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In Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 9, 1939, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues conducted its celebration of baseball’s centennial. A brief announcement in the March 2 edition of The Sporting News outlined what was to be the minor leagues’ part in the 100th anniversary observance. The program was to consist of the dedication of a research […]

Taken on Labor Day in 1902 during a doubleheader between the Phillies and Chicago Orphans, the photo shows the edge of the grandstand and bleachers along the third base line where the collapse would take place less than a year later. (Author’s Collection)   Introduction “From the lips of a frightened little girl came a […]

Gus Greenlee, in hat and tie, shown here with some members of his Pittsburgh Crawfords team. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The United States Negro Baseball League is mostly known for its minor role in the Jackie Robinson story. It was famously backed by Branch Rickey in 1945, possibly for use as a cover for the Brooklyn […]

You sat so close to the field you could almost touch the players. After the last out, you could run the bases. The stands, usually wooden, were rickety, and monstrosities in construction; the distances to the fences were eccentric. But the quaint old ballparks (not stadiums) had a warmth and charm, a different smell from […]

Introduction and Context The 2009 Winter Meetings were held in Indianapolis – representing a Northern host city for just the fifth time in 43 years; in fact, this was the farthest-north host city associated with a minor-league team since the 1966 meetings were held in Columbus, Ohio. While Indianapolis provided amiable temperatures, player movement was […]

It may be the most famous baseball painting of all time. Created by Norman Rockwell, it goes by many different names, including The Three Umpires, Game Called Because of Rain, Tough Call, and Bottom of the Sixth. It depicts a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. […]

Moving into 1909, change was in the wind. All ballparks had been, up to that point, made of wood, but Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, and St. Louis’ rebuilt Sportsman’s Park opened that year as baseball’s first steel-and-concrete facilities.1 More umpires were hired so that the majority of big-league games would now feature two […]

The strikeout is one of the few outcomes ascribed to a pitcher’s control, as indicated by metrics such as Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA). However, overall pitcher success is typically attributed to generating swinging strikes1—without considering the ability to induce called strikes. Although discussions around called strikes from the pitcher’s […]

One of America’s oldest commercialized sports spectaculars, major league baseball has adjusted repeatedly and dramatically to significant ideological and technological changes. Indeed, so cumulative have been these forces of change that each passing decade of baseball history reveals profound changes in the game’s social organization and in the behavior of the players. Thus, to scrutinize […]

Most major league baseball games that are protested or suspended do not result in unusual situations. Actually, until 1943, suspended/successfully protested games were very rare: there were only five such games from 1876 through 1942. Since then, there have been 153 such games. Most protests are quickly dismissed by league presidents. Many suspended games are […]

The 46th National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues winter meeting took place in Miami during the first days of December 1947. The convention was held at the McAllister Hotel, located on the corner of East Flagler Street and Biscayne Boulevard in the heart of downtown. Upon its completion a quarter century earlier, the ten-story “ultra-modern […]

“Television is not only just what the doctor ordered for Negro performers; television subtly has supplied ten-league boots to the Negro in his fight to win what the Constitution of this country guarantees as his birthright.” — Ed Sullivan1   Jackie Robinson appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 20, 1962. (Courtesy of Ed […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 31 (2002).   John McGraw was one of the most successful baseball managers ever, leading the New York Giants to ten pennants in his 30 years with the club. His arrival in mid-1902 marked the turning point in the fortunes of the Giants, a […]

Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   In the immediate aftermath of World War II, minor-league baseball enjoyed unprecedented popularity. The year 1949 marked its peak with the minors boasting 59 leagues and 448 teams.1 Nowhere was this renaissance more evident than in North Carolina. Baseball has long been popular in North Carolina—only Texas has […]

A bronze plaque erected by the City of Bisbee in May 1994 proclaims Warren Ballpark in that southeast Atizona municipality as the oldest baseball stadium in Arizona. But Bisbee’s boast may be too modest. This classic structure, which was constructed in 1909, may in fact be the oldest ballpark in the United States now being […]

Someone was missing from the 1874 National Association convention, and his absence underscored one of the major weaknesses of the three-year-old organization. The absentee was the president of the NA, Robert Ferguson, who during his two years in office had taken little interest in the management of the association, treating his appointment as more ceremonial […]

William Shuttleworth and Harry Sweetman of the Maple Leaf Baseball Club of Hamilton, 1860. (Toronto Globe, August 15, 1903)   After quietly resting in the backroom of Canadian sports history for over a century, William Shuttleworth is now fully recognized for his role in establishing the country’s first formal team, the Young Canadians (later Maple […]

Until the Dodgers and Giants come to their senses and return home to New York, Casey Stengel remains the only figure in history to have worn the uniform of these four New York City teams: the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets. The coincidence of this was no small thing to Casey, who died in 1975, […]

Is Henry Aaron a greater player than Willie Mays? Was Joe DiMaggio better than Ted Williams? Those were just two of the tough decisions members of the Society for American Baseball Research were asked to make in a survey of the greatest baseball players born in the different states. Aaron and Mays were matched because […]

Jackie Robinson lifts a pennant to commemorate his being traded from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the New York Giants on December 14, 1956, at his home in Brooklyn. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   In October 1956, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the New York Yankees in the World Series for the sixth time in Jackie Robinson’s 10 years […]

This article was originally published in “Baseball in the Buckeye State,” the 2004 SABR convention journal.   The evolution of baseball’s playing and scoring rules was a slow and turbulent process beginning in the nineteenth century. Apart from the early establishment of such basics as four bases and their 90-foot separations, there was plenty of […]

A day after the New York Yankees lost the 1921 World Series to their landlords, the New York Giants, the squad gathered at the Polo Grounds to divide $87,756.67, the losers’ share of the postseason proceeds. During the meeting, each player also received a letter signed by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis reiterating Article IV, Section […]

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination, and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet […]

Joe DiMaggio. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Perhaps the Pacific Coast League never had a chance. For decades, the PCL was baseball to fans along the Pacific Coast, the closest thing to the major leagues recognized in the East and Midwest. The league thrived before the age of air travel, but as modernization shrank the country, the PCL […]