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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 […]

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 […]

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; […]

Cardinals general manager Frank Lane nearly traded Stan Musial to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1956. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   It seems almost unfathomable to think of Stan Musial as anything but a St. Louis Cardinal. Few players are as completely intertwined with the history and identity of a team as Musial is with the Cardinals. A […]

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 […]

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 […]

The history of baseball in America has always been closely tied to the history of race in America. The progression of baseball from an exclusionary sport to a beacon for integration and eventually to a global game has paralleled our country’s movement from slavery to the civil rights movement to modern day multiculturalism. While the […]

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 […]

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 Arlington Hotel, a spring training hotspot for two decades. (Author’s collection)   From 1900 to 1941 as many as seven major league teams held spring training in Texas. San Antonio was the preferred Texas locale. Marlin, in central Texas near Waco, was second. The Alamo City hosted for 29 seasons; Marlin for 16.1 For […]

Lou Gehrig, born 101 seasons ago, would never have made the claim, but let’s credit him with the best 10-season batting record in major league history if you don’t mind. It happened from 1927 through 1936 when baseball offense had a heyday. In a compilation of the finest 10-season performers from 1901 through 2003, Gehrig places in seven of […]

Ask any resident of Eau Claire if any Hall of Fame baseball players got their start in their Western Wisconsin city, and you will likely hear a story about Henry Aaron and his storybook 1952 season. Or you can view the bronze statue featuring the likeness of the young slugger, wearing his not so famous […]

Ford Frick, president of the National League in 1947, is not the first person who comes to mind concerning Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball, though he deserves more consideration than he has been given. While no other individual rivals the role played by Branch Rickey in breaking the game’s color barrier, other than […]

Lobby card for “Kill the Umpire” (1950) starring William Bendix. (Author’s collection)   Most baseball fans would agree that the best umpire is the invisible umpire. Sure, the umps on the field ensure that the rules of the game are followed. They call balls and strikes. They determine if the fielder who dives for the […]

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 […]

This article was originally published in “St. Louis’s Favorite Sport,” the 1992 SABR convention journal.   When Miller Huggins found he couldn’t own the Cardinals—or at least a good hunk of them—he opted for a job for which he had been recommended by Ban Johnson, the founder of the American League, and endorsed by J. […]

Introduction and Context The 2001 Winter Meetings were held in Boston at the Marriott Copley Place Hotel from Sunday, December 9, to Friday. December 14. This was the second time the city had played host to the meetings, the first time being just five years earlier, in 1996. Commissioner Bud Selig’s announcement, made soon after […]

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. Twelve managers have won more games than Bill McKechnie. None has won more respect. Deacon Bill McKechnie was the first to lead three different teams to the World Series and the […]

Whitey Kurowski, Marty Marion, Stan Musial, and Ray Sanders get together during the 1944 World Series against the St. Louis Browns. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Stan Musial was involved in 13 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals as a player, member of the front office, and later as the team’s senior ambassador – Mr. Cardinal. […]

This appendix is related to the article, “Women’s Baseball in Nineteenth-Century New York and the Man Who Set Back Women’s Professional Baseball for Decades,” by Debra Shattuck. This appendix is related to the article, “Women’s Baseball in Nineteenth-Century New York and the Man Who Set Back Women’s Professional Baseball for Decades,” by Debra Shattuck.   […]