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He was 22 years old and considered one of the wealthier men in the game.1 At 5-feet-11-inches tall and with looks that made the ladies swoon, he was described as “the alleged Adonis of the ball players.”2 Jack Remsen entered the National Association in 1872 and would remain in the game for 20 years. In […]
Baseball’s Sad Lexicon By Franklin Pierce Adams These are the saddest of possible words: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double — Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: “Tinker to […]
Of the thirteen World Series (1903-1917) covered by Philadelphia sportswriter Billy Weart, the most important was in 1908. Non-writers overcrowded the press box, causing the scribes to form the Base Ball Writers’ Association, with the goal of securing ballpark creature comforts in the press facilities, which were often congested with fans who were unwilling to […]
Branch Rickey was “a man of strange complexities, not to mention downright contradictions,” wrote the New York Times’ John Drebinger. The great decision to break baseball’s policy of excluding blacks, for which he is justly praised, has, in recent decades, tended to overwhelm the highly negative image he had earned before that decision. He went […]
Pea Ridge Day was a big, strong Arkansas farmboy. If he hadn’t already had a colorful nickname denoting his hometown, he surely would have been dubbed Rube. Despite his entries in the baseball encyclopedias, Clyde Day wasn’t born in Pea Ridge, or Arkansas for that matter. Day grew up in Pea Ridge, though, and brought […]
Was the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 a major league? If you answer “yes” to this question, Art Queisser was a major-league umpire, by virtue of having worked a four-game FL series between the St. Louis Terriers and Kansas City Packers from September 2 through 4, 1914. Queisser’s stint as an umpire capped his […]
Catcher Billy Colgan appeared in 48 big-league games in the summer of 1884 for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys of the American Association before moving to the Pacific Northwest. Later, after his tragic death, he became the first former major leaguer buried in the state of Montana. According to baseball historian Jim Price, William H. Colgan was […]
It is a sports cliché that records are made to be broken. But in baseball, changing times and modern playing strategies seem to have put certain major-league bests permanently out of reach. The holders of unapproachable all-time records include immortals like Cy Young, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Zip Zabel, … Zip Zabel? Indeed, just as […]
“Farmer” Bell entered pro baseball later in life. He was 29 when he first toed the rubber with the Amsterdam-Johnstown-Gloversville Hyphens of the New York State League in 1904. Before that he had made a name for himself as an amateur player in South Central New York. Making an immediate impact with the team, he […]
When former Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee died on June 4, 1929, Red Sox president Bob Quinn ordered that the American flag at Fenway Park be flown at half-staff in his memory. In the many obituaries that appeared in Boston newspapers at the time, most noted that during Frazee’s tenure the Red Sox won […]
Tony Gwynn is clearly Mr. Padre. Perhaps Kevin Towers should be called Top Friar. Towers bled brown and orange. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres as a pitcher, pitched in their minor-league system for eight years, became a scout and minor-league pitching coach for the club, was promoted to director of scouting, and […]
The Homestead Grays were a dominant force in Negro League baseball from 1926 to 1948. While the faces and muscles of this franchise were Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, the heart and soul of the Homestead Grays was feisty player-manager Vic Harris, who was known and admired by teammates and opponents alike […]
He was known as “The Tall Tactician” and was baseball’s grand old gentleman for more than a generation. Statuesque, stately, and slim, he clutched a rolled-up scorecard as he sat or stood ramrod straight in the dugout, attired in a business suit rather than a uniform, a derby or bowler in place of a baseball […]
Donald Wayne Hankins, a tall, lanky right-hander who suffered a broken elbow as a teenager, enjoyed an 11-year professional baseball career — including ten seasons in the minors — during the 1920s. Hankins finished with a lifetime minor league record of 75-87. But during the four seasons he hurled in the Double-A (the highest classification […]
In May 1951, a brief Associated Press dispatch noted the death of old-time left-handed pitcher Ezra Lincoln. Curiously left unmentioned was anything about the deceased’s playing days. Rather, the dispatch focused on his mid-season release by the 1890 Cleveland Spiders, which opened up the roster spot that the club then allotted to a baseball immortal […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) May 2019 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors Guest Columnist: Bill Nowlin From the Editor Update on BioProject Submissions Project Poobahs From Co-Directors Rory Costello and Gregory H. Wolf Change to BioProject Workflow As part of […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) November 2019 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors Update on BioProject Submissions Let’s be Sociable! From the Editor Project Poobahs From Co-Directors, Rory Costello and Gregory H. Wolf New Head of Fact-Checking Team Warren Corbett recently informed […]
Last Saturday, November 8, was a great meeting for the East Tennessee Chapter of SABR. Lots of good baseball talk, a bit of business, two authors talking about their books (Gerald C. Wood on Smoky Joe Wood and Bryan Steverson on Baseball: A Special Gift from God). It was our highest attended chapter meeting, including […]
Barely more than one square mile in size and with about 15,000 residents, Harrison, New Jersey, was an improbable site for the construction of a new major-league ballpark in early 1915. But timing, circumstance, and geography were all the impetus needed for the erection of spacious Harrison Park. In its maiden year, the new ballpark […]
William Edward White’s 1879 appearance for Providence made him the first Black player to play in a major league game. He played on Brown University’s 1879 championship baseball team. White is sitting directly behind the man in the suit holding the bat. An answer commonly given to the question of who was the first […]
Following their “Miracle” National League pennant and World Series championship in 1914,1 the Boston Braves had slipped to seventh place by 1920. Skipper George Stallings was still at the helm, but that changed in 1921. When Stallings resigned in November 1920 to purchase a part-interest in the Rochester Colts of the International League,2 the Braves […]
Brooklyn Dodgers skipper Walter “Smoky” Alston was on edge. Though his club (80-45) was in first place, leading the Milwaukee Braves by 10 games, they had been playing terribly and had lost 12 of their last 18 contests. To shake up his team, he tabbed 19-year-old Sandy Koufax to start the final contest of a […]
In 1940 baseball was truly America’s national game. But it was played at the major-league level by 16 teams in only 11 cities, none west of St. Louis or south of Cincinnati.1 Minor-league baseball proliferated over the rest of the country, with 39 leagues in six classifications, designated Class AA through Class D. For a […]
On the first Thursday of June in 1954, it seemed that everyone in the National League was in contention for the pennant. Just 4½ games separated seven teams. Only the eighth-place Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t have a shot. Because of rainouts in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Chicago, the game between the New York Giants and St. Louis […]