee of the blue and orange will tell you, “Meet […]

This interview by Ron Anderson was originally published in SABR’s “Can He Play? A Look at Baseball Scouts and Their Profession” (2011), edited by Jim Sandoval and Bill Nowlin. Interviews were conducted on January 18, 20, and 29, 2007. RA: You’re a former scout of the Boston Red Sox. GD: Yes. I started with them […]

Roberto Clemente with the Montreal Royals in 1954. (Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)   This article focuses on Roberto Clemente’s season in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization – his first in a major-league organization. The subject of the Dodgers “hiding” Clemente from other major-league clubs has been researched and debated by baseball scholars and writers.1 This […]

The team that finally won the World Series for Boston, for the first time in 86 years, was not a homegrown team, a product of a robust Red Sox farm system. Of the 25 players on the postseason roster, only two had come up in the system – Trot Nixon and Kevin Youkilis. Five were […]

As part of the National League expansion in 1962, a franchise was awarded to New York City. From 1962 to the current day the Metropolitans’ ownership has been fairly stable. Joan Payson and her family maintained control of the club until they sold the team in 1980 to the publishing firm Doubleday and Co. Nelson […]

While the New York Yankees had a wife swap between pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich in Florida in March of 1973, the Oakland A’s went about the business of getting ready to defend a world championship in Arizona. The only snag was that the A’s had no experience as world champions. The organization had […]

Today a specter hangs over the Giants’ miraculous 1951 season. Their incredible end-of-season heroics are now clouded. Though rumored at the time, it was not revealed as fact until a half-century later: The Giants had been stealing the opposing team’s catcher’s signs. Signs are arguably as old as baseball itself. In any ballgame there is […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Vol. 1 (1986).   The literature on the New York Yankees is presumably indicative of baseball literature generally, except’ of course, that Yankee literature, like Yankee tradition, Yankee Stadium, Yankee uniforms and Yankee hot dogs, has a pinch or two of special interest, the […]

Chicago’s first professional baseball club was founded following the 1869 season. Prior to that season, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) had changed its rules from mandating exclusively amateur play to allowing clubs to declare themselves professional. A dozen or so organizations took advantage of this. The Cincinnati Base Ball Club (widely called […]

As a New York Yankee in the late-Joe DiMaggio, early-Mickey Mantle era, Bobby Brown sprayed line drives, an appropriate style of hitting for a man whose life has turned out to be a line drive of constant achievement in many directions. The ballplayer, cardiologist, highly-demanded banquet speaker, and current American League President is the only […]

Introduction In September 2005 the confirmation hearings of John Roberts as the nominee for chief justice of the United States included an unexpected but telling nod to the national pastime when Roberts observed, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; […]

While the San Diego Padres experienced only two World Series in the half-century after their 1969 founding, they did have a long and storied history of relief pitching: three Hall of Fame careers; a Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young Award winner; and the 2004 denouement of a tragic figure. The first Padre […]

One of baseball’s most exciting plays comes when a batter unexpectedly drops a bunt down the third base line. The third baseman charges in frantically and, with no margin for error, usually tries to barehand the ball. The batter is tearing down the first base line as fast as his legs will carry him, and […]

On February 20, 1859, William Cauldwell, National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) convention delegate and secretary of the Union Base Ball Club of Morrisania, NABBP Rules Committee member, and editor/publisher of the New York Sunday Mercury, printed a notice of the Association’s impending second annual convention, scheduled to open on March 9. The notice […]