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Stan Hack, who spent his entire big-league career (1932 –47) with the Chicago Cubs, was one of baseball’s all-time top leadoff batters.1 In 1931, playing with the Sacramento Solons, he compiled a .352 batting average and earned the nickname “Smiling Stan.” As Edward Burns wrote in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, “No matter how hard […]

There are two main objectives for the hitter.  The first is to not make an out and the second is to hit for distance. Long-ball hitting is normally measured by slugging average. Not making an out can be expressed in terms of on base average (OBA), where:       OBA    =  Hits + Walks […]

Entering the 1920 season, the defending American League champion Chicago White Sox were not favored to repeat. Almost all experts picked Cleveland, who’d finished second in 1919. The prognosticators cited Chicago’s poor performance in the 1919 Series, doubts about the team’s pitching depth, the retirement of first baseman Chick Gandil, and suspicions that the Sox […]

When quintessential baseball buff Douglas Heeren first approached me about a player named Ducky Holmes, I failed to grasp the depth of the subject. Pointing out my misidentification of Ducky in a team photo in my book about baseball in Northwest Iowa, Heeren simply wanted to set the record straight.1 A young man from rural […]

Star shortstop Dick Lundy was on the Hilldale team that played against the Boston Red Sox on September 14, 1918, just a week after the World Series ended. (HELMAR ART CARDS)   “Every one of the 16 Major League franchises that operated between 1901 and 1960 faced a black team at some point in their […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume III (1988).   If academic dissertations on baseball literature and baseball history provide a fruitful scholarly resource, this is not yet common knowledge among our active baseball researchers. Confirmation of the anonymity surrounding this rich body of work is provided in a curious […]

David Ortiz holds the 2004 World Series trophy during the victory parade in Boston. (Courtesy of Bill Nowlin)   It’s not unusual for a championship team to show off some hard-won hardware. The Stanley Cup of the National Hockey League famously travels from player to player in the offseason, making public appearances along the way. […]

IN 1954, the Washington Senators were an abominable team They finished the season ensconced in sixth place in the American League, with a 66—88 record. The previous year, they were a fifth-place ballclub, completing the campaign at 76—76. In 1952, they also ended up in fifth place, with a 78—76 mark. In mid-decade, Ernest Barcella, […]

Editor’s note: This column was originally published in the SABR Deadball Era Research Committee’s April 2015 newsletter. In lore, the Deadball Era is often remembered for teams’ aggressive play and steadfast reliance on the stolen base. With home runs being rare, the employment of speed and daring on the bases shaped this period more than […]

  Actor Chadwick Boseman portrayed Jackie Robinson in “42: The True Story of An American Legend,” released in 2013.   Jackie Robinson was one of the most complicated men to ever play the game, and so it is no surprise that fictional representations of him largely fail to fully capture this nuanced hero. His is […]

Johnny Ritchey broke the Pacific Coast League’s color barrier with the San Diego Padres in 1948. (COURTESY OF BILL SWANK)   On March 30, 2005, the Padres unveiled a bust of Johnny Ritchey at the recently opened Petco Park, two years after his death. On February 21, 2017, Ritchey was inducted into the Breitbard Hall […]

The yardstick for enshrinement in Cooperstown is generally determined by a player’s ability to dominate a decade. Dale Murphy more than met that standard. Crippled by recurring knee problems that required mid-career surgery, Murphy retired with 398 home runs—one fewer than first-ballot inductee Al Kaline and 16 more than 2009 inductee Jim Rice. When he […]

  Several players on the 1919 Chicago White Sox agreed to lose that year’s World Series, earning the nickname “Black Sox.” Their manager William (“Kid”) Gleason said publicly after the Series that “something was wrong. I didn’t like the betting odds. I wish no one had ever bet a dollar on the team.”1 Gleason had […]

Editor’s Note: On this page, Parts One and Two, which were published separately in the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 issues of the Baseball Research Journal, are combined into one article as the author intended. Sandy Koufax (SABR-Rucker Archive)   American Jews have long had a love affair with baseball. They have played baseball since […]

The 1874 Guelph Maple Leafs, George Sleeman center. (Harper’s Weekly, September 12, 1874)   Baseball’s rise in the nineteenth century featured a storied cast of characters in a variety of locales. It is perhaps a reflection of the prototypically humble Canadian persona that the early “dynasties” north of the border were not from the larger metropolitan […]

Birmingham Black Barons center fielder Willie Mays was not originally who scout Ed Montague was looking at for the New York Giants.1 On Alex Pompez’s recommendation to the Giants’ director of minor league operations, Jack Schwartz, he was looking at Barons first baseman Alonzo Perry for the Sioux City (Iowa) Soos, the Giants’ Class-A affiliate […]

The 2010 draft was broadcast nationally in prime time, the third year in a row that Major League Baseball had put its draft on TV. Its top talent, Las Vegas sensation Bryce Harper, was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was just sixteen. As that draft approached, the star of the 2009 draft, […]

Baseball played a big part in Ernest Hemingway’s life. The subject was featured in many of his novels and short stories, including A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. One game that he attended in 1918 was so meaningful to him that he kept the ticket stub with him throughout his […]

“With the bases full Foley caught the sphere fair on the end of his ash and away it went over the left field fence for a home run.”1 This first-inning grand slam on May 25, 1882, by Buffalo Bisons outfielder Charles “Curry” Foley sparked a 20–1 rout over the rival Cleveland Blues. Along the way, […]

This is a list of all pitchers from 1969 to 2010 who have made an appearance at another position in the field. It is supplemental material to Philippe Cousineau’s article, “Pitchers in the Field: The Use of Pitchers at Other Positions in the Major Leagues, 1969–2009″, in the Fall 2011 Baseball Research Journal.   Date […]

  In 1904 when Tyrus Raymond Cobb arrived on the professional baseball scene, his first name was not at all well known. In fact, most fans had never even heard of anyone with that particular name—Ty himself apparently among them. That was to change in short order, however, as Tyrus Cobb’s fame spread nationally within […]

He spent 20 years as a professional umpire, baseball’s loneliest profession, passing judgment on the performances of the game’s great athletes and egos. Many people have pursued this particular job, but Emmett Ashford had the added burden of breaking racial barriers throughout his career, as a black man whose job required maintaining authority over white […]

In 1954, the Washington Senators were an abominable team. They finished the season ensconced in sixth place in the American League, with a 66–88 record. The previous year, they were a fifth-place ballclub, completing the campaign at 76–76. In 1952, they also ended up in fifth place, with a 78–76 mark. In mid-decade, Ernest Barcella, […]

When the Senators moved from Washington to Minnesota in 1961 the roster that became the Twins included an incredible combination of young, established stars and MLB-ready prospects. Harmon Killebrew was already one of baseball’s elite sluggers at age 24, catcher Earl Battey and right fielder Bob Allison were among their respective positions’ top players at […]