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Most fans with a sense of history know a fair bit about Johnny Sain. Of course, they know all about the doggerel that goes something like “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” They know, too, that he won 20 or more games four times in his war-shortened career, and that he won one of […]

Alex Gordon was held at third instead of sent home with the potential tying run in Game Seven of the 2014 World Series. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   No sooner had Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez popped up for the last out in the 2014 World Series, the pundits, second-guessers, arm-chair managers, […]

Babe Ruth is handed a 10-gallon Stetson hat by Dallas Mayor Jimmie Stetson (right) upon his arrival at Love Field on July 8, 1947. A joyous Claire Ruth (left) looks on. (Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library)   Babe Ruth’s plane landed at Love Field in Dallas on the afternoon of Tuesday, July […]

Stan Musial looks forward to another game at the Polo Grounds. Musial smashed 49 home runs at that ballpark, more than he hit at any other opposition park. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Jan Finkel begins his SABR biography of Stan Musial with a quote from the great broadcaster Vin Scully: “How good was Stan Musial? He […]

Lenny Randle (SABR-Rucker Archive)   WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU? Reality check: Playing professional baseball is a job. It requires supreme skill, demanding hours, cultural fit, and a balancing act to win approval from demanding, unpredictable bosses who control when you play, even if you’ll be traded. The pressure can become overwhelming. When you feel […]

In February 2021, SABR member Rich Campbell observed that the San Francisco Giants might utilize a lineup during the 2021 baseball season where all of the players on the field were over 30 years old. This observation prompted Ben Lindbergh, the cohost of Effectively Wild (the FanGraphs podcast), to explore the over-30 lineup question in […]

Other pennant races have been undecided longer, had more participants, and perhaps other cities have been as involved with their teams as was St. Louis in 1922, but for the lasting effect it had on the future of a franchise, probably no race could match the impact of the one between the New York Yankees […]

Who deserves to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and who does not? The Hall of Fame electors wrestle with this question every year. The selection process for players causes controversy on an annual basis, but the institution, since its inception, has also grappled with the issue of recognition for non-playing contributors. Some […]

The 1936 Black Panthers. Charlie Culver is the first on the left, sitting. (Jerry Cohen, Ebbets Field Flannels)   The reception that Jackie Robinson received in Montréal is well known. A few years later, the Provincial League became a prime destination for Negro League veterans. Many factors can explain how that came to be, but […]

On Saturday, the tenth of September in 1881 at Albany, New York, the Troy and Worcester teams of the National League played a championship game. In the early days of League baseball, especially late in the season, it was considered good promotion to play a game on neutral ground for the publicity value and in hopes […]

The Twenties were still “Roaring,” Lindbergh was in Paris, Coolidge in Washington and Prohibition was the law of the land as Americans celebrated Decoration Day in 1927. It was the “Golden Age of Sport” and newspapers heralded the exploits of Grange, Dempsey, Tilden and Jones. In baseball the New York Yankees were hammering their way […]

Baltimoreans strolling on Eutaw Street outside Oriole Park before a home game may stop for a bite to eat and kibbitz with owners of the establishments. It’s not an unusual sight. But one owner happens to be a civic icon—John Wesley Powell. Boog. The slugger who bashed 339 home runs in the majors does more […]

Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Til Huston realized early in their partnership that New York wouldn’t tolerate anything less than a championship team. Ruppert had a championship in mind when he hired Miller Huggins to manage the club in 1918. According to Ruppert: “Huggins had vision. Getting him was the first and most important step […]

For two days in the summer of 1971, Tom Seaver dueled with another dominant hurler, splitting the games by scores of 1–0 and 2–1. Red Foley, writing for the Daily News, rhapsodized about this matchup, comparing it favorably to legendary contests between Dizzy Dean and Carl Hubbell, Mort Cooper and Whit Wyatt, and Christy Mathewson […]

That folks in the Rochester, N.Y. area would play eager hosts to aspiring athletes was established once and for all time as early as Nov. 13, 1829. Sam Patch, the vaunted falls-jumper, fresh from a triumphant plunge off Goat Island into the Niagara River, appeared before 8,000 adoring fans on the banks of the Genesee […]

  Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.   Stories about Roberto Clemente are numerous. He is much more than a man who died at age 38 in a plane crash carrying humanitarian aid to Nicaragua. In the half-century since his untimely death, Clemente has transcended to cultural icon and been honored with numerous public remembrances. Public […]

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 […]

The 1876 London Tecumsehs. Early curve bailer Fred Goldsmith is seated front row, second from left. (Canadian Illustrated News, July 15, 1876)   1876: A seminal year in baseball. Club owners and organizers recognized the necessity of providing increased stability and an opportunity to elevate the game of baseball on a national level by establishing […]

This is (roughly) the tenth anniversary of the transfer of a unique and valuable baseball property. On September 6, 2000, Major League Baseball and Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP (a very big and very prominent Philadelphia-based international law firm)1 issued a joint press release announcing “that the law firm has transferred its domain name—mlb.com—to Major […]

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 […]