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The Ballpark at Old Orchard Beach, as pictured in 2023. (Courtesy of Kurt Blumenau)   Before there was The Ballpark at Arlington, The Ballpark at Jackson, The Ballpark at Harbor Yard or The Ballpark at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, there was simply The Ballpark, in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.1 The pine-bordered park with the […]

Edited by Bill Staples Jr. and Eric Robinson, Committee Co-Chairs  IN THIS ISSUE Asian Baseball during the COVID-19 Pandemic Baseball in Japan during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Tribute: Katsuya Nomura (1935-2020) Sports Illustrated Features Issei Baseball Celebrating the Legacy of Negro Leaguers in Japan Talking Ichiro with Tim Kurkjian On the horizon (future activities) Related […]

Jason Davis, a 6-foot-6-inch right-handed fireballer, pitched in seven seasons from 2002 through 2008 for Cleveland Indians, Seattle Mariners, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Known for a high-velocity sinking fastball in the upper 90s, Davis in 2003 led all American League rookie pitchers in innings pitched (165⅓), his first full season. Indians pitching coach Mike Brown compared […]

Baseball nirvana landed in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 15, 1981. And it landed smack-dab on the pitching mound. For the Cleveland Indians, a major-league franchise that was a consistent nonfactor for most of the 1960s into the 1990s, to be king of the mountain for even one day was heavenly. Len Barker gave that feeling […]

In a 1973 SABR survey, Birdie Tebbetts narrowly missed being chosen Vermont’s greatest baseball player, finishing second to Larry Gardner by a mere handful of votes. In almost every respect, Tebbetts was a solid candidate: a lifetime .270 hitter, Birdie amassed exactly 1,000 hits in a career that spanned 17 years, three of which were […]

“What do [you] think of Tommy Henrich?”“I don’t know, he’s dependable, I guess.” This bit of repartee, from Philip Roth’s novella Goodbye Columbus, just about sums up Henrich’s career with the New York Yankees during the late 1930s and 1940s. If Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Bill Dickey, Phil Rizzuto, and Yogi Berra were […]

Poet Alexander Pope gave us the phrase “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Nowhere is this optimism more prevalent than among fans at baseball spring training. In 1921 the Chicago Cubs, under former star and new1 manager Johnny Evers, went to Catalina Island for spring training for the first time. They stayed only a […]

He was being compared to Eddie Stanky, because of his short, stocky, build. But he also played the game with a reckless abandon like Stanky, and was given the moniker “Scrappy Jack.” He was also referred to as the “The Hammer,” if for no other reason than it was an abbreviation of his surname. But […]

Near the end of his long major-league career, Rudy May said, “I learned that it’s better to throw an 85 mile an hour fastball on the outside corner than it is to throw a 95 mile an hour fastball down the middle.” Asked when he discovered that, he replied, “When I couldn’t throw a 95 […]

Mark Malaska served as a major-league baseball relief pitcher during two seasons. In 2003, the 6-foot-3, 191-pound left-hander broke into “The Show” with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He then joined the 2004 Boston Red Sox in their fabled World Series championship run. During his major-league career, Malaska appeared in 41 games and posted a […]

Frank Meek was a six-game catcher for the 1889-1890 St. Louis Browns of the American Association. Although his major league stay was brief, it was not without distinction. Meek was the opening day catcher for the Browns in 1890, is one of only four players in big leagues history born in Bohemia, and the only […]

In spring 1912, the assets that accompanied 20-year-old middle infielder Bill Stumpf onto the roster of the New York Highlanders included defensive versatility, a strong and accurate throwing arm, and the promise exhibited the previous year during his professional debut campaign with a mid-tier minor league club. One spring later, a powerless bat, an erratic […]

Mel McGaha’s life was part Frank Merriwell, part Greek tragedy. Like Merriwell, the fictional athlete popularized in dime novels, McGaha (pronounced mŭ-GAY-hay) was a clean-cut, handsome figure who excelled in multiple sports as a collegian. A University of Arkansas graduate, he was a basketballer drafted by the New York Knickerbockers, a two-way football player signed […]

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” This remark has been credited (dubiously) to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, a contemporary of Boston pitcher Jim Sullivan. This saying could apply to Sullivan starting in the mid-1890s, when he experienced deep sorrow repeatedly. At least […]

It is rare for a single moment to pivot a career. Dick Stockton is an exception, not rule. Before 1975, Stockton moved from Syracuse University via KDKA Pittsburgh’s revolutionary news to pro basketball’s Boston Celtics. After 1975 he aired a Klondike of more national sports, including the Red Sox, A’s, and network baseball postseason and […]

Undefeated in 1971 for the Kansas City Royals, and again in 1974 for the Boston Red Sox (he was 1-0 for both teams), left-hander Lance Clemons lost his only decision for the Cardinals in 1972.  His major-league record stands at 2-1 with a career 6.06 earned run average in 19 games and 35 2/3 innings. […]

A tremendous all-around athlete who was one of the Deadball Era’s best at fielding his position, Claude Hendrix was a spitball pitcher who posted three 20-win seasons, each with a different team, en route to a lifetime 144-116 record and 2.65 ERA. With a batting average of .241, 13 home runs, and 97 RBIs over […]

If the New York Mets only had confidence in Wayne Garrett as their starting third baseman, the franchise might have never traded Nolan Ryan and Amos Otis. Instead, New York’s National League team spent nearly every offseason during Garrett’s 7½-year Mets tenure searching for someone else to take over the third-base job. Considered a good […]

Herb Welch played in almost 1,000 games in the minor leagues, but his time in the majors was limited to 13 games in 1925 for the Boston Red Sox. Welch was a shortstop and committed eight errors in the 13 games, which likely doomed his chances for further work at the big-league level despite a […]

Gentlemanly Charles T. Dillingham was the least visible member of the Metropolitan Exhibition Company, the closely held corporation that owned and operated New York’s major league ball clubs during the 1880s. He kept a low profile as a board director of the New York Giants and his views on baseball rarely found their way into […]

Three years after announcing his retirement, Bill Virdon returned to active service in July 1968, when injuries and military obligations left the Pittsburgh Pirates shorthanded. Though brief, Virdon’s reactivation produced one memorable moment: a game-tying two-run ninth-inning home run off star reliever Ted Abernathy in Pittsburgh’s 12-inning, 7-6 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Forbes […]

Jack Ryder was the beat writer who covered the Cincinnati Reds for the Cincinnati Enquirer. In his game notes for the June 2, 1921, game between the Reds and the visiting St. Louis Cardinals, Ryder estimated that about 1,600 fans turned out for the afternoon affair. By the time the game ended, thousands more would […]

The Clemente Bridge leading from PNC Park into the downtown was delirious. Revelers perched themselves atop the parapets, shouting chants, blowing horns, brandishing flags, and high-fiving random strangers. One man found himself so caught up in the moment that he stripped to his drawers and took a celebratory plunge 40 feet below into the Allegheny […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2022 as part of SABR’s Baseball and the Supreme Court Project. On October 8, 1969, a sportswriter phoned Curt Flood to break the news that his employer for twelve seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals, had assigned his contract to the Philadelphia Phillies as part of a seven-player […]